Review of Dawson`s Creek: Best Of Seasons 1 & 2

Introduction

Dawson’s Creek is the highly successful cult teen series about the lives and times of a group of American teenagers growing up in the idyllic fictional setting of Capeside. As with all teen dramas, you can expect your fair share of love and relationships…

What makes Dawson’s Creek stand out from other similar programmes is the fantastical element to it. All the characters are good-looking and live in a virtual paradise, and yet the series never seems unrealistic. Admittedly the actors are in their mid-twenties and playing 16 year-olds, and the dialogue and pseudo-psychoanalysis that the show is famed for is often so hilariously complex that it seems they’ve just swallowed a dictionary, but this is the appeal of the show. And as with all Kevin Williamson creations, there are many movie references – in fact, one of the episodes here is a parody/homage to the writer’s most famous work, Scream – to keep the cinema-loving culture of today happy.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to the show is that it launched the carreers of the young actors involved, including Katie Homes (Go!) and Kerr Smith (Final Destination).

Video

Well, overall the visuals are poor. The show contains some truly spectacular scenery, but unfortunately this is not done justice by the transfer. On occasion the picture quality is good, sharp and clear. However this is ruined by the sudden changes to bad and worse – colour saturation, grain and also some really appalling skin tones. A pretty poor effort. I should also add that the credits seem to be stretched horizontally from 4:3 to widescreen to fit in with the rest of the show – disconcertingly giving James Van Der Beek an even fatter head than he already has!

Audio

The soundtrack of the show – with some very catchy tunes – is only presented in surround. It’s all you can expect from a TV show as dialogue-driven as this, but does its job adequately.

Features

Again, a poor effort. No documentaries or interviews – and I know they have lots of these extras as they are shown with regularity on Channel 4! It can’t be that hard to collect all this recent material and put them on disc.

Perhaps the disc space was instead used for the huge amount of different audio tracks and subtitles. This R2 disc seems to be made for practically anyone on the planet, not just Europeans. A separate isolated score is included, but I doubt many will want to listen to this for any long period of time. There are also some of those bastions of the special features, the ‘talent profiles’ and a trailer – good for about 10 minutes’ viewing. What is also very annoying is that there are no scene selections, no matter what is advertised. This means that, with no chapters, you can only fast forward to get to the part you want, not skip to it. The only worthwhile extra are the menus, which have a nice slideshow of cast pictures, and the original theme tune from series 1.

Conclusion

Dawson’s Creek is at times a very witty and addictive TV show, and at times extremely corny. Those who watch it love it, and those who don’t probably never will. Personally, I am hooked. The first two series were excellent, and the 4 episodes here are very good indeed. However, I don’t see the point of giving us “the best of” when this series is still very much alive and kicking. The only reason I can think of is to make a quick buck before a complete boxset comes out, preparing us for the new series (now minus Williamson`s involvement) coming in 2001.

If you have never seen this show before, the episodes are indeed “the best of” the first two series – but they won’t make much sense seen on their own. Dawson’s Creek is a show that requires you to follow the storyline or at least be familiar with what has happened so far. For fans only.