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Dom Robinson reviews
Best of Seasons One and Two
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: CDRP 844
- Running time: 167 minutes
- Year: 1998 & 1999
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 4 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Subtitles: 20 languages
- Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Trailer, Talent Profiles, Isolated Music Score
Directors:
- Keith Williamson, David Semel
Producers:
- Jon Harmon Feldman and Mike White
These episodes written by:
- Mike White, Dana Baratta, Jon Harmon Feldman, Shelley Meals and Darin Goldberg
Cast:
- Dawson: Jason Van Der Beek
Joey: Katie Holmes
Jen: Michelle Williams
Pacey: Joshua Jackson
Teenage relationships.They’re an absolute pain in the arse. She “already has a boyfriend” or “isn’t looking fora relationship now”, but it must be more complicated for someone like Dawson (James VanDer Beek) who’s in love with two girls at once and is in a place where hardly anyonehas a sensible name.
There are four episodes on this disc – two each from the first two seasons – and the conceptof a comedy/drama set in a gorgeous location by the lake and staffed with “the beautiful people”was created by Scream‘s Kevin Williamson.
In The Scare (episode 1.09), Dawson tries to give everyone a fright on Friday 13th with someblood-curdling practical jokes but when things turn out more deadly than planned it seemsit’s not Dawson who’s pulling the strings.
Beauty Contest (episode 1.11) sees Joey (Katie Holmes) going in for the competition wherethe top prize of $5,000 will go some way to helping with her college fund. Pacey(Joshua Jackson) also throws his hat into the ring, making the first ever malecontestant, but he needs the money as he wants to get his own place and move out of hisoriginal dwelling occupied by a couple of old reactionary squares.
Threesomes are possibly abound in The Kiss (episode 2.1) when Dawson and Joey get ittogether, but oh dear she’s off to France soon, leaving him the capable hands ofJen (Michelle Williams). Pacey meets the new girl in town, Andie (Meredith Monroe)
Finally, His Leading Lady (episode 2.13), finds Dawson shooting his second movieand basing it on his ex-relationship with Joey, while casting new-found nude model Devon(the spell-binding Rachael Leigh Cook) in the female lead. Tensions -and hormones – continue to run rampant.
The man with the worst haircut in the world.Hovering between very good for the outdoor scenes and grainy-as-hell for darker moments,the picture quality hits the half-mark point. However, what is the real bonus here is that,while Channel 4 are too lazy and endlessly run a 4:3-centre-cropped print, the programmehas always been shot in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen which is exactly what Columbia havedelivered.
The opening titles, which begin about three minutes into the start of each episode, are4:3-only, so have been stretched to 16:9 for this presentation. I don’t have a particularcomplaint with those though given the genuine widescreen picture from the rest of eachepisode.The Season 1 episodes have an average bitrate of 5.63Mb/s, while the Season 2 offeringsattain 6.85Mb/s, approximately.
Presented in Dolby Surround in five languages, the dialogue is clear and occasional burstsof music are well-served. It’s not something that will tax your speakers particularly though.
Talk about conflicting interests…Extras :
A two-minute Trailer announcing that “Dawson’s Creek is coming to video” (hey! andDVD too!), Talent Profiles for the four main stars and, for the first time I have everseen on a TV series, an Isolated Music Score.
Subtitles are available in 20 languages:English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic,Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Greek, Hebrew, Spanishand Italian; but there are no chapters to speak of – just one per entire episode which israther ridiculous.
The menus have some subtle animation in the form of a changing set of photos, with musicfrom the show in the background.
Today’s modern woman knows exactly what she wants……and she won’t show you her tits for nothing.
Before I watched this DVD I’d only seen a couple of episodes, including episode 1.3, thename of which I don’t recall, which was a basic ripoff of The Breakfast Cluband I won’t be in a particular hurry to catch them all on TV, especially given thetreatment by Channel 4.
In fact, what happened to Channel 4? They used to be the market leaders in UK widescreentelevision. Films and anything else they could get their hands on would be presented in16:9 at the very least, while no-one dared talk over the closing credits and programmeswere treated with respect.
Nowadays they just don’t care. They just don’t seem bothered about obtaining 16:9 printsand when I asked recently about series 2 of The Sopranos, they didn’t even know ithad been filmed in widescreen. And THEY’RE the ones in control?! The BBC are stealingtheir crown in the widescreen department and C4 lose out to BBC in the talking-over-creditsdept. Both do it, but C4 advertise all kinds of crap at the same time when they should bebuying in widescreen masters for Dawson’s Creek, The Sopranos andStargate SG-1.
Back to the plot and it’s good to see Columbia bringing out a few episodes on DVD forthis series, but I think fans would actually prefer an entire series and not selectedhighlights.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.