Jerry D

Great topic Kim. In hindsight, I feel that the writers did a pretty awful job in the later seasons. Guest characters were brought in that added little to the show beyond eye candy, and meaningful storylines that could have added depth to the main characters were pushed aside for “fluff” stories that were sometimes dropped when the latest Internet poll told The Powers That Be that they weren’t working.

I also think that too many stories that could have allowed us to “know” these characters better were neglected to show us the characters’ insipid love lives, especially Joey’s love life, and I think the writers squandered the potential that this show had in its first season.

Dawson’s Creek was never a great drama, but in the hands of these mediocre writers, it became a very mediocre show. I think that these writers devoted way too much time to the romantic entanglements on the show, and they completely ruined what I had once loved about the show, which were the friendships. To be sure, romances are important when you’re a teenager and in your early twenties, but in my experience, friendships are just as important, but you’d never know it by watching Dawson’s Creek. Eventually, almost everyone in that incestuous group of friends ended hooking up with everyone else, and every single character was ruined in one way or another by the writers, to varying degrees.

In Season One, the writers told us stories that we could all relate to: the exhilaration and agony of being infatuated with someone, the pain of unrequited love, the importance of friendship, the desire to fit in when you’ve moved to someplace new, and the pain of being rejected by your family. I could really relate to the characters in Season One, even though I’m considerably past my teenage years, but from Season Two on, the show veered farther and farther away from any remote resemblance to reality, and it became a caricature of itself. To be sure, there was always a fantasy element to Dawson’s Creek, but some of the stories that we were “treated” to in the later seasons were so outlandish that I’d just shake my head when I’d watch them.

I also think that the Dawson and Joey fans were cynically strung along by the writers, who threw in a few scenes here and there in every season following Season Two to give the D/Jers hope, but bit by bit, the cynical hacks in charge of the show destroyed everything that Dawson and Joey fans like me had loved about them, and one of the sweetest friendships and potential romances that I had ever seen on the television screen was not only destroyed, but openly mocked by these “writers.”

Overall, I’ll always sum up Dawson’s Creek in two words: Wasted Potential.