Emotionally provacative and beautifully written,"Dawson's Creek" simply is the best show this season.Set in the mythical Massachusetts town of Capeside,"Dawson's Creek" introduces us to four key players as they enter their sophmore year of high school.Dawson Leery(James Van Der Beek)is an only child,blessed with good looks and an intellectual precocity that his emotional experience hasn't caught up to yet.His lifelong best friend,Joey(Katie Holmes),has a more problematic life.Her mother died of cancer,her father is in jail and her older sister lives in unwedded bliss with her boyfriend.There is also Dawson's friend,the sardonic and romantically underachieving Pacey(Joshua Jackson) and Jen(Michelle Williams),a beautiful newcomer from New York City whom Dawson falls for immediately.

The dialogue is superb,though some may find it occasionally too witty and well-informed to be issuing from the mouths of 15 year olds.Still,that factor is likely to help attract older viewers as well as the 12 to 18 audience"Dawson's Creek" is meant to court.The show should bear warning:"The following drama contains adolescent situations in which a group of friends frankly discuss sex,love,parents and the future.This show may offend viewers who prefer to think of teenagers as sheltered naifs or horny monsters."

In the opening scene of the first episode,Joey prepares to leave Dawson's bedroom after they've finished watching the movie"E.T."

Startled, Dawson asks where she is going.Joey patiently explains that they're getting too old to sleep in the same bed,that it's only a matter of time before their hormones kick in and that she just wants to "contain the fallout."

Sex does come to "Dawson's Creek."However,its a vehicle of sometimes painful self-discovery rather than the banal TV package of candlelight,soft focus and you-got-a-condom pseudo-responsibility.

The show has heart-a rare sincerity manifested in respect for the characters and for the at-home viewer.With it's sharp-eyed,loving exploration of that age when we are smart but not yet wise,"Dawson's Creek" proves youth is not wasted on the young.

article taken from Seattle Times by Kay McFadden