Katherine Heigl, who plays teen alien Isabel Evans on Roswell, told SCI FI Wire that her character will sport a new do and a new attitude in the show's upcoming third season, when it moves to UPN from The WB. Heigl cut her familiar long, blonde hair and dyed it brown--a change she made for an audition over the summer.

"I actually did it for a role that fell through ... [that] called for a more sophisticated look," Heigl said in an interview. She added that she had been lobbying The WB to let her shear her locks for a while, but that the network--possibly nervous after Felicity star Keri Russell's famous hair change--wouldn't have it. When word came of the move to UPN, she said, "I just went for it. I've been wanting to cut my hair forever! I just think it looks better. I'm a better brunette than blonde, I think."

Apart from her looks, Heigl said she's looking forward to the new season because of the changes planned for Isabel. Among other things, producers will give Isabel a new love interest that may lead to marriage. "It's been a tough couple of years, because I think there hasn't been a lot of development for her," Heigl said. "It's been sort of confusing what to do with her, because there wasn't that love interest, there wasn't that connection. It was hard to find where she fit in, because they had created her as this vulnerable, yet aloof, character, and it was hard to find her place. But hopefully, this season will be it." Heigl also looks forward to moving Isabel away from the perfect daughter, sister and friend. "I think we're stepping away from that a little bit. I think she rebels a little bit. And she says, 'I'm living my life my way. You can't tell me what to do, no matter what you think. And I appreciate your love and support, but back off.' ... This season is going to be a lot of fun for me. I'm really excited about it. The opportunity to develop a different side of Isabel, a more flirty and fun-loving and joyous side. She's been so afraid and so vulnerable and just not really truly living her life for all this time. And I think this season is the opportunity for her to branch out, to find her roots." Roswell debuts on UPN on Oct. 16.

Buffy may be dead, but her little sister Dawn is alive and kicking, Michelle Trachtenberg told SCI FI Wire about her Buffy the Vampire Slayer character. In the show's upcoming sixth season--its first on UPN--"I would like to see Dawn again go through a whole rainbow of emotions, just like she did last season, except even more intense, and even, you know, more happier," Trachtenberg said in an interview. "Just a whole rainbow of emotions."

But the 15-year-old actress remained coy about her character's new season. "She's gone through a lot of changes," she said. "I never really like to suggest things that you can expect of my character, mostly because I really don't know, and secondly, because that way you're not surprised. ... It's kind of like, whatever you'd like to see Dawn do, think about it, and maybe she'll surprise you." Buffy debuts on UPN on Oct. 9.

Jason Katims, executive producer of the teen alien series Roswell, told reporters that the show will drop some of the harder science-fiction elements and return more to character stories in its upcoming third season, with major changes coming for everyone. "The stories are getting a little bit out of high school," he said during UPN's fall preview for the Television Critics Association.

Katims added, "Isabel gets into a serious relationship and falls into a precipitous marriage. Max goes on a quest to find his child, and Liz goes along with him, and that quest will take him out of Roswell and onto the road. ... Michael basically wants to build a life for himself and winds up getting a job. ... Maria's character begins to pursue her musical career, and that becomes a real thing." He added, "One of the things I'm really interested in playing, starting with the beginning of the year, is the family drama that is here in the show and that we've never really explored. In the first episode, Max and Liz get arrested. ... And suddenly they're in real trouble, and their parents are called in. ... It's not so funny anymore, and it's not like they can go away for two days and say, 'We went camping,' and everything is OK with them. By the end of the episode, Liz is forbidden by her parents ever to see Max."

In an interview following the press tour, Katims told SCI FI Wire, "I felt where we went kind of astray a little bit [last year] was these four-episode arcs, where there was so much mythology, and so many pieces of storylines out there, that it just got too complicated. I think we're on a much better track here. This is really what I've been wanting to do with the show, bring it back to building the season based on character arcs, and we have a character arc for every character in the show."

As part of that, Katims said the show has hired writer Melinda Metz, author of the popular Roswell High series of books on which the show is based, and her writing partner, Laura Burns. "What I expect them to bring is, they obviously have a long history with these characters, with this world. They have a great imagination, and I don't expect them to bring storylines from those books. What I expect them to bring is their imagination and who they are as writers, and I'm very excited about the possibilities here." Roswell premieres on UPN on Oct. 16.

Patrick Warburton, star of Fox's upcoming superhero satire The Tick, told SCI FI Wire that the show will put the man back in the superman. "In the Tick's world, the superheroes are all very very human, very vulnerable," Warburton said in an interview at Fox's preview for the Television Critics Association. "And so I think it's fun exploring that. It makes them much more accessible. ... I think folks can watch, and anybody could say, 'I could be that guy.' ... It's a very ordinary world, and at the same time, very surreal."

The Tick, a live-action series based on Ben Edlund's animated show and comic book series of the same name, lampoons superhero conventions as a way of looking at the foibles of regular folks. "I think because of all the parallels that go on, you can take the superhero challenges of the day and their stories and their interactions with each other, at the end of the day, there could be parallels between saving someone from Apocalypse Cow to some telemarketing that you did this day," Warburton said. "It's like, 'The same thing happened to me today, except I was telemarketing, and he was fighting a 50-foot, fire-shooting-out-of-its-teats cow.' In the writing, when they can do that, make it all accessible, it's fun. ... The possibilities are endless. That's why the one thing we want is just for the show to see the light of day and for people to give it a shot." The Tick--from producers Edlund, Barry Sonnenfeld, Barry Josephson, Larry Charles and David Sacks--bows on Fox on Nov. 1.

Scott Bakula, who plays Capt. Jonathan Archer in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that he's interested in writing and directing future episodes once the show gets off the ground. "Possibly," Bakula said in an interview. Series co-creator "Rick [Berman] is wonderful that way. Not all executive producers in this town are. My last ... [Quantum Leap executive producer Donald P.] Bellisario was that way. But Rick has been very forthcoming."

Bakula added, "He knows that I direct. But I really want to get my feet firmly on the ground here and devote all my attention to this first season and getting a solid start. I really want the show to be great and not worry about anything else right now." Enterprise premieres on UPN on Sept. 26.

Marti Noxon, executive producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told SCI FI Wire that DVD editions of the show's first three seasons are well in the works and may come out soon. "They're going to be great," Noxon said in an interview. "They're all remastered. And they have running commentary from a bunch of different people, the writer of that episode, comments on it, as well as [creator] Joss [Whedon]. It's a real fan thing."

Noxon didn't know how soon the long-awaited DVDs will hit stores in the United States. "Soon," she said. "I know that they've already done seasons one, two and three. They've already interviewed us for those. And we've done on-camera interviews and all kinds of stuff. It's a big thing. It should be out shortly. That's going to be great for the fans. What's weird is it's taking so long to come out." Buffy moves to UPN in the fall.

The cast and crew of The WB's upcoming Superman series, Smallville, told reporters that the show deals with a different kind of family dynamic--in effect, viewing the teen superhero as a "special-needs child." The series, which will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. this fall, chronicles the young Clark Kent's exploration of his super powers. 

Series co-creator Miles Millar said, "For us, what distinguishes the show is that the only person Clark can talk to are his parents. It's the parents that guard his secret--unlike other shows where the kids have a secret, and they're in the clubhouse and the parents are in the dark. Here--by the nature of the fact that when Clark goes to Metropolis, his parents are the only ones who know--Clark actually talks about his problems with his parents. This, for us, makes it a unique show in terms of a cross-generational discussion about events and problems."

Added John Schneider, who plays father Jonathan Kent, "I think it's clear in the pilot ... that we're not dealing with Superman as a teen-ager. We are really, in effect, dealing with a special-needs child. It really bothers young Clark, because he says he doesn't want to go through his entire high school life as a loser. He doesn't look at it and say, 'Wow, I've got these super powers, isn't this great?' He looks at it by saying, 'I'm really strange. There's something wrong with me. What is it?' So we come to grips with that. As fantastic as it sounds, as odd as it sounds, it comes off being very, very real. We have a child that has some very severe differences from other children. How are we going to deal with that? How are we going to steer them into an area where they can actually help him and those around him, rather than be hurtful to him and those around him?"

By contrast, the developing Lex Luthor is guided by the negative influence of his father, co-creator Alfred Gough said. "His father has exiled him to basically run a sh-t factory in Smallville," he said. "He thought he was going to take his rightful place in the Luthor Corp. in Metropolis, so throughout the series, you're going to see the relationship between Lex and his father and see how twisted it is."

Executives offered hints as to the role to be played by Rose McGowan in the upcoming fourth season of The WB's Charmed, when she replaces departing co-star Shannen Doherty. At The WB's fall preview for the Television Critics Association, president of entertainment Jordan Levin said, "There's a history in the mythology that there could be another sister. We're still sort of nailing that [down], and we haven't heard the whole pitch, but we were looking to bring in someone who could provide some conflict to the group and someone who could bring a younger audience to the show."

Though Doherty's departure reportedly resulted from on-set conflicts with other actors, Levin told the skeptical reporters that plans for the change were in effect for some time and that Doherty's departure was not a drastic shock. "We knew last year that there were some decisions that would have to be made in the best interest of Aaron [Spelling] and his company, our company and Shannen," Levin said. "Everybody made the decision they felt was mutually beneficial for all parties involved."

The newest cast member on The WB's Angel told SCI FI Wire that she's not sure what her character will do in the series' upcoming third season, but the other stars had strong ideas about the changes their characters will face. Amy Acker becomes a series regular as Fred, the librarian whom the heroes rescued from a demon dimension at the end of last season. "I know I go back [with them], and that's about it so far," Acker said in an interview at The WB's fall preview event for the Television Critics Association. "I think I'm going to be part of the whole team, but they are keeping it a secret to me, too."

Series creator Joss Whedon, meanwhile, told SCI FI Wire in an interview that it's possible some familiar faces may reappear. When asked if the vampire duo Darla and Drusilla would return, Whedon said, "I hope so. It's always a question of availability with our recurring characters. They all have such busy careers."

As for the titular vampire, played by David Boreanaz, Whedon said, "He is not going to be the miserable person that he was last year. He's going to be an entirely different miserable person this year. And he's going to have an entirely different reason. He'll definitely be more connected to the world."

For his part, Boreanaz was excited about the third season's opportunities for his performance. "I think the past season was a real growth period for him in distinguishing a lot of his past," Boreanaz said of his character. "How we're going to start up this year is going to pull things together, and we're going to bring a new character in. With his character, there are new challenges ahead with his family strife. That's really all I can say."

J. August Richards had some news about his character, Gunn. "I've learned that my character is going to go through a metamorphosis early on in the year," Richards said. "It could mean physical, emotional or biological. From all of the writers, that's what I've heard. I don't know anything specific, and even if I did, I couldn't tell. I'd be in big trouble."

Alexis Denisof, who plays Wesley, insinuated that his character will continue to be more physically active in the team's weekly adventures. "Last year was definitely a year where his confidence was tested in various ways, and he had to step up, and he discovered that he did OK," Denisof said. "He got them through and led the team pretty well in some certain situations and also was a good team player, and I think this year he's going to find many more strengths. This will be a year of two things. There will be some personal, emotional challenges, but then, on the work front, he's going to get stronger and stronger as a part of the agency and as a leader in the agency. And I think he'll get more and more complicated." Angel moves to Monday nights this fall.

The interior of the titular starship in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series Enterprise owes as much to submarine design as it does to spaceships, SCI FI Wire observed during a tour of the show's Paramount sets. The tour--part of UPN's fall preview to the Television Critics Association--allowed reporters for the first time to view sets for the ship's bridge, corridors, engine room and armory in Paramount's Stage 18. The 22nd-century ship's interior is meant to predate the starship of the original Trek series and evoke vessels familiar to 21st-century viewers.

The bridge is narrower and deeper than previous starship incarnations, with steel pipe railings, corrugated steel floors and tan metal walls covered with instrument display panels and contemporary-looking track lighting overhead. The captain's chair resembles the driver's seat of a Porsche, with computer-screen readouts in the arms. Work stations feature flat-panel "plasma screen" computer displays and readouts, keypads, knobs and levers. The helm features an actual steering wheel and joystick control; the science station features a viewport similar to that used by Spock on the original series. At the rear of the bridge is the "situation room"--a flat computer-screen table with black leather bucket-seat chairs, where strategic meetings are held.

Corridors of the ship have pipes running overhead and light panels in the walls at floor level; doors open mechanically and are set into step-over hatches, as in a modern warship or submarine. The floors are textured metal, not carpet; the overall feel is that of a large naval vessel of the future.

The engine room, surrounded at mid-level by catwalks, houses the warp engine, a horizontal cylinder with pulsing lights that suggests a huge turbine. The armory resembles the torpedo room in a submarine; ranks of huge metal projectiles, or missiles, line the walls and sit in two cradles. To launch the missiles, which are the predecessors of photon torpedoes, crewmen must open a hatch and slide the missile into a launch tube. Enterprise launches Sept. 26.

James Cameron told SCI FI Wire that he still intends to create a television miniseries and related projects centered on a fictional account of the first human exploration of Mars. "This is a project that I've been working on for a long time," Cameron said in an interview while promoting his Fox TV show Dark Angel to the Television Critics Association. "It's currently in a dormant phase while I'm doing some other things, but it's one that I absolutely intend to do. And I'm still working on the writing side of that."

Cameron had originally intended to adapt Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy of Mars books; instead, The SCI FI Channel is developing Robinson's trilogy as Red Mars, an original miniseries. Now, Cameron said, he is writing his own script and wants to deal with the subject matter in several venues at once. "It's the same story told in different media," he said. "There's a five-hour miniseries [and] a 45-minute 3-D Imax film--using the same sets, props, actors and different scripts, but telling the sort of rough story-- ... and a novel. If you were telling an event in history from two different perspectives--if you're doing it as a miniseries, or you're doing it as Imax film--they would look very different. They'd be valid separate expressions of that same event."

Cameron added, "It's about the first human landing on Mars and the subsequent surface expedition, told in extremely realistic terms. Like, really to the point where, like in Apollo 13, there are times when you don't even know what the actors are saying--it's all just NASA acronyms. But it'll look like the footage they shot of themselves on a real mission, cut together." The miniseries, which is code-named The Mars Project, will eventually air on Fox, he added.

The creators of Fox's SF series Dark Angel said that big changes are in store for the show as it enters its second season on Fox. In addition to moving to a new 8 p.m. Friday timeslot, the show will broaden its story beyond its genetically enhanced heroine, Max, played by Jessica Alba, show executives told reporters at Fox's fall preview for the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif.

"What we want to do is expand the Dark Angel universe slightly, but stay very consistent and true to the themes and the style that we created for the first season," co-creator James Cameron told reporters. He described the changes as "turbocharging" the science fiction elements, playing up a theme of "biopunk" and introducing a host of new, genetically altered characters called "trans-humans." "We're going to stay very focused on the world of Dark Angel, which is our world, 20 years in the future, going through a transformative period, [with] the transformation caused by the manipulation of the stuff of life, the DNA that we're all made of. And [with] people who are human beings, except not quite human beings. ... We're going to see people who don't necessarily look completely human, where the changes in their gene sequences are expressing in forms where clearly they couldn't walk into a 7-Eleven without creating a fuss."

Added co-creator Charles H. Eglee, "Last year, we sat up here and told you all that the character of Max was really a Frankenstein, but the stitches were microscopic. And having explored the mythology of Manticore and the mythology of Max's past and her character, we looked at each other ... and [asked], 'What would happen this year [if] the stitches were macroscopic?' In other words, everything that was internal in Max was externalized in some of these other characters that were coming along. ... Some of the denizens of Manticore have now come into the world."

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine alumna Nana Visitor, who played a sinister figure late in Dark Angel's first season, will return, Cameron added. Moreover, the public will become more aware of Max and other genetically altered humans, a la X-Men. "She becomes part of a persecuted minority, and as a result of that, she becomes very self-conscious about people finding out who and what she is and she has to guard her secret even more closely, and that becomes a microcosm for anybody that feels persecuted or alienated or misjudged in our society or in any society," Cameron said. "So I think that playing out those themes will be very interesting. All these ideas, I think, give the show a kind of conceptual and dramatic size that goes beyond the idea of a run-and-jump action show, which has never really inspired me, even though we take pride in our action." Dark Angel starts its new season on Sept. 21.

Dark Angel star Jessica Alba told SCI FI Wire that she's looking forward to the changes her character, Max, will go through in the upcoming second season on Fox. "I think she was a lot more naïve with other human beings" in the first season, Alba said in an interview. "She never allowed herself to get close to anybody, and this season, she did. She's just grown into a woman. ... It's going to be a whole new set of challenges and everything. So I'm just looking forward to doing my job."

Alba--who also announced her engagement to series co-star Michael Weatherly--added that the stunts on the show grow ever more challenging. "They're terrifying, some of them," she said. "I've done it all. Name it, I've done it. ... Running and jumping off a trampoline into the air and landing on my back, sometimes it knocks the breath out of me, and I'm like, 'Oh God, thank God it's over! Because I don't know how many more of those I can do.' ... It'll always be challenging. Honestly, at two in the morning, when you have to run, sprint, from one side of an alley to the next, and then do, like, a five-combination tae kwon do thing with a guy who is three times your size. It'll be just as challenging, and probably more challenging in a couple years." Dark Angel starts its second season on Sept. 21.

Alfred Gough, co-creator of The WB's upcoming Superman series, Smallville, told SCI FI Wire that he wants to add wirework martial arts, crossovers with other DC Comics superheroes and cameos from other Superman actors to the show if it succeeds in its first 13-episode run. But don't expect ever to see Clark Kent (Tom Welling) fly.

"He never started out flying," Gough said in an interview during The WB's fall preview for the Television Critics Association. "He could leap quarter miles. I think the world of wirework and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and The Matrix--there are interesting things that you can do that in a way are cooler than flying. But you'll never see him go like this [raising his arms in front]. That's not going to happen."

As for bringing other superheroes into the series, Gough said, "I'd love to see Bruce Wayne come to Smallville. Maybe he went to boarding school with Lex Luthor. I don't know. I'm just saying it would be fun to have him come to Smallville. The DC universe is so great, and a lot of that comes down to their confidence in the show, but honestly it's about money and licensing more than anything."

Gough also has the ambitious goal of inviting the most famous Superman actor of all to appear on the show. "We'd love to have Christopher Reeve come and do a cameo, maybe play one of Clark's teachers. That stuff is great, and that's the stuff that's really fun, to use people from the different Superman incarnations and bring them into the show." Gough is even open to inviting hopeful Superman Reborn writer Kevin Smith to participate in the show, but doubts Smith will be available. "He's got like 50 million feature projects, but it would be great to talk to him about it."

Patrick O'Neill, executive producer of The WB's upcoming supernatural series Dead Last, said that series blends music and ghost stories. Dead Last will chronicle a rock band that has the ability to see ghosts and must help the unsettled spirits settle their earthly conflicts in between gigs; it debuts in the summer and will air on Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

Speaking to reporters at The WB's fall preview to the Television Critics Association, O'Neill said a rock band gave the show the comic edge he and co-creator D.V. DeVincentis were seeking. "A big part of the [reason for the] main characters being a rock band was coming from a place of who would be most annoyed by having to deal with this burden, whereas in other shows the characters take on being the vampire killer or whatever," O'Neill said.

DeVincentis added that despite the supernatural theme, Dead Last will not rely on special effects, even though they had a healthy budget. "If anything, I think people are always willing to throw money at special effects, because it's sort of a slam-dunk in a lot of ways, whereas actually letting the ghosts hang out and do stuff with these guys is a little bit more risky," DeVincentis said. "So it's really not a function of budget. We had access to a special-effects budget that was about the GNP of Paraguay. The sort of angle that we came at it in terms of ghosts was that anybody who hasn't moved on to whatever afterlife you may have in your mind, they're still on Earth because they're sort of neurotically unresolved," he added. "So most of the time spent with them is not watching them explode or disappear or transmogrify into something else. It's watching them have some sort of ridiculous problem that these guys have to deal with."

Children's horror author R.L. Stine told reporters that his upcoming Kids WB anthology series The Nightmare Room will differ from his popular Goosebumps books. Speaking at The WB's fall preview for the Television Critics Association, Stine said, "I wrote 87 Goosebumps books, and I thought I needed a change, something that would give me different kinds of stories. I remembered how much I loved Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone when I was younger, and so I decided to try to do a Twilight Zone for kids, where normal kids in average situations walk into a room they've been to a thousand times before, go to school or go into their classroom, and suddenly everything is different. Everything has changed, and they realize they've stepped into a nightmare."

Produced by Mike Tollin and Brian Robbins (Varsity Blues, Keenan and Kel), the show received Stine's personal stamp of approval for the 13 currently produced episodes. "I got to read all the scripts and make a lot of comments and make sure that the balance between humor and horror was right," Stine said. "Luckily, my job was really easy, because these guys did a wonderful job and just really translated the books wonderfully and a lot of extra shows that aren't based on books that were done specially for the series." Guest stars for the first run of shows include such horror staples as Robert Englund and Tippi Hedren, as well as current young stars such as Frankie Muniz.

The Fox network announced the fall premiere dates for its genre shows, including Dark Angel, The Tick, The X-Files and Futurama. Dark Angel starts its second season in a new timeslot, at 8 p.m. Fridays, beginning Sept. 21. The show moves from Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

The Tick premieres at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 1 and will air on Thursdays.

The X-Files kicks off its ninth season at 9 p.m. Nov. 4.

Futurama makes its season premiere at 7 p.m. on Dec. 9.

Scott Bakula, who will star as Capt. Jonathan Archer in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that his character will be closer to Kirk than Picard. "My guy grew up in the system," Bakula said in an interview at UPN's fall preview for the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif. "His dad was an engineer in the project and worked on developing the warp five engine. So he's kind of a brat of the space program."

Bakula added about his 22nd-century character, "He's a little bit brash. He's a little bit in people's faces. He doesn't like being told what to do per se. He's a great captain, I think. But he's going to make some mistakes. He's very human. He's more similar to Kirk than to Picard. ... It's been a blast. I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be standing toe to toe with a Klingon screaming in my face and spitting all over me."

Co-creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga said the show was an attempt to recapture the wonder of exploring space for the first time. "We see this as being the Chuck Yeager of the space program, going back to stories about humanity going where no man has gone before," Berman told SCI FI Wire. He added that he is drafting more of the scripts personally than he has in recent Trek series. "I've been much more involved in the writing now," Berman said. "Brannon and I wrote the pilot, and we've written the first and third hour episodes, and we're finding ourselves having a great time working together. Very much so." Berman also confirmed a rumor that James Cromwell, who played warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact, would make a cameo appearance in the pilot episode, and that Trek actors LeVar Burton, Roxann Dawson and Robert Duncan McNeill will direct episodes.

Berman and Braga also offered a few more details about the technology of Enterprise: crew members will use "phase pistols" instead of phasers; the ship will have armored hull plating, not shields; and there will be transporters for beaming cargo that have only recently been approved for human transport as well. Berman also confirmed that the show will push the limits of sexuality, though Braga insisted the series will remain family-friendly.

Meanwhile, John Billingsley shed light on his mysterious character, the alien Dr. Phlox. Billingsley told SCI FI Wire that his alien is new to the Trek universe and is from an as-yet-unnamed species. "I've got three prosthetic pieces: I've got a forehead, ears and a chin, and all of that is painted over in a kind of burnt sienna and a mottled brown. So it's a sort of a striated and mottled complexion I have. And I have giant blue eyes. And my hair is pretty much my own, with one little piece that sort of augments it. ... My own sense of it is that [he's from] a planet of hyper-intellectual philosophers who have become so wedded to their intellects that they've sort of decided to in effect become monastic and retreat from the universe. And I'm one of the few who actually considers it valuable to go out and dig around. I'm as much an anthropologist as I am a physician. ... I was part of the Vulcan Interspecies Medical Exchange Program. ... I am on Earth. The Vulcans have presumably sent me there to watch over things a bit on the medical side. When the crisis erupts that precipitates the action in the first episode, I'm pressed into service as the ship's physician." Enterprise premieres Sept. 26.

Shiri Appleby, star of the teen alien series Roswell, told SCI FI Wire that she's looking forward to a return to the central romance between alien Max and human Liz in the upcoming third season, when the show moves to UPN from The WB. In an interview, Appleby added that she agreed that the series' harder science-fiction edge last season may have alienated some of the show's core fans.

"I think one of the great aspects about the show was the love and the feelings and the fact that these characters felt so deeply over this science fiction aspect," Appleby said during UPN's fall preview for reporters in Pasadena, Calif. "And when you went too science fiction, you lost a lot of the emotion. So hopefully this year, with the UPN support, we'll be able to combine the two strengths, and the show will actually be able to blossom this year. The first season was great, but it was a lot of work, because it was only love story, which means it was me and Jason [Behr] working so many hours per day. And then second season, it was just the science fiction. So you were, like, wanting the emotion, versus in first season you were wanting more of a break from it, because it was so emotional and it took so much out of you. And so I think this year [executive producer] Jason [Katims] is really focusing on, like, giving the audience both of it, so they can get involved in the craziness of it, but still feel for the characters."

Appleby said that it troubled her that the show shifted its focus from Liz and Max, played by Behr. "It bothered me to some degree, but at the same time, you acknowledge the fact that you're part of an ensemble show, and ... there's so many great characters and so many great actors, that it was wonderful for the audience to get a little bit of a taste of everything. And the show started off that way. And it came and went. ... It was sort of nice to have a break. But ... I think this season is going to be focused on Max and Liz getting back together, and their trials and tribulations, and the Isabel romance. I think there will be a lot of things going on, but I think the focal point will be the love between the two of them, finally." Roswell premieres on UPN at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oct. 16.

Alfred Gough, creator of The WB's upcoming Superman series Smallville, told reporters that the show will take creative license with the well-known comic superhero's mythology. "The whole series is being done with the blessing and consultation of DC Comics," Gough said during The WB's fall preview for the Television Critics Association. "I think the great thing about Superman is that it's always been sort of reinterpreted for every generation throughout the decades. DC will be the first to tell you that the mythology in Smallville has been squishy at best. There was one version--I think it was Superboy--where Lex and Clark were in high school, and something happens in the lab, and Lex looses his hair and hates him for life. Then, I think in the version that was out 15 years ago, Lex is much older than Clark."

Smallville tells the story of young Clark Kent growing up and learning about his super powers, but the pilot makes it evident that the timeline of events may not strictly adhere to the Superman comic books, movies or previous TV series. For starters, Lex Luthor becomes bald in the same meteor shower during which Clark arrives in Smallville.

Similarly, the actors are approaching their characters without referencing other portrayals of them. Tom Welling, who plays Clark, said, "There's really no comparison. It's really looking at these characters, showing you them at an age where you've never seen them before."

Kristen Kreuk, who plays Lana Lang, added, "My plan would be to do it from what I see of the character written." Even though she has access to Anette O'Toole, who played Lana in Superman III, Kreuk said they have not discussed the portrayal of the character. O'Toole plays Martha Kent in the series.

Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor, not only avoided other Luthor portrayals, but also decided to act on the perspective that young Lex does not know who Superman is yet. "Everybody was like, 'You should read this and you should do this.' I'm like, 'No, maybe I'll just play him the way I would if I didn't know he was a superhero.' I take it day by day and learn along the way, as does the character."

The show will also add some new characters to the Superman universe, including a conspiracy theorist named Chloe, played by Alison Mack, and her partner in paranoia, Pete, played by Sam Jones III. Mack said, "The conspiracy theory pulls it down to reality out of the fantasy world. There's weird stuff going on, and people are ignoring it, but two of us need to figure this out. The conspiracy theory kind of explains everything to the audience, because we go, 'Here's what's going on. He's Superman, he's Lex Luthor, etc.'" Smallville will air Tuesdays at 9 on The WB.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter will remain with his signature show for one more season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Carter signed a new deal with 20th Century Fox TV to produce a ninth season of the paranormal show.

Carter will serve as show runner alongside his seasoned team of executive producers, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, the trade paper reported. Carter is said to have wrestled with the decision on whether to commit to running the show or to segue into a consultant role. But after lengthy negotiations, 20th and Carter finalized a new one-season deal late last week, the trade paper reported.

A remaining question is whether star Gillian Anderson will remain with the show. She has said publicly that she intends to leave the show when her contract expires at the end of next season, but Fox insiders told the Reporter there will be an effort to make the coming season a kind of new beginning for the series to allow it to carry on with Patrick, Gish and other new actors should Anderson depart.

UPN announced the fall premiere dates for genre shows, including Enterprise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell and Special Unit 2. Enterprise, the network's upcoming Star Trek series, will debut with a two-hour episode at 8 p.m. ET/PT Sept. 26 and will air regularly on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

Special Unit 2 starts its second season with a one-hour episode at 9 p.m. Oct. 3 and will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m.

Buffy makes its UPN debut with a two-hour episode at 8 p.m. Oct. 9 and moves into its regular 8 p.m. Tuesday timeslot on Oct. 16.

Roswell makes its own UPN debut with a regular episode at 9 p.m. Oct. 16 and will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, said she was pleased about the move of her series to UPN from The WB and qualified earlier statements that she would quit if the show ever left its berth on the frog netlet. Speaking to reporters at UPN's fall preview for the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif., Gellar said, "You have to understand that for five years we had a home. We had a place where we were supported, where we were able to make the show creatively the way we wanted to make it, and so the thought of making a move was scary."

Gellar added, "Unfortunately, The WB didn't want to make the show the way we wanted to do it. They didn't want to give us, or give [creator] Joss [Whedon], what we needed to make the show the way it has to be made. And [UPN president] Dean [Valentine] has been incredibly supportive. He's been a fan of the show since before we were on the air, when he was at Disney and tried to get it over to ABC.

"I'm nervous," Gellar added. "I'm excited. UPN has been wonderful. ... And I think they've given us a new excitement about the show. It's like getting to start fresh. It's like getting to show all of these new people the show that we make that we're so incredibly proud of and proud to make and be a part of, and it's exciting." Buffy premieres on UPN on Oct. 9.