Doubtful at first, Heigl now a believer in 'Roswell'

A few years ago, Katherine Heigl couldn't have cared less about the fate of a struggling television show on a small network.

"I was a real TV snob," the 21-year-old actress confessed during a recent stop in Seattle to promote a new line of Levi's products. With a blossoming feature-film career built on a modeling foundation that began when she was 9, Heigl watched TV but paid little attention to its potential for enhancing her career.

Then she was persuaded to read the pilot script for "Roswell," a well-crafted sci-fi love story based on the "Roswell High" series of books by Melinda Metz, about teenage aliens trying to survive in a hostile environment -- Earth.

"I read it hesitantly," Heigl recalled.

But the prospect of a steady income and regular weekly exposure is appealing to most young actors, and Heigl gradually warmed to the idea of playing Isabel Evans, one of three orphaned survivors of a UFO crash in Roswell, N.M.

By the time Heigl (pronounced HIGH-gul) had been put through TV's "torturous" audition process, first in front of producers, then in front of network executives, she was so invested in the project that her snobbery had melted under a tide of intense proprietorship.

"At that point," she said, "I really wanted it."

And now, after shooting 22 episodes of a series with a cult following for which "enthusiastic" is a wholly inadequate descriptive, she really doesn't want to lose "it."

The riveting season finale of "Roswell" airs tonight at 9 (KTWB/22), but the fate of the series won't be officially known until tomorrow, when The WB unveils its fall-2000 lineup in front of the New York advertising community.

Recent signs are pointing toward renewal, thanks to improved ratings after the show moved from Wednesdays to Mondays last month. In the Wednesday slot, it was pitted against UPN's "Star Trek: Voyager," a well-established science fiction drama. On Mondays, "Roswell" is the only sci-fi show on the mainstream dial, a distinct alternative to the silliness of "Ally McBeal" and "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Still, location filming and special effects make "Roswell" an expensive series, so if a cost-benefit analysis is factored into marginal ratings, non-renewal is certainly a defensible option.