Sadly, the BBC has no plans to show Roswell at the moment, so season three will be shown in the UK on Sky One only. The Cult site would like to say sorry for any disappointment.

If you'd like more information on the decision, see our Cult news story.

Because we've had so many people asking why this happened, the Cult site spoke to the people responsible for making the decision not to show season three - the Schedulers, and Aquisitions (the people who buy in American TV shows for the BBC). The questions we put to them were sent in by users of the Roswell message board.

Why did Roswell have such an irregular timeslot, showing on different days of the week throughout the first 2 seasons? This made it very hard to follow the show we all loved.

The first series aired at 6pm and the second at 6.45pm. Each year we commission and acquire new shows which make an impact in the schedule, in that another series may have already started running at 6pm and rather than disrupt the pattern, it was decided that Roswell would play at 6.45pm. The second series of Roswell proved far less popular than the first - attracting only half of the first series' audience, so it was moved to Tuesday to allow space for a show that more people could enjoy.

Why was there such long gap between the penultimate episode of series 1 (shown on 8th February 2001) and the final episode (shown on 30th August 2001)?

The demands of the BBC-2 schedule meant that we would have had to have postponed the last episode of Roswell High for an indefinite period. Rather than do this, we thought it preferable to hold over the last episode to transmit with the new season in the Autumn.

If the ratings for the second season had been higher, would the BBC have considered buying the 3rd season? Do you think that the schedule changes and lack of trails might have affected the viewing figures?

It is almost impossible to keep a show in exactly the same slot as the previous series. Many shows change time or day between series and do not have such a dramatic audience loss.

Why has the BBC treated fans of Cult TV as a minority? There are a fair few of us on the BBCi message board, and plenty more that either don�t visit BBCi or have no access to the internet.

BBC-2 have a very strong tradition of showing 'cult' shows - the latest being 24... We don�t consider fans of Cult TV a minority.

[Cult adds � the Cult TV website is one of the most popular destinations on BBCi, too!]

"We recognise that many of our younger viewers will be disappointed [by the cancellation of Roswell]." (BBC Information, in reply to a letter from a fan) Roswell attracts a very wide age range, and a lot of people over 12 should be treated as young adults, so why did the BBC assume that Roswell only attracted "younger viewers"?

The BBC didn�t assume that Roswell only attracted younger viewers � the BBC is committed to reaching more young people.

[Cult adds � We think this was just bad phrasing in the reply you got from BBC Information. Sorry! Remember that �younger audiences� can mean anything up to late 20s, too...]

Did the BBC cut out scenes or edit Roswell for transmission? Could it have been shown in a later time slot?

There were very minor edits made - mainly for language - the overwhelming majority of the series was entirely appropriate for the slot that it was in.

Why does the BBC choose to show old repeats instead of an exciting new show such as Roswell? Surely new programmes get better viewing figures?

It depends on the programme as to whether a new show has more viewers than a repeat, but Roswell was not performing in its slot and we can't afford to lose a large younger audience who didn't want to watch this series.

Why were there never any on-air trails for Roswell? If you are changing a time-slot, surely it's logical to advertise the show to attract more viewers?

An announcement was made after Roswell to alert viewers that it was moving slot.

[Cult adds � We spoke to the people in BBC2 Marketing. They said that Roswell hadn�t been trailed because it is a familiar �brand name� series. There�s very limited air time on the BBC to run trails (unlike satellite channels that put trails in every ad break...) so the channel have to make decisions about what to trail, and what not to. In the case of shows that have very loyal fan followings, such as Roswell and Buffy, the marketing folk have to rely on the fact that people will find shows through listings, What�s On, and so on.]

Are you going to be making any plans to show Roswell season 3 in the near future?