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Main Characters
Liz Parker
Played by: Shiri Appleby
"It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life."
Considered to be the main character along with Max Evans. Liz is your typical girl next door. She's a beautiful human girl. The show centers around her life being saved unexpectedly by the mysterious Max Evans. She feels an instant and undeniable connection to him and realizes that he has felt the same about her from afar for years. Much of the show is dealing with the consequences of falling in love with an alien.
- Amicable Exes: Eventually achieves this with Kyle.
- Anchored Ship: Good God, Max and Liz went through almost every variety of this trope
- Beware the Nice Ones: Don't try to hurt Max or any of her friends and she will retaliate. Tess found this out the hard way.
- Brainy Brunette: Wants to be a molecular biologist.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Liz did this with Max in season one by breaking up with him so that he could follow his destiny and again in season two when future Max asked her to do so in order to change everyone's bad future.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Liz is the gentle girl to Max's brooding boy. Max is the mysterious guy from and exotic place who risks exposure to save Liz's life. She's the only one who can really get him to relax and let loose without feeling guilty about it.
- Came Back Wrong: It's discovered that Liz developed alien powers from being brought back to life by Max in the pilot.
- Cassandra Truth: Warned her friends that something about Alex's death was not right and that he was killed by an alien. She was right.
- Determinator: During her investigation into Alex's death. Liz didn't let anything prevent her from finding the truth, not even her relationship with Max.
- Easily Forgiven: Max forgives her pretty quickly after she "slept" with Kyle. He loves her too much not to.
- The Fettered: Liz has a strong sense of right and wrong and along with Max and is often the one who encourages the group to do the right thing.
- Good Girl Gone Bad: A somewhat minor example in the season three episode Busted!, Liz helps Max rob a liquor store so that he could get to the spaceship underneath. Her parents certainly think this of her afterwards and try to limit her interaction with Max as a result.
- Heroic BSoD: After she learns that Alex has been killed in a car accident. She becomes obsessed with the idea that he was killed by an alien. It completely consumes her and makes her act very out of character until she finds out the truth.
- Human Alien: Sort of. No one is quite sure why Liz has developed powers only that she has.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Liz goes through a bout of this in season three when she starts to develop alien powers of her own. She gets better.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Liz is willing to push Max towards Tess even if he hates her for it and even though it breaks her own heart because Max asked her to.
- Interspecies Romance: Human Liz has this type of romance with Max the alien/human hybrid. A big source of conflict in the early stages of their relationship.
- Love Interest: Liz is the main love interest of Max.
- Main Characters: The show is told mostly from her point of view with help from her journal entries.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: The series opens with Liz introducing herself and telling us that "five days ago I died".
- Narrator: Liz is the narrator for the series, especially in the first season where her journal entries open the episodes.
- Nice Girl: Liz is the nicest out of the group except maybe Alex. She's very down to earth and easy to talk to. In the face of everything that Tess has done to her and her friends, she is not willing to have her killed for it.
- Official Couple: Max and Liz.
- Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: Everything from predestined love interests, kidnapping, torture, murder plots, an illegitimate child, and even death has not been able to keep them apart for long.
- Ordinary High-School Student: She was this before Max saved her life.
- Rescue Romance: Max heals Liz after she is shot. Their romance commences soon after that.
- The Smart Guy: Liz is very studious and smart. She was very interested in science and was determined to become a molecular biologist after high school.
Max Evans
Played by: Jason Behr
"Well I'm not from around here."
Arguably the main character along with Liz. Max Evans is the human alien hybrid that jump started the whole show. Max seems like a somewhat unassuming, mysterious guy to Liz Parker before he uses his alien powers to save her life. Max is known as the responsible one. He is seen to be kind, caring, heroic and often selfless. He's the leader of his people reincarnated and it shows in his actions. He has loved Liz Parker from afar his whole life and he couldn't bear to see her die so he saved her life.
- Action Hero: Not really by choice but his actions are the catalyst for most of the action in the series
- Actual Pacifist: Max doesn't like to kill people. It actually becomes a plot point later in the series when he has to make difficult decisions for his family on earth and on his own planet.
- The Atoner: Had a major case of this in "A Roswell Christmas Carol."
- Bad Actor, Good Liar: : Max is an alien/human hybrid who is able to pass as a regular, if somewhat shy human. In "Secrets and Lies", he auditions for a small role on Star Trek: Enterprise and is told by Jonathan Frakes and John Billingsley that he isn't convincing as an alien.
- Berserk Button: Don't hurt Liz or any of his friends.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Can get completely drunk from one sip of alcohol
- Clark Kenting: Max along with Isabel and Michael work really hard to keep their alien identities to themselves. With good reason.
- The Comically Serious: Max has a very dry sense of humor
- Control Freak: To an extent. His friends have called him out on it a couple times and he usually tries to rein himself in.
- Everyone Can See It: Max's crush on Liz is obvious to everyone but her. Maria lampshades it in the pilot episode:
Maria: You are sooo bad girl. Oh, and Max Evans is staring at you again.
Liz: No way. Maria, that is so in your imagination.
[Liz looks at Max who is sitting at a booth with Michael at the far end of the restaurant. He looks at her and then quickly away]
Liz: Max Evans? This? No, un uh... it's not...
Maria: And with those cheeks! Preciosita tan linda!
Liz: Maria!
Liz: And, and even if it weren't I'm going out with Kyle. I mean, he's steady and loyal, and he appreciates me.
Maria: Sounds like you're describing a poodle.
- The Fettered: Max often feel the pressure of doing the right thing for himself and for everyone else too. It something he really struggles with throughout the series.
- Foil: To Michael. Michael is hot headed and impulsive in comparison to Max's calm and level headed demeanor.
- Guilt Complex: Max feels guilty about not being able to save everyone and not being to be the leader others expect him to be.
- Healing Hands: This is Max's special alien ability. He can heal any wound but it takes a lot of energy to do so. He can even heal death but at great cost.
- Interspecies Romance: Max is a human alien hybrid in love with human Liz Parker
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Felt this keenly in season one. Came to terms with it by the end of the series.
- It's All My Fault: Feels guilty for endangering his friends and especially Liz with his secret.
- Knight in Shining Armor: To Liz definitely. Is willing to risk it all for her before they were even a couple.
- The Kirk: Max plays this role with Isabel (The Spock) and Michael (The Mccoy). He's usually the decision maker between their two vastly different objectives.
- The Leader: Reincarnated leader of his alien planet. Struggles with the responsibility of it on earth.
- Love Interest: Mainly to Liz. Briefly so with Tess.
- My Greatest Failure: Letting Tess leave with his unborn child in season two. He spends most of season three trying to fix it.
- Mysterious Protector: For Liz when she got shot in the crashdown cafe and he healed her before running away.
- Nice Guy: Max is one of the nicest characters on the show. He is always willing to help someone, sometimes to his own detriment.
- Not Himself: When Nasedo pretends to be him in "Max to the Max."
- Official Couple: Briefly with Liz in season one and then again in season three.
- Power of Love: Max is able to fight basically being possessed because his love for Liz is too strong to be forgotten.
- Rescue Romance: Max heals Liz from a gunshot wound, starting a relationship with her soon after.
- Secret Identity: Max keeps his alien nature secret from everyone including his parents.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Max is the Sensitive Guy (kind, compassionate, empathetic, gentle) to Michael's Manly Man (aggressive, passionate, impulsive, strong).
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Liz. They have to overcome several hurdles and setbacks before they can be together.
- Supporting Protagonist: With Liz. The series is centered mostly around their romance.
- True Companions: With Michael and later with Maria and Alex.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Liz in the first season and with Tess when she was first introduced although that was mostly due to her mindwarp abilities.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Gets at least one a season. A notable one from Maria after he and Liz get arrested for holding up a liquor store.
Michael Guerin
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Played by: Brendan Fehr
- Abusive Parents: Michael's adoptive "father" is an alcoholic who is verbally abusive and also beats him.
- Parental Abandonment: Michael's recklessness in uncovering his roots is informed by his lack of parents and familial love.
Isabel Evans
Played by: Katherine Heigl
"We're just as human as you are..."
Isabel Evans is an alien-human hybrid like her brother Max Evans and best friend Michael Guerin. She and Max were found as six-year-old children wandering in the desert by Philip and Diane Evans, who adopted them. Isabel is a very visible, popular girl at school. She hides her kind side beneath a front of haughtiness and cold unfeeling—she is the perfect, unknowable, unobtainable beauty. On the outside, she is the most outgoing of the three hybrids and blends in with the human society with ease. On the inside Isabel is probably the most vulnerable of the three. She so wants to be accepted for her alien side as much as her human side.
- Alpha Bitch: Subverted Trope Isabel puts on this front to protect herself and her secret, terrified of letting anyone in. She eventually lets Alex in and they fall in love.
- Dream Walker: Isabel's special alien ability is the ability to enter someone's dream. It's unclear if she can manipulate dreams as well.
- Human Alien: Although how much human and how much alien is unknown, until
Word of God on the subject is available, and if she even has an alien form. - I Just Want to Be Normal: Isabel doesn't relent on this until the last episode of the series, where the Pod Squad goes on the run from the FBI
- Secret Identity: Hiding her true identity.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Alex. They suffer from bad timing and being chased by the FBI, as well as the above, but when Isabel is ready and they finally get together, Alex is killed by Tess.
Alex Whitman
Played by: Colin Hanks
- Butt-Monkey: Subverted Trope Alex is left out of the loop by Maria and Liz early on and even commits a crime giving his blood to pass of as Max's without a thank you ("Blood Brother"), but Alex stands up for himself and ends his friendship with Liz briefly when she refuses to tell him the truth. Eventually Alex is let in ("Heat Wave") and becomes a part of the Pod Squad.
- Killed Off for Real: Tess kills him when she mindwarps him one final time after severely damaging his mind.
- Moment Killer: Alex has this with Isabel because of Tess, who interrupts Alex trying to ask out Isabel. ("Crazy")
Kyle Valenti
Sheriff Jim Valenti
Tess Harding
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Played by: Emilie de Ravin
- Dude Magnet: Says herself that guys are always after her and Kyle remarks on how she's hot, along with some other guys at Prom later on
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Kyle refers to her as a "knockout"
- Hands-Off Parenting: Essentially grew up without any parental restrictions – or family of any kind.
- Killed Off for Real: In the penultimate episode of the series, she sacrifices herself by blowing up the base with her inside.
- Master of Illusion: Tess's main power is to make people see what she wants them to see, hear, feel, etc. She uses this power on Alex so much that he dies as a result.
- New Transfer Student: Arrives late in Season 1
- Reincarnation Romance: Max and Tess were together before they died on Antar. Nasedo and Tess are hoping that this will be the case with their reincarnated forms on earth.
Allies
Nasedo
Played by: Jim Ortlieb
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Killed in the first episode of Season 2.
- Killed Off for Real: He gets fatally injured by the Skins in Season 2, and dies in Max’s arms.
- The Mole: Revealed to have been working for the Kivar.
Courtney Banks
Played by: Sara Downing
- Heroic Suicide: Kills herself rather than be forced to reveal Max and the others’ identities.
- Killed Off for Real
Kal Langley
Played by: Joe Pantoliano
- Irrational Hatred: He despises Max before they even meet, and actually tries to kill him during their first meeting, only stopping because he is literally programmed not to.
- Undying Loyalty: Invoked. He’s been programmed to do everything Max says. Of course, this doesn’t stop him from harboring a burning hatred for Max, but there’s very little he can do about it,
Government Antagonists
Agent Daniel Pierce
Played by: David Conrad
- Accidental Murder: Michael accidentally kills him when he uses his powers to stop Pierce from killing Valenti.
- Ax-Crazy: It boggles the mind that someone as blatantly psychotic, sadistic, and murder happy as Pierce made it into the FBI.
- Killer Cop: There is no way in hell this man should have been made a federal agent.
- Killed Off for Real: Michael inadvertently kills him when he uses his powers to stop Pierce from killing Valenti, and Valenti, Max, and Michael burn the body and bury it in the desert.
- Knight Templar: He is a deranged fanatic doggedly determined to protect Earth from aliens, and his go-to solution to people getting in his way is to either torture them or kill them.
Agent Kathleen Topolski
Played by: Julie Benz
- Heel–Face Turn: After realizing what a psycho Pierce is, she decides to help the aliens.
- Killed Off for Real: Pierce kills her and burns down the mental institution she was incarcerated in.
Agent John Stevens
Played by: Richard Schiff
Alien Antagonists
Kivar
Played by: Spence Decker
Nicholas Crawford
Played by: Miko Hughes
- Killed Off for Real: Tess turns him into ash inadvertently while trying to mindwarp him for torturing Max.
Vanessa Whitaker
Played by: Gretchen Egolf
- Arc Villain: For the first three episodes of Season 2.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Only around for three episodes before being killed off.
