ARTICLES
ALL CAST/SHOW
DAWSON'S PEAK TV Guide March 7-13,1998
The
WB's drama about four hot-talking teens navigating the wander years lives up to
its hype
Flash
back to May: Shortly after they all first met, Dawson's
Creek stars Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams pulled a prank on fellow
actors James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson.
At
the Howard Johnson's in Wilmington, North Carolina, where the hormone-heavy
drama is filmed, they locked their male costars out of their room, leaving them
standing in the hall, clad only in their boxers. "We just terrorized
them," Williams says. "They didn't want to go into the lobby because
they were only in their underwear."
Fast-forward
a few months: The cast routinely engages in some major discourse. Politics.
Religion. Welfare reform. "Nasty arguments," Williams calls them.
"But we all can hold our own."
The
foursome's bounce between youthful kidding and adult conversation mirrors the
dynamics on Dawson's Creek (WB,
Tuesdays, 9 P.M./ET), the show in which kids talk like adults, act like adults,
even sleep with adults. Which may be why the Matchbox 20 crowd is watching.
Once
again, creator Kevin Williamson has captured the self-aware, media-savvy
character of this age group, who in the last year flocked to cineplexes
everywhere to his trio of hits: "Scream,"
"I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream
2."
With
that karma, Dawson's Creek
seems poised to inherit the 90210/Melrose
Place/Party of Five mantle as the show of the moment, the can't-miss
series destined to launch thousands of CD soundtrack sales, teen-magazine covers
and frenzied shopping-mall appearances.
In
its first four weeks the drama hovered around a 5.2 rating, reaching more than 5
million homes. Paltry by major network standards but impressive for the WB,
placing the show ahead of the hot Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, its lead-in on the network's new Tuesday-night
schedule. More impressive: According to the Nielsens, the show is No. 1 among
girls 12 to 17 and No. 4 among teens overall. "So far, so good," says
Garth Ancier, the WB's president of entertainment.
No
one can say all this has happened by chance. Producers cast four well-clothed,
well-groomed actors. There's Van Der Beek, 20, as aspiring 15-year-old filmmaker
Dawson Leery, the object of a triangle involving his childhood pal Joey Potter
(Holmes, 19) and the girl-next-door-with-a-past, Jennifer Lindley (Williams,
17). Rounding out the foursome is Dawson's best friend and fellow video-store
clerk Pacey Witter (Jackson, 19), unable to score with women his own age but
succeeding with his English teacher (Leann Hunley), more than 20 years his
senior.
Backed
by a $3 million marketing push, Dawson's
Creek was generating word of mouth long before its January debut. A
promotional tape passed around to the press last summer created a great deal of
buzz for its risqué content: namely, the fact that Dawson and Joey sleep in the
same bed (platonically), as do Pacey and his teacher (definitely not
platonically).
By
December, the series was a marketing event, with posters on buses, billboards at
major intersections and trailers in theaters. J.
Crew announced that it would be the show's "official wardrobe
provider" and featured the cast of then unknowns in its winter-spring
catalog. By January, promos were running in Blockbuster
video stores to the tune of Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait,"
repeated so often that some were calling it the Dawson's
Creek theme. Luckily for WB executives, Cole gave final permission to use
the song for the show's title sequence only days before its debut.
Even
in the relative isolation of Wilmington, a historic Southern town, the trappings
of celebrity are starting to crop up. The four young actors are now recognized
on the street (all but Jackson have hired personal publicists). Their pictures
have popped up on the wall of a local coffee shop. And some cast members have
started acquiring things, such as new cars. "I can buy nicer gifts for
people," Holmes says. "But it is not like we are going overboard and
shopping all the time. I think we have good heads on our shoulders."
While
Wilmington has become a movie and TV production center (for scenes inside the
high school, the show uses an old Matlock set), it's hardly Hollywood, and
almost all the crew is made up of locals. On the set back in December, Holmes
was at the center of an upcoming episode in which her character enters the Miss
Windjammer Pageant and sings a rendition of "On My Own," from
"Les Misérables." A glittering group of extras in sequined gowns
crowded a stage, all of them forcing smiles. Then the mood took an irreverent
turn as both male and female crew members started trying on the winner's crown.
One
almost expects this spectacle to turn into the bloody prom scene from
"Carrie," what with Williamson's pedigree of slasher movies. Dawson's
Creek is his chance to prove he can write more than horror and, likewise,
that teens will watch more than gore. "You know, I think it is the 16- and
17-year-olds who we learn from," says the 32-year-old Williamson. "If
you look at Dawson's Creek, it is the adult figures who learn from the kids, who
are smarter than we give them credit for. And they are smarter than they have
ever been."
Later
on the set, Jackson's Pacey comes onstage to rail against the concept of beauty
contests, dressed in a tuxedo and blue-and-white face paint, à la Mel Gibson in
"Braveheart." Perhaps no other series has featured so many references
to movies and TV; in the premiere alone there were 46, including 16 about Steven
Spielberg and his movies. In fact, one episode this month features a parody of
Williamson's own "Scream,"
itself an homage to horror movies.
"This
is the way I write," Williamson says. "But it is not for the sake of
making a reference. I try to make sure it drives the story forward. When [the
characters talk about] Spielberg, they are not just talking about Spielberg.
They are talking about how he had to outgrow his Peter Pan syndrome. Which
reflects on Dawson having to change his life and make a decision to face
reality."
No
one argues that today's kids, weaned on MTV, Nick at Nite and 24-hour news, are
media savvy, but critics have derided the show's racy dialogue. Take what Pacey
told his teacher the first time she spurned his advances: "You know, lady,
I'm the best sex you've never had." Admits Ancier: "There's no
15-year-old in America who would say that. But that's part of the fun of the
show."
"Yeah,"
adds Williamson, "I think it is not so much how teenagers are but how
teenagers would like to be seen, as opposed to being talked down to."
Still,
at a press conference in Pasadena, California, last summer, critics hounded the
cast about the show's matter-of-fact talk about sex, right down to the size of
private parts. Jackson says he actually got scolded by WB executives for his
quip to the group: "Don't worry, it's not like we're all having group
orgies."
To
be sure, the WB has shown some restraint. Williamson tried to get the word
masturbate into the pilot; it was rejected. Finally, he says, "we came up
with walk the dog. Now we use it all the time. Everyone knows what it
means." Ironically, Ancier says that when the show debuted, the WB got few
complaints about language. The 100 or so viewer calls were directed toward
temporary technical problems with closed-captioning.
"People
were going on about all the sex in the show," Van Der Beek says. "What
do you mean? How many people had sex in the pilot? But do 15-year-olds talk
about sex? I mean, are they thinking about it? Yeah. We are not giving these
kids any ideas, but what we do is talk about these issues. I think we do it
really responsibly."
But
enough of this serious stuff. Back on the set, the pranks haven't ended; they've
just gotten more complex. Williams has asked the show's effects supervisor how
to attach a metal bar under Jackson's new Chevy truck so it will continually
emit a mysterious clicking noise.
She
says, grinning devilishly, "It'll drive him crazy."