Seaclock wrote:
> Maybe this has been discussed before, but when, if ever, do people think
> DC jumped the shark? I really liked season 2 and don't feel that season
> 3 lived up to it, but I found the show varied from good to tolerable
> until the end of season 5. Season 6, however, was pretty bad. On the
> whole, the gang never should have left Capeside.
>
>
Being a Creek newbie who jumped on with the DVDs and the most recent
round of repeats on TBS (Jan - May), I thought the show was *great* all
the way through the end of Season 4 and good in s5, but jumped the shark
when Dawson and Joey finally boinked at the top of s6 (thus destroying
the s5 finale in the process).
I thought that the Dawson-Gretchen storyline in s4 made up for the
mistakes the writers made with Pacey and Joey that season. Season 5
would have made a fine transition season to a new four-or-so-year arc if
it weren't for s6 making it clear that the writers didn't have a game
plan for the college years. Joey darn near jumped the shark as a
character with the mugging episode, which completed more of her
father-fixation arc than it really should have -- the episode was as
unsubtle as a brick in the head and was too long by about ten minutes.
IMO, the story needed to be severely edited, especially in the death
scene and an unrelated, possibly comedic, B-story from Pacey or Dawson
should have been added for contrast. I thought Mitch's death in s5
played rather well in retrospect and helped to fuel the rest of Dawson's
arc quite nicely.
Season 6 was a train wreck. I knew it was coming, but Joey and Dawson
sleeping together ultimately felt like ***** and the series floundered
for the rest of the season as a result. Saddling JJ and Pacey with a
storyline that was nothing more than a tenth-rate ripoff of The Boiler
Room pissed me off. Audrey was a blast in s5, which makes their
mistreatment of the character in s6 all the more irritating and Audrey
driving the car through the Leerys' ****ch was darn near the final straw
for me, but starting with the rehab episode, they started to get their
bearings back with both her and Dawson. And what the hell happened to
Jack & Jen in s6? Jack disappears for half the season and acts like a
cocktease when he comes back (note: I'm straight and I *hated* Jack's
aimlessness in s6. He deserved *much* better than that.) and Jen's
practically a guest star. s6 was so unfocused that at times, I thought
*Todd* was the only character worth watching. I've read that part of
the problem was that the s6 renewal was unexpected and certain unnamed
cast members didn't even want to do it. And it shows.
But at least they rallied to wrap the characters up in the last
four-five episodes before the finale. I liked the finale, but wish
Williamson would have written either Audrey or Gretchen or both into it
rather than stick with just the characters he'd created -- especially
since Stupin had been telegraphing since at least as early as the s4
finale that they were going to jump 5 years ahead in the timeline at
some point. Jack ending up with Deputy Doug (and Jen's baby) was a
brilliantly done surprise even though I knew it was coming. Jen's death
completed the show's cribbing of Dumas's Camille quite well.
I recommend to newbies to skip from the 2-part s6 opener all the way to
"All Good Things" and ignore everything in-between even though I'm
partial to Dawson's arc, especially the last two episodes before the
finale when Joey rallies the troops to film Dawson's movie.
(Ironically, Dawson's my least favorite of the core characters -- Andie
and Audrey included -- but I found him the only one of the core with a
consistently watchable storyline in s6, BID). Skip five years from
Dawson and Joey boinking and both the Joey-Dawson and Joey-Pacey
pairings are left totally up in the air and lead into the finale much
more effectively than the hopeless muddle of s6 made them turn out to
be, IMO.
-- Rob
--
LORELAI: In the movie, only boy hobbits travel to Mount
Doom, but that's only because the girls went to do something
even more dangerous.
GIRL: What?
LORELAI: Have you ever heard of a Brazilian Bikini Wax?
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