Starweek Magazine, by Ed Bark, Toronto Star
April 1998
Urgent Desire
Teeming with teen angst and riding the hot streak of Scream writer Kevin Williamson, Dawson's Creek looks like a cinch to make a big a splash in Canada as it has in the U.S. Canadians who get the WB network (in pay TV packages, or over the air) have been seing the show since January; but on Sunday, Dawson's Creek debuts to a mass Canadian audience when Global begins broadcasting the series. And Canadians will see, very quickly, what the buzz is all about: the sexual blooming of some very talkative, very smart and very active 15-year-olds.
The series' opening scene, which created a big stir in the U.S., sees dreamy-eyed boy Dawson Leery and gal-pal Joey Potter- who have a platonic, sleep-over relationship- discussing their burgeoning private parts.
"I have breasts," says Joey, wondering if it's such a good idea to sleep over anymore. "And you have genitalia,"
"I've always had genitalia," Dawson replies.
"But there's more of it."
"How do you know?"
"Long fingers."
The 32-year-old Williamson says he has based the series on his own teen travails. The relationship between Leery (James Van Der Beek) and Potter (Katie Holmes) is drawn from Williamson's experiences with a girl named Fanny.
"She would come over and she would spend the night for years," Williamson said. "Her parents know it, my parents knew it, it was like your best buddy staying over. I feel much richer as a result of it."
Whether discussing sex, the meaning of life or a particularly troublesome pimple, Creek's teens often talk as though they're Hamlets in a small New England hamlet(the show is set in fictional Capeside, Mass.). Dawson, who idolizes director Steven Spielberg and wallpapers his bedroom with posters from his films, is something of a philosopher king without a tunic. The character Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams) in turn upbraids him for his insular ways.
"You are such a sphincter," she informs Dawson in Episode 2. "You really are. I mean, I can't understand how somebody some self aware can be so utterly clueless."
Or how about these lines:
dawson to dad: "If sex is so important, then how come Spielberg has never had a sex scene in one of his movies? He keeps it in its proper place in film, as we should in life."
joey on jen: "A face like that leaves nothing to the imagination. The well-maintained good looks of an upper middle class New Yorker. I mean, there's no mystery there. I can see her entire future in that face.
jen to dawson: "Just look at it this way. Repressing desire can only make it more powerful. So I figure the next time I see you we are in for one titanic kiss."
joey to dawson: "I just think our merging hormones are destined to alter our relationship, and I'm trying to limit the fallout."
dawson to jen: "And I just want complete honesty. But before you say anything, just know that your opinion means a lot to me. And if you hate it, I can't even anticipate the downward spiral it might send me on."
joey to dawson: "Well, good night. All this subtext is making me tired..."
Williamson concedes there's a "little hyper-real thing, a little fantasy element to the dialogue."
"If I just changed their ages to 25, you probably wouldn't notice it, would you?" he says. "But I do sort of feel like teenagers in general are underestimated. I felt underestimated when I was that age. I thought I was capable of so much more understanding than adults gave me credit for."
Future episodes of the series establish a sharp-edged, trauma-laced triangle among Dawson, Joey and Jen. Meanwhile, in the series most controversial storyline, Pacy Witter (Canadian actor Joshua Jackson) becomes sexually involved with a schoolteacher.
Williamson, who's currently directing his first feature film, Killing Mrs Tingle, seems to have a knack for hitting responsive chords among young audiences. Then again, what does he know?
"I feel like I'm a little kid," he says. "I feel like I don't hae any answers to anything. The more I live, the less I know."
He's obviously on to something.
