TV #63 of 2021:
Dawson’s Creek, season 6
A regrettably weak ending to a series that I’ve never wholly loved, but have at least come to appreciate in its own way. The previous year was already a shaky departure from the show’s core strengths and character histories, and this final stretch reads like a faded copy of a copy, with minimal effort to tell either an engaging story in the present or a resonant continuation of anyone’s prior journey. The writers throw a dart and make Pacey a stockbroker of all things, introduce bland new jerks for Dawson, Joey, and Jen to date — and Jack too, arguably — and awkwardly force a mutual roommate / coworker / bandmate into the picture just so that the friends have more excuses to interact. (And then they ultimately forget about the poor linchpin, losing complete track of Emma after she mentions that she’s probably going to have her visa revoked.)
There’s an air of desperation to all this, but it’s hard to particularly care, given how utterly divorced the storyline feels from everything beforehand. Instead of natural follow-through, we get one last abusive teacher who hates his students for Joey to deal with, lots of time spent on Dawson’s big-boy Hollywood career away from everyone else, and far too many scenes of Pacey looking smarmy in a goatee and a suit. Audrey’s here as well, and even promoted to the main cast now, although she’s likewise handed mostly downbeat notes and inorganic plot developments that don’t receive much payoff in the end.
The best moments occur when the program does seek to tap back into its roots, revisiting a former relationship for an episode or showing how the old adolescent dramas continue to weigh on our budding filmmaker. Unfortunately, however, those are the infrequent exceptions amid a general sense that we’re no longer tethered to the existing audience investment throughout.
The initial showrunner transition from creator Kevin Williamson (seasons 1-2) to Greg Berlanti (3-4) was fairly seamless on-screen, but these Tom Kapinos college years (5-6) have been rough — though I don’t know if we can blame him or simply the inherent difficulty of reworking a teenage soap to function past high school. Anyway, I’m glad that Williamson returned to write the finale and try to steer the overall narrative towards a satisfying conclusion — give or take a few dubious events in the future-set two-parter that really could have used greater room to breathe — but even his clearer understanding of the protagonists and attempts to find thematic closure for them are too little, too late by that point.
[Content warning for homophobia including slurs.]
This season: ★★☆☆☆
Overall series: ★★★☆☆
Seasons ranked: 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 > 5 > 6
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