Product Description
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Dawson's Creek was a show that defined a generation. For six
seasons, viewers followed the lives of Dawson (James Van Der
Beek), Joey (Katie Holmes), Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jen
(Michelle Williams) as they made the transition from adolescents
to young adults in the small coastal town of Capeside,
Massachusetts. Based on the personal experiences of show creator
Kevin Williamson (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer),
Dawson's Creek was never afraid to deal with controversial
topics, making it a groundbreaking show that set the standard for
teenage drama for years to come.
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Dawson’s Creek: The Complete First Season
Even viewers who consider themselves beyond their teen-angst
years might find Dawson's Creek compelling watching. For years
Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes) have watched
movies and slept in the same bed, but they find that as they
enter high school their relationship will inevitably change. That
becomes especially clear when Dawson is immediately attracted to
Capeside, Massachusetts's sexy new arrival, Jen (Michelle
Williams). Meanwhile, their friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson) pursues
an unachievable love object.
Creator Kevin Williamson based Dawson's Creek on his own youth,
and sure, the characters may not really look or sound 15, but the
Dawson-Joey-Jen interplay--especially embodied by the sad-eyed
and cynical (but still adorable) Joey and the smart but
emotionally inept Dawson--gives the show its heart. And just like
Williamson's fresh take on the teen-horror genre, Scream,
Dawson's Creek has a winking self-awareness, for example when
Dawson says they're having a "90210 moment" or explains that they
use big words because they watch too many movies. Highlights of
the first season include Dawson's discovery that his perfect home
life may not be so perfect, an unwelcome reminder of Jen's past,
the Breakfast Club takeoff "Detention," the Scream takeoff "The
e," a beauty contest in which two unlikely competitors square
off, and the heart-rending finale. --David Horiuchi
Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Second Season
The second season of Dawson's Creek finds Dawson (James Van Der
Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes) exploring the newest phase of their
lifelong friendship, leaving Jen (Michelle Williams) and Pacey
(Joshua Jackson) on the outside. The former enters a downward
spiral assisted by bad girl Abby (Monica Keena), but Pacey
happens into a "meet cute" with one of Capeside's new residents,
the impossibly perky Andie (Meredith Monroe), who turns out to be
his perfect foil. The Creek also struck gold with its second
major addition, Andie's brother Jack (Kerr Smith), who shows Joey
that he's more than just a clumsy waiter. With the siblings'
help, Pacey and Joey show the most personal growth during the
season's 22 episodes. The constant parent-child crises can be a
bit much, but there were numerous other developments, including a
two-part sexual whodunnit, Dawson embarking on his second movie
(assisted by Rachael Leigh Cook in a sizzling guest appearance),
Dawson's birthday party from hell, a vicious rumor that spreads
through the high school, and the emotion-wringing finale. --David
Horiuchi
Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Third Season
"Jen is a cheerleader and Jack's on the football team. I got
sane and everyone else went crazy?" That's how Andie (Meredith
Monroe) sums up the topsy-turvy beginning to the third season of
Dawson's Creek, in which nothing seems to be as it should and the
series takes a major turn. It's junior year at Capeside High, and
Jack (Kerr Smith), the town's resident gay teen, is indeed on the
football team, and Jen (Michelle Williams) finds herself the
object of unexpected and unwelcome popularity among her fellow
students, especially the freshman quarterback (Michael Pitt).
Pacey (Joshua Jackson) finds that his relationship with Andie
can't be restored, and Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey
(Katie Holmes), after the events of last year, both think it's
for the best that they're no longer together--they just never
think it at the same time. Significant events include the friends
starting to date outside their circle, Dawson's giving up some of
his aspirations, a crisis for the school's new principal, a
college tour, and the openings of the Potter Bed & Breakfast and
Leery's Fresh Fish. But the Dawson-Joey relationship is still the
heart of the Creek, and it comes to a head in one of the series'
most memorable episodes, "The Longest Day," and then the season
finale. Even in its first season without series creator Kevin
Williamson, Dawson's Creek still had plenty of punch. --David
Horiuchi
Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Fourth Season
The fourth season of Dawson's Creek is dominated by two themes.
The first is senior year at Capeside High, as high achievers Joey
(Katie Holmes) and Andie (Meredith Monroe) have as much pressure
to deal with as low achiever Pacey (Joshua Jackson). The second
is the constant love triangle following Joey and Pacey's return
from their summer of bliss, threatening to destroy anyone's
chance of having a y, functional relationship. Pacey's
insecurity doesn't let him believe he's actually the lucky one,
even as he proves with his actions that he deserves it.
Fortunately for Dawson (James Van Der Beek), he finds a
sympathetic ear in Pacey's older sister, Gretchen (Sasha
Alexander), though he also has to enter an "indentured servitude"
relationship with an old curmudgeon (Harve Presnell). Joey takes
a job waiting tables at the yacht club, where she has to deal
with the heir apparent to Abby Morgan's evil shoes, Drue
Valentine (Mark Matkevitch), who also turns out to have a shadowy
history with one of the friends. Meanwhile Andie and Jack (Kerr
Smith) coach a youth soccer team, and Jen (Michelle Williams),
having suddenly lost her boyfriend from season 3, cements her
best-friendship with Jack and drags him to a gay coalition group
where he spars with the activist leader (David Monahan). Look for
cameos by Andy Griffith as a retired movie actor and by frequent
soundtrack contributor Mary Beth Maziarz as a club singer.
Toward the end of the season, Dawson asks, "Is it just me, or
did things get suddenly bigger in the last year?" It's true that
as the characters have grown up--even Dawson, sort of--situations
turn more serious, whether it's an afternoon sail on the cape or
a rave that leads to the abrupt departure of one of the regular
cast. After a prom from hell, the final phase is the graduation
ceremony, and for Dawson's Creek it marked the end of an era,
which the characters themselves felt deeply in the season-closing
"Coda." The series would run for two more years, but it would
never be the same again. --David Horiuchi
Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Fifth Season
It's goodbye to Capeside, hello to Boston in Dawson's Creek's
fifth season (a.k.a.: Dawson's Creek: The College Years). While
the end of the fourth season sent the five friends their separate
ways--Dawson (James Van Der Beek) to USC Film School, Joey (Katie
Holmes) to Worthington College, Jen (Michelle Williams) and Jack
(Kerr Smith) to Boston Bay College; and Pacey (Joshua Jackson) to
the high seas--it doesn't take them long to find themselves
together again. That's a good thing, especially when tragedy
strikes a family member and threatens to tear the survivors
apart.
More than anything, the fifth season seems to be about falling
into bad relationships. Jen dates a cute but sleazy musician
(Chad Michael Murray, One Tree Hill), Pacey gets a job in a
restaurant where he pursues a woman (Lourdes Benedicto) already
having an affair with a married man, then fends off a vampish new
boss (Sherilyn Fenn, Twin Peaks). Joey is drawn to her handsome
English professor (Ken Marino). And Jack joins a frat, becomes a
jerk, and starts a devoted relationship with his bottle.
Dawson meets an eccentric young filmmaker (Jordan Bridges) which
in turn leads to a meeting with his favorite Boston film critic
(Meredith Salenger). And Joey's new roommate, the
annoyance-with-a-heart-of-gold Audrey (Busy Phillipps), becomes
the newest major addition to the cast. The factor is
high this season, a couple of "Joey is threatened" interludes
don't have the punch that they could have, and in the season
finale, the inevitable resolution of the show's central
relationship doesn't really resolve anything at all. But viewers
who have followed the Capeside crew for four seasons will still
want to see what happens in the fifth. --David Horiuchi
Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Sixth Season
The final season of Dawson's Creek is when the series became
Joey's Bar. With the titular character (James Van Der Beek)
mostly on the site coast working for tyrannical director Todd
(Hal Ozsan) and dating an actress (Biana Kajlich), the series'
other central protagonists tended to gather only at Joey's (Katie
Holmes) workplace, a Boston college bar called Hell's Kitchen.
But those central characters usually went their separate ways,
becoming the linchpins around which wound a dizzying array of new
characters who were coincidentally interconnected. Working at the
bar are Emma (Megan Gray)--a punk rocker who ends up rooming with
Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jack (Kerr Smith) and whose band
Audrey (Busy Phillipps) joins as lead vocalist--and Eddie (Oliver
Hudson), who's Joey's main antagonist in a lit class taught by an
antagonistic professor (Roger Howarth). While Joey is busy at
Worthington, Jack and Jen (Michelle Williams) are at Boston Bay
College, where both are attracted to a pop-culture professor
(Sebastian Spence), but Jen ends up dating a help-line worker
(Jensen Ackles). Pacey goes Gordon Gecko in a new job as a stock
broker mentored by a cutthroat businessman (Dana Ashbrook). The
lack of interaction among the main characters proved the biggest
drawback to this era of Dawson's Creek, but when they were put
together, sparks could still fly, such as when Pacey and Joey get
locked in a Super K-Mart overnight, or when an old romance--and
rivalry--is rekindled. Season 6 was also the end of Dawson's
Creek, and the episodes improved as they drew to their inevitable
conclusion, peaking in the devastating series finale. Creator
Kevin Williamson returned to write a flash-forward in which the
main characters are 25, and a reunion in Capeside leads to
tragedy and some final decisions. --David Horiuchi