TV #56 of 2021:

Dawson’s Creek, season 5

It was perhaps inevitable that this teen drama would have growing pains in the transition from high school to college, which is a tricky maneuver for any show to pull off. The sets, the supporting cast, the typical episode beats: all of these are necessarily different, and the core characters often blossom into distinctive versions of themselves in the updated setting too, freed (to a certain degree) from hometown concerns and able to spread their wings like any actual university freshmen. That allows for exciting new plot opportunities, but it can be difficult for a creative team to handle the changes smoothly and effectively pilot a brand-new series on the bones of the old one.

Dawson’s Creek faces those usual problems in this fifth run, exacerbated by the fact that its small band of protagonists went separate ways following graduation — Jack and Jen to one Boston campus, Joey to another, Dawson all the way out on the west coast, and Pacey somewhere in the wind, not moving on to post-secondary education at all. They’re eventually all in the same orbit once more, but it takes some clunky maneuvering to arrange, and Witter’s chef career in particular feels highly arbitrary rather than a natural extension of anything we’ve seen from him before. The strain shows as the scripts gradually move to reintegrate the group throughout the first few episodes.

Anyway, everything finally settles into place, and from that point on, this is a reasonably solid narrative. Busy Philipps is a good addition to the mix, and it’s neat to see the kids maturing from fumbling adolescents into confident proto-adults. Emotionally, though, it just doesn’t track very well at all. Last season Joey and Pacey had a lengthy passionate love affair that ended poorly, after which she kissed Dawson in a burst of summer confusion. But she and her most recent ex display none of the expected awkward tension or lingering attraction when they reconnect, and the writing regularly suggests on the basis of that moment in the Leery house that the two childhood best friends are hung up on each other again instead.

As if that’s not bad enough, the girl is later given two further underwhelming romantic interests as well. One is a rake who’s introduced by sweet-talking and then two-timing Jen and is never subsequently redeemed to an extent that Joey’s affection would make sense, and the second is her English professor / faculty mentor, an inherently awful choice. The latter is supposed to be some sort of dreamboat, but I’ve watched Ken Marino in too many hapless comedies like Party Down to take him seriously in that role here. (Every time he moves in for a kiss, I feel like calling out, “That’s a Ron Donald Don’t! That’s a Ron Donald Don’t!”) Plus, Dawson’s Creek already did the whole student-dating-a-teacher thing way back in its early days, and it’s still inappropriate and abusive now that both parties are over eighteen, even if no one on-screen ever calls it out as such.

With only one year to go, I’m curious whether there’s an intentional endgame on the horizon, or whether we’re going to abruptly cut away with a cliffhanger that will forever leave everyone’s personal arcs unresolved. This latest finale seems written like it could have functioned as a conclusion in the event of cancellation — if you can get past the unintentional yet hilarious anachronisms of lax airport security so soon after 9/11 — but I’m glad that the story isn’t wrapping up quite yet. Although I haven’t loved this program overall, it does have its share of strengths that I hope get leaned into for the final hours ahead.

[Content warning for death of a parent, slut-shaming, and threat of gun violence and rape.]

★★★☆☆

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