feeling listless

TV So Joey and Dawson have finally done it (for British terrestrial viewers anyway). But they've been talking about it for so long I'd forgotten it hadn't happened already. In the end it seemed cheap somehow. For me, Dawson's Creek has always been about romance, about the magic which surrounds the act rather than the act itself. The most passionate moment of the series up until this point was their kiss at the end of the first series. Perhaps the genius here was that when the central core unrequited love of the series finally became requited it was pretty ordinary, no ice cream, wax or extra bodies involved. At least now, just as the conversation was flagging, they'll have something to talk about for the next five or six episodes at least.

Elsewhere in the show as the six and final series begins, it's mostly business as usual. Audrey has been granted regular status after two series (still a great character) and there are signs she'll be getting her own storylines (and her own special episode - how we wish it had been her in that mugging episode last year - no chance of her singing along with the dying man). There also seems to be a new found ability to have fun with the Jack character who seems to be enjoying his sexuality now rather than torturing himself. Speaking of which, favourite character Jen seemed far too sunny but I was always happier when that was the case - I was never happy when she was an Elizabeth Wurtzel knock off - she always worked best with some deadpan humour and nothing more embarrassing than sitting next to your grandmother in a lecture. And suddenly in an attempt to make him seem more mature, Pacey sports a goatee beard which looks a bit wrong but we'll get used to it.

But the problem is that the show has said everything it can about the subjects it's trotting out. I've an idea of the upcoming plotlines and they really feel like reruns of old stories. The very English waitress and musician Emma Jones could have been an interesting character if she hadn't stolen her accent from the potentials in the last season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, but she's another Gretchen or Amy, someone to buzz around the main characters, create complications, let Pacey save her (possibly), then buzz off again. It's tired and tiring. We're getting into the same territory as late X-Files - how much more can we surprise the audience? But I'm not jumping ship yet like I did with that series. This is something I'll be following to that bitter end, if only to see how Kevin Williamson, series creator, and writer of the final episode, handles his characters all grown up. Plus I'm still 'in love' with Michelle Williams and you have to allow your self some guilty pleasures now and then between the Truffaut movies.