Roswell reboot casts five characters from the original series

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Having developed The Vampire Diaries and its spinoff The Originals for The CW, Julie Plec is now teaming with The Originals writer Carina Adly MacKenzie to develop a reboot of the 1999 – 2002 series Roswell (pictured above) for the network.

As announced last month, this new version of Roswell is set to star Jeanine Mason as Liz Ortecho, a character from Melinda Metz's Roswell High book series who was renamed Liz Parker and played by Shiri Appleby on the original show. Ortecho is 

a jaded biomedical researcher and the daughter of undocumented immigrants, is haunted by a tragic incident.  She discovers a shocking truth about her teenage crush who is now a police officer: He’s an alien who has kept his unearthly abilities hidden his entire life. She protects his secret as the two reconnect and begin to investigate his origins, but when a violent attack and long-standing government cover-up point to a greater alien presence on Earth, the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him and destroy their deepening romance.

Ortecho and Parker could be different characters in the same universe, but the new Roswell now seems to be confirmed as being entirely separate from the original show, as five actors have been cast to play different versions of the characters from the first series.

Nathan Parsons has signed on to replace Jason Behr in the role of Max, "a natural born leader and dedicated Roswell police officer who for years has concealed his origin and unearthly abilities."

Lily Cowles will play a character originally portrayed by Katherine Heigl: Isobel, a "polished and restrained woman who wasn’t meant for small-town life, but she lives it with all the grace and enthusiasm she can muster in order to keep her true origins a secret."

Michael Vlamis will be playing "the troubled but brilliant Michael, who survived a violent childhood and is now secretly driven to find a way to escape Earth and the humans who have failed him, to return to a mysterious home he’s never known." Michael was played by Brendan Fehr on the original show.

Colin Hanks' character Alex Whitman has been reworked into Sgt. Alex Manes, who will be played by Tyler Blackburn. Alex is "returning home from the Middle East after experiencing his fair share of psychological and physical trauma and aims to adhere to his father’s expectations, abandoning his dreams and the possibility of a future with the man he loves."

And finally, replacing Majandra Delfino as Maria is Heather Hemmens. The new Maria is "Liz’s fun, free-spirited former best friend and a social media maven who is oblivious to the realities of Roswell."

Plec is executive producing the new Roswell with MacKenzie, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Lawrence Bender, and Kevin Kelly Brown. MacKenzie has written the pilot episode, which Plec will direct.

While all this is going on, Plec is also planning to continue expanding the Vampire Diaries universe; she's currently working on another spin-off that will center on Matt Davis's The Vampire Diaries character Alaric Saltzman and Danielle Rose Russell's The Originals character Hope Mikaelson.

The CW is clearly confident in Plec's abilities to put together successful genre television for them.