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Dawson's Creek reviews: Season 5.
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Showing posts with label
Dawson's Creek reviews: Season 5.
Show all posts
Is there any dramatic cliché more predictable than the last-minute dash to the airport? A character professing their love just before their loved one steps onto that plane... But despite how ridiculously generic it all is, part of me still gets wrapped up in the urgency, the throw-caution-to-the-wind adrenaline of just yelling 'screw it!' and pursuing what you've always wanted. Swan Song is mostly set in that airport lounge, characters coming together and deciding to travel down new roads purely because it's the right thing to do. After a season that has struggled to say anything heartfelt or interesting, Dawson's Creek returns to its melodramatic best, in a finale that leaves you with a lasting sense of warmth.
There's nothing worse than a last-minute twenty-third episode. Especially in a season which has felt even more stretched than normal. The Abby strains so hard to fill the hour allotted, everybody given material that struggles to be about anything of consequence. It's really noticeable how characters are merely discussing things happening, instead of actually being part of things that are happening. So we get Joey talking about visiting her dad, and Jen talking about staying with her parents for the summer. This is total filler material, staggering events for the finale in as broad a manner as possible.
It's hard to create drama for happy couples. Romantic contentment is believable and true to life, but lacks the attention-grabbing histrionics that make so many drama series like catnip for audiences. I can only think of two long-running series, Friday Night Lights and Medium, that allowed its lead couples to just be, and not get plagued by affairs or cheating or resentments. I bring this up because Dawson's Creek unsurprisingly went down the infidelity route this week, saddling Pacey and Audrey with a predictable pot-boiler story instigated by a mysterious third party that we still don't totally understand as a character. For a couple who, up to this week, seemed so connected and perfect for each other, it's frustrating that the writers decided to travel down this road with so little effort.
One of my television pet peeves may simply be a product of a lack of budget, but it's still annoying. It's when a show sets a scene in a workplace or a classroom, and the only people who get actual dialogue are the regular cast members and the boss or teacher pulling rank. It just throws me off, like the entire world revolves around the regulars, and all those nameless extras are just window dressing. It's something that constantly bothered me about Pacey's subplot this week, in which Sherilyn Fenn takes over as manager of his restaurant and begins firing most of the employees and restructuring the company. Pacey is the only person who actually talks to her, even when she publicly announces that most of the staff are being forced out. There's no protest, just a bunch of extras pulling shocked expressions in the background while Pacey speaks for all of them. Even later, when the inevitable flirting and banter occurs, nobody else in the restaurant contributes even filler dialogue, and it comes off like these two are the only individuals in the world. It's a small thing, and probably not that interesting to read about, but it's crazily silly.
It comes as a surprise to learn that this is the one-hundreth episode of Dawson's Creek, since nothing particularly special happens, even if most of the hour implies that a game-changer is right around the corner. It's particularly evident with Dawson and Joey; Dawson pining over her for most of the hour and coming to some kind of major epiphany wherein he realizes how much he loves her, all accompanied by sepia-colored flashbacks to their mighty (and mighty annoying) courtship. But the episode ends with Dawson standing in the sand, looking out to sea, pining over his lost love, who he assumes spent the last night boning Chad Michael Murray. For shame. Meh.
The very best episodes of Dawson's Creek are usually the ones in which characters get thrown together in the same place, hanging out and conversing with one another, sharing scenes for the first time in a while. Cigarette Burns takes place at the premiere of Dawson and Oliver's movie, a movie that remains vague in terms of story, but is supposedly as long as The English Patient and features a vast cameo from Chad Michael Murray's penis. But Cigarette Burns isn't really about the film itself, and instead more about what the film brings out in the cast. This is the strongest traditional DC episode in a while, every character given material that says a lot about how far they've all come as people, and where they'll go from here.
The same kinds of themes that made In a Lonely Place something of a drag appeared this week, too; characters coming together, falling apart and finding each other. Typically for season five, there's this erratic quality to a lot of the stories, the writers seemingly unsure of where exactly things are going, and I'm still none the wiser over whether we as an audience are supposed to support, say, Joey growing close to Charlie. For the first time in the history of the show, I feel alienated to the point of strangeness, failing to understand what the show is really trying to do.
With serialized dramas on network television, there are naturally one or two episodes every year that bring all the major arcs to a standstill, everything pretty much pausing for a week to allow the writers to re-group and plan the rest of the season. It helps create a successful final run of episodes, but does unsurprisingly leave in its wake hours like this one, which struggles to be anything more than a time-filler. In a Lonely Place is also something of a bottle show, the three stories this week taking place in what is pretty much one location each. This isn't a major problem, but there comes a point during some of the hour where you're left thinking "are they seriously still in that room?"
You're immediately told that this is a "very special episode of Dawson's Creek" when those gloomy, revised opening credits appear on-screen. Instead of the elaborately sunny shots of the cast pulling their best model poses straight of a Calvin Klein shoot, we have the cast's names superimposed over a foreboding sky, the wailing Paula Cole theme song slowed down, vocals removed, until the whole thing is barely recognizable. It's actually not the most auspicious of openings, a grandiose way of telling the audience that this will somehow be deeper, darker and more important than anything that's come before it. Because, generally, Downtown Crossing isn't that. But it's still a strong narrative detour, Joey getting held up at gunpoint in the middle of the night and winding up bonding with her mugger once he's hit by a car. It's all kinds of silly, but pretty affecting nonetheless.
It's nice to see Dawson getting back to his roots here, directing Oliver's movie and rediscovering his love of filmmaking. In some ways, this is a quasi-sequel to season two's His Leading Lady, with most of the fun coming from the conflicts between those in front of the camera and those behind, as well as all the diva theatrics that co-lead Audrey insists on pulling. There are actor swaps, production problems and an on-the-fly third act re-write, and it's all entertaining. The show doesn't do a great job in explaining how Dawson fixes what amounts to a horrible screenplay (sample dialogue: "I'm the boy who's gonna tear your soul apart") and his revised ending makes zero sense (the male lead is crazy with a gun, but ends up walking off into the night with his GF anyway? Huh?), but the general energy of the A-plot and the way the entire cast are drafted in to save the day make it one of the strongest group stories in a while.
Lord, Joey! Just what are you doing? She's casually seeing this genuine, sweet guy who seems smart and attentive and caring, and yet she's still insanely interested in Professor Molester, the creepy English professor who'd probably throw a baby into a fireplace if it meant he could get into Joey's pants a little quicker. The dude is horrible, casually mentioning that he lied about having a wife and a child back in the season premiere, and that he probably said it as some kind of defense mechanism against all the hottie co-eds desperate to bang him. He literally creeps me the hell out, and Joey's eagerness to make out with him and her belief that he's charming and inspiring... ugh. Save her, Audrey. Anyone!
This was another one of those overly soapy episodes where everybody is split into their respective subplots, with the only tenuous link between each one being the idea of moving in or moving out. So all you can really do is talk about it one story at a time. The most successful one this week was probably Jen and Dawson's. Traditionally for the character, Jen is approaching her new relationship with a ton of pessimism, sure that it'll eventually fall apart. To be fair, this isn't a crazy opinion, considering they're both fresh out of high school and haven't got the greatest track record when it comes to long-term relationships. But it allows Jen to anchor a story for once, all that initial silliness with the toothbrushes and Jen's neurotic tendencies when it comes to living together all giving way to some more character-driven drama.
I think most of us can relate to that desire to jump out of your own skin, to play around with what you think are your own conventions as a person, and try and find new corners to your personality. In Something Wild, it's very much what Joey decides she wants to do. Instead of getting all angsty over it, Joey uses Dawson and Jen's relationship as a kind of impetus for self-improvement, assuming that she needs to become a little wilder in order to be perceived as something other than sort of safe and unassuming. So she parties and rocks out with a band in a bar and makes out with bad boys. It's all ridiculous, but creates undeniable resonance. That doesn't excuse how cringe-worthy it is to see Katie Holmes jumping around and singing I Want You to Want Me with that horribly thin voice she has. Gah. It just goes on and on, and as much as I adore her, I really wish Katie would just stick to the acting. She's always seemed to want to be a jack of all trades, and it's like: stop, girl.
It at least makes for a change on this show that the over-analytical postmortem of a couple having sex actually occurs with the rest of the cast, and not the two that actually had sex. Appetite for Destruction takes place entirely in one location, the ensemble gathering at Grams' place to eat Pacey's home-cooked dinner. Having all glimpsed Dawson and Jen making out as they entered, there's an understandable amount of awkwardness in the air, and you can imagine the inevitable roads the episode will travel down. But there's also an interesting new approach to a standard Dawson's Creek story, with characters not involved in the epic 'four-character romantic saga' making a bigger deal out of it than the people actually involved. It's still a little formulaic, but arguably a little different, too.
This was cut together in a rush when 9/11 pushed the fall season back by several weeks and Four Scary Stories lost its Halloween airdate. It's more than a little frustrating, since the original version had Jen hosting Charlie's radio show and being told scary stories by a bunch of callers, followed by her own horrible encounter at the end of the show. Instead, throwing the episode into the season at this point feels a little jarring, while the wrap-around story (Joey, Pacey and Jack telling each other creepy tales after watching a bad slasher flick) feels a little meandering. It doesn't open all that well either, the first two stories being particularly crummy, but the episode gets better as it goes along, capped by a fun Grams appearance (where has she been?) and an amusing closer. It's sort of random as an episode, but casually entertaining.
Thank God he finally did it. After years and years of agonizingly strained discussions about sex and the importance of sex and the sanctity of sex and after expressing more sex-related panic than an over-the-hill stripper, Dawson Leery finally lost his virginity. And to Jen! Hah! There's actually been a really cute romance burgeoning between the two of them for the last couple of episodes, both characters conveying an easy, relaxed chemistry full of tiny barbs and compassionate friendship, both remembering with fondness the teenage crush they once shared, cringing at it all but appreciative of where it's got them as people. It's all really sweet, lacking in overwrought melodrama and instead being about two people just deciding to sleep together, having fun and remaining happy the morning after. Yup, this is still Dawson's Creek.
One of the regular complaints leveled at Dawson's Creek's college years was that Joey became this omnipotent presence, positioned as a figure of awe by everyone around her and the girl literally every male character fell in love with. I haven't got a huge problem with Joey taking more of a central position on the show, but the way people seem to get entirely taken with her leaves certain storylines appearing unintentionally icky. Take her arc with Professor Wilder. This episode sees Joey continuing to attend his study group, in which he and some of his best and brightest students are analyzing old letters once written by an obscure writer who previously attended the college, and once again Wilder is talking her up like she's something especially spectacular. But we're not seeing any real evidence of that. She's being placed on this huge pedestal, and by proxy we can only see Wilder as a sleazy creep, building her up so much just to get in her pants.
Dawson's Creek seems to be shifting around between stories more than ever this season, introducing subplots that look like they'll anchor whole episodes, before having those drift off midway through the hour and writing in new stories that take up the bulk of the rest. It's just a little clunky, High Anxiety opening with a promising story between Audrey and her mom, only for it to peter out as the episode goes along. The same occurs with Jen's subplot, which similarly gets lost in the mid-episode shuffle. Throw in a couple of brief scenes with Pacey and his restaurant thing, and there's definitely a chaotic quality to all of this. I'm not bored or anything, but it's not a great experience for the viewer.
It feels like certain storylines this year are working far better the episode after the ones in which they take center stage. While Mitch's death created a ton of generic corn last week, here the reactions from Dawson and Joey felt more intimate and true. Dawson was all about that numb feeling, where you want to move forward and remember what you once had, but feel stuck and drained, like you're walking through quicksand. Joey, alternatively, went so crazy with the compassion that she once again came off a little annoying. But I liked her eventual confession to Audrey, in which she said how she found Dawson's melancholy so difficult that she was sort of relieved when he finally left Boston. It's raw, slightly embarrassing honesty, where you have certain feelings but don't dare to articulate them with the parties concerned.
There's always been something almost exploitative about most depictions of death on television, since it's almost always used as a narrative trick to get folks weeping. Generally, there's also some behind-the-scenes reason for it. Sometimes an actor wants to leave, other times the show wants a ratings spike. It's an easy way to ratchet up dramatic weight, and few shows can entirely justify character deaths without it coming off a little cheap. Dawson's Creek falls into an area in which Mitch's death isn't entirely justified in a dramatic sense, since so much of The Long Goodbye is as generic as they come. Death is so commonplace and predictable an outcome on television that it's weak to not try and find new corners to explore as a result of it.
