Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The first episode I ever saw of "Dawson's Creek" was when the gang graduated from Cape Side High School, at which point I learned that Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) was still a virgin, which certainly took a lot of the suspense out of "The Complete Third Season." This is the season that convinces us that Pacey (Joshua Jackson) is serious competition for Dawson in the Joey (Katie Holmes) sweepstakes, not only because Dawson and Joey run hot and cold for each other on alternate timetables but also because Pacey can be awfully darn cute when he wants to be. Consequently his earnest pursuit of the clueless Joey remains the bright spot in a series where most of the characters get seriously sidetracked.
Season Three begins with a series of oblique turns in the first episode, "Like a Virgin." Joey is interested in Dawson, which should be a good thing, but he is fascinated by the mysterious Eve, a new bad girl in town and end up crashing his dad's boat and trying the whole "Risky Business" approach to making the money he needs to get the boat fixed. Jen (Michelle Williams) does a wonderful job of demolishing the school's head cheerleader, in a telling speech about what life will be like 25 years down the road, and in a twist of fate that defies logic in the high school I remember is made Head Cheerleader. Apparently now once Kevin Williamson was gone, the idea was to jerk the chains of the characters as often as possible.
Eve continues to titillate and embarrass Dawson in turn, Jen gets to experience the joys of Homecoming Queen along with being Head Cheerleader ("Secrets and Lies"), Jack (Kerr Smith) joins the football team as the gay wide receiver ("Homecoming"), and Andie (Meredith Monroe) comes back from the sanitarium only to cheat on the PSAT ("None of the Above") and then slowly but surely melt down again as the guilt eats away at her. When Jen decides to respond to the advances of the freshman quarterback that just has to be the most unbelievable thing she did in the entire run of the show, while Pacey having to deal with troubled little kid Buzz (Jonathan Lipnicki) just screams "blatant attempt to increase the ratings." Only when the cast gets out of Capeside and goes off to Boston in "First Encounters of the Close Kind" to see what college life could be like do we remember why we like these characters or were rooting for them.
Okay, so there is large downside to the third season of "Dawson's Creek," but it is not like you should skip over the season and move on to the fourth because some things do happen here that you are going to want to remember later on. When Pacey gets the lead in the school play " Northern Lights," that at least makes sense and when Joey's mural is defaced ("Crime and Punishment") and the principal's job ends up in jeopardy because of his response ("To Green, With Love") there is at least some idea Capeside is in the real world. But when Pacey actually kisses Joey ("Cinderella Story"), we are back on track big time, because each is so busy being concerned with what Dawson will think ("Neverland") that they sort of forget to deal with what they think about what just happened. Of course they are immediately thrown together in intimate circumstances ("Stolen Kisses"), so that they can suffer for their unexpressed feelings, and we get to the season's best episode, "The Longest Day," in which the triangle explodes and we can safely say that nothing will ever be the same again.
Of course even if Dawson has not been interested in Joey all year that is no reason for him not to be interested now that Pacey wants her and the next thing we know Dawson and Pacey are having a macho grudge match during the Capeside Regatta ("Show Me Love"), where you just know that who wins the race will lose the girl. When you get to the point where Dawson and Pacey might start beating up on each other over Joey then things are getting promising. Never mind that Jen is still dealing with the kid quarterback, that Dawson is supposedly giving up his film-making career, and that we are still worried about the Potter Bed & Breakfast.
This show comes down to Dawson, Joey, and Pacey, where any combination of the two is usually a good thing and having all three involved turns this into a twisted teenage version of the most famous love triangle of Arthur, Guenivere, and Lancelot. Even though this is the third of the show's six seasons, what happens at this point not only sets up the final episode with Joey's final choice, but retroactively recasts everything that happened previously so that it bears on how this triangle plays out. So three stars on the first half, five on the second, and we will split the difference overall.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Dawson's Creek - The Complete Third Season (1998)
DAWSON'S CREEK:COMPLETE THIRD SEASON - DVD Movie
Click here for more information about Dawson's Creek - The Complete Third Season (1998)
0 comments:
Post a Comment