The Tamesis
“Shall we all go for a walk?” my mother suggested one hot day in July 1999. Our family spent our annual summer vacation in Cornwall, and that year my friend Issy came too. Her and my reaction was genuine fear. walk? Now? No thank you – our favorite TV show, dawson creekjust about to start. We’d close the curtains and sit inside like any sensible 15-year-old kid, and see you all later.
dawson creekIt tells the story of a group of teenagers’ ups and downs in the fictional New England town of Capside. was The adolescence of my generation. The show’s 2003 finale was watched by 7.5 million people. So there’s a reason why the tragic death of James Van Der Beek – better known as the show’s lead character Dawson Leery – from colorectal cancer at the age of 48 hit millennials hard.
For us, the opening credits are as memorable as the actors’ shots friends Play in that fountain. Pacey Witt (Joshua Jackson) collapses on the beach, Jen (Michelle Williams) leans against a tree, and Dawson and Joey Porter (Katie Holmes) dance under the pier. The familiar refrain from Paula Cole’s theme song — “I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over” — feels especially poignant now.
We jumped at it; this is appointment TV not to be missed. Every time a season ends, we have to wait months for new episodes, with nothing else to fill the void – almost unthinkable now.
when i was 14 dawson creek It first aired in the UK and ended on the 19th. It is no exaggeration to say that this group of eloquent teenagers provided me with a blueprint for growth. Gosh, anxiety is real, isn’t it? the love triangle between childhood friends Dawson, Joey and his bad boy (or bad boy as he’s considered in Capeside); Euphoriawhich is not) best friend Pacey is the heart of the show and drags it along for all six seasons.
Turbulent friendships, endless bickering, longing and romantic yo-yoing. The promise of sex hangs in the balance. The message I received was that love is rarely straightforward, losing your virginity is something the whole world revolves around, and someone always ends up getting hurt. Usually Dawson.
I have no doubt that the tension, jealousy, betrayal, preaching, and slut-shaming (poor Jen) of adolescence shaped much of my own young life. These are the teenagers we most admire and want to be like – grown-up, emotional, grandiose selves, with someone to hang out on the dock on sunny afternoons. Sign me up! When a male friend climbed into my bedroom window my freshman year of college, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. In retrospect, I realize he may have just meant it as a romantic gesture. oops.
Like most teenage girls I knew, I desperately wanted to be Joey Porter—the girl next door that everyone fell hopelessly in love with. Like almost everyone else, I was Team Pacey—the handsome class clown who was apparently a great kisser (which was a big deal in 1999) and who delivered the final knee-shaking line: “I remember everything” while dancing with Joey at the prom in season three. Butterflies, even now.
To be honest, Dawson is a bit of a pain as a character. Van Der Beek plays the toxic good guy perfectly – a chivalrous romantic who is very nice to women but gets angry, judgmental, and self-righteous when they reject him. The “ugly crying” moment when he tells Joy to go away and pursue her relationship with Pacey has become a meme in recent years, and for good reason — the actor later joked that even he wouldn’t want to be friends with the real-life Dawson. Yet we also love him—the slightly dim, earnest Spielberg nerd and aspiring filmmaker. Is it a coincidence that my first boyfriend had floppy blond hair? I think not.
