Katie Holmes

And now for a humiliating confession: I have watched every episode of Dawson’s Creek.

Yes, yes, I know this means I suck, and that my opinion is now a bit devalued in the minds of my readers. What’s worse, I can only defend my viewing decision up to a point. You see, I’ve wanted to make movies since I was thirteen, when I watched Pulp Fiction at the (now defunct) Peppertree Cinemas in The Valley. From the moment my eyes saw sunlight again, I aggressively pursued a non-formal filmic education. I read the books, I watched the important movies, I trolled the IMDB, and on and on. And for the most part, people supported my decision, even if they at times did not understand it.

The WB launched in 1995, just over a year after my life decision. One of the shows they premiered with was a slight teen angst drama about a couple of kids in a North Carolina port town. This wouldn’t have necessarily caused much of a stir with me, though I was on the lookout for a new soap to watch as 90210 had been steadily declining in quality ever since David Silver started working at a car wash and Steve Saunders started dating what we later found out was two-time Oscar winner and next Karate Kid herself, Hilary Swank. What did make waves, however, was the news that the main character of the show, (soon to be douchebag) Dawson Leery, was an aspiring filmmaker, and that at least part of the show would be devoted to his (crappy) attempts at filmmaking. I initially liked the idea of having a TV character mirror my own life (albeit only in a small part, seeing as how my forehead is less than an 1/8th as big as James Van Der Beek’s Helen Hunt-normous size forehead). And then I watched the show.

While I kinda dug the pseudo-intellectual dialogue and completely loved Michelle Williams (You must remember she had just come off playing the young- Natasha Henstridge in Species, a seminal nudity movie of the mid-90’s, and was easily the hottest young actress this side of Natalie Portman.), I started to hate how lame he made it look to be a young filmmaker. The way JVDB played it, we we’re all pretentious, pathetic movie-obsessed dweboids who talk way too much about camera angles, Spielberg movies and the art of the mis en scene, without any understanding of what it really means (Though in the interest of full disclosure, I went to film school for four years and I still have no idea what it means. I think it might be French, but who knows, I slept through most of my classes. What? You know I fall asleep during any movie made before 1975.). And what’s worse, since this was the first time a lot people had seen a young filmmaker portrayed on screen, I immediately had to endure daily comparisons to “Dawson”. Thus my hatred for the Beek began.

I continued to watch the show for a number of reasons. One, it was the watercooler show of my high school, which meant if you were anybody at all, you had to watch it. Two, knowing what was happening and being able to shut people up made dealing with the comparisons to Dawson a lot easier. Three, I support any actor that appeared in The Mighty Ducks (And let me take this opportunity to plug the inevitably forthcoming Emilio Estevez piece. One I’m sure will be absurdly littered with Young Guns II and Men At Work quotes.). And four, people forget this now, but pre-Cruiser Katie Holmes was unbelievably hot. Like crazy hot. Like Jean Reno can have Natalie Portman, cause we have Joey Potter, hot. But as the show dragged on, it became readily apparent that the show wasn’t nearly as good as the hype it was getting. And worst of all, the main character was so unbelievably obnoxious that it actually physically pained people to set their eyes on him (Unfortunately, an offshoot of this was that it started a trend in television where the lead character of an ensemble show was completely hateful, which made the A-plot of any episode extremely difficult to sit through. For a prime example, see: “Vampire Slayer. Buffy the”). I should have stopped watching, but either because I was fifteen and impressionable, or that the girls were just too hot to turn away, I continued to follow the show until its welcome demise five years later.

That experience is very similar to a lot of the ones I had with the programming on The WB network. Insanely hot girls on crappy shows packed with just enough cool dialogue and/or interesting stories to keep me watching, despite hateable lead characters, and my better judgment. Thankfully, as I grew older, wiser and out of the demographic, I got better at cutting their crappy shows out of my life. No longer did The WB’s potent combination of “Good Looking Actors + Teen Angst = Drah-MA!” hold any sway over me. By the time I was nineteen the network had lost me for good. And not a moment too soon. If I had to sit through another episode of Felicity just to ogle Keri Russell, I don’t know what I would have done, but it wouldn’t have been good (And besides, she was hotter, more near-nude, and available on home video in the never seen classic “Eight Days A Week”. Buy it now. Seriously. If not for the funny script, then for the unbelievable scene where Keri walks through a set of sprinklers wearing cutoffs and a flimsy white tank top. To all my male readers: you’re welcome.).

I’ll always appreciate The WB, as it was the first network to openly embrace teens, and cater their primetime programming to what we really wanted to see (i.e. Alyssa Milano in many, many, MANY cleavage-baring tops). As they signed off the air for good this weekend, I found myself getting a bit misty-eyed that the network of my adolescence was disappearing. So many hours in high school spent discussing the shows. So many recaps read on TWoP. So much bile brought up by the inane and often times reprehensibly bad dialogue (and thank you for that, Kevin Williamson). So many jpegs of Jessica Biel and Katherine Heigl illegally downloaded on AOL. I will always remember The WB, despite its poor quality, and tonight I will honor its memory by simultaneously ogling a Smallville season one promo shot of Kristin Kreuk and rolling my eyes at the thought of everything Dawson Leery ever said or did.

And now, as a further tribute to my love/hate relationship to the now-defunct The WB Network, I present “The Ten Things I Learned From The WB”.

10. Treat Williams + Beard = Kick Ass TV Dad. I wasn’t a regular watcher of this show, but I can tell you this: don’t screw with the “Trick Or” Treat. He’s be-bearded, he’s no-nonsense, and he was the bad guy in The Phantom. The man deserves your respect.

9. If you cut your hair, nobody will like you anymore. This relates to the funniest excuse for a show’s decline in both ratings and quality in the history of television, when Keri Russell cut off her wall of hair between the first and second seasons of Felicity, and half the show’s audience promptly disappeared. Granted, she was like 27% less smoking hot than before, but still, c’mon, it was Keri Russell! You were in good hands. Couldn’t this have had more to do with the fact that the scripts started to suck? No? Anybody? Bueller? This is akin to saying 90210’s ratings went into the toilet after Tori Spelling’s third boob job made her look like she was carrying around a slab of ground beef with a big thumbprint pressed into the center. Sure it was unattractive, but c’mon, no one was watching that show for Tori disgrossting rack. They were watching to see who Valerie was going to bang that week.

8. If 2.2 million people agree to casually watch you once a week at the same time, The WB will agree to televise it (see: Every WB sitcom, ever).

7. Christian television cannot be stopped (Not even by be-bearded kick ass TV Dads). Also, while not bad people per se, they’re really boring to watch (except if your name happens to rhyme with Yessica Schmiel).

6. If you’re really, really, REALLY pretty, you will always have a home on The WB, despite how bad you are at your job (see: Kreuk, Kristin). For further proof, see the following pretty/crappy (or “pretty crappy”) actors: Alexis Bledel, Sophia Bush, Kaley Cuoco, Jason Behr, Brendan Fehr, Tom Welling (in seasons 1-3), Ashley Scott, Shiri Appleby, Carly Pope, Lindsay Price, Kate Bosworth, Travis Fimmel, and the incomparably bad Chad Michael Murray.

5. Not only can vampires have sex (despite not having working organs) and get pregnant (despite not having proper reproduction systems), but if you want to save time during labor, all you have to do is slay the Mommy-to-be and the vampire baby will magically appear on the bed (albeit lying in a pool of their dead mother’s ashes). This was easily the coolest and most disturbing scene in the entire run of Angel.

4. You can still be a beloved TV icon despite being a heinous bitch, a terrible friend, a poor role model for young girls, an awful dresser and an all around unfriendly person, so long as you occasionally throw around a few well-timed female empowerment metaphors. One guess as to who I’m talking about. OK, I’ll just tell you. Everyone that ever starred in a WB show who wasn’t a complete banshee to the cast, crew, production company and anyone else even tangentially related to their show, take one step forward. Not so fast, Sarah Michelle.

3. Alyssa Milano is still very, VERY hot (warrants mentioning).

2. In case I didn’t make my point clear enough before, James Van Der Beek is an asshat. If you need any more proof, please see the following linked evidence: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

1. If you talk really fast, people will find you endearing (even if you happen to be either a space cadet or a raging bitch in real life). This is a total smackdown on Gilmore Girls, a show that has been using rapid fire dialogue as a substitute for good writing and real storytelling since day one. And since I have nothing else to say about the show, and this may be the most apropos time for it, I will now tell you the infamous story of the time Lauren Graham yelled at me.

- Back when I was working as an extra, I got booked for Gilmore Girls as a Yale student / townsperson (shows tend to double up your role so they can use you in multiple scenes). So we were shooting a scene in Sars Hollow, where Luke and Lorelai are having a discussion in the street. Before I go on, it should be pointed out that Lauren stayed on her cell phone the entire time they rehearsed the scene. You could see the hatred dripping off the other cast members. The extras were gobsmacked at her rudeness, but the AD’s didn’t look surprised at all. Which is telling.

- So… the shot they did first was a close-up on Lauren. My job was to cross the camera at a specific moment, so as to make it seem like this is a functional town with real people living their lives and yada yada yada. This was made somewhat difficult by the elaborate light rig they had surrounding Lauren and the camera. So as a crosser, I had to step over the rig, cross the camera, and then step over the other side of the rig. Not the toughest thing I had to do as an extra (hello, shitty American Dreams set), but not the easiest thing either. I could trip and ruin the shot, I could go to slow and cause an extras traffic jam, or I could speed through too fast and ruin the camera focus. But I was a kick ass extra so I didn’t worry.

- The director called action, the AD waved me over and I crossed the camera. And it went fine. But the moment I had cleared the camera Lauren yells “CUT”, turns right to me and says “You extras need to do your fucking crosses faster when it’s my close up!” and storms away. I was not only humiliated from being yelled at, but worried that I was gonna get kicked off the set (which happens quite a bit if you manage to bug the star). So there I am, red faced and embarrassed, when the AD walks over to me and says “Don’t worry about it. You did nothing wrong. She does that all the time. Go back to your mark and ignore her.” It was a really nice to thing to say, and it put me completely at ease. Except for the part where I now think she’s a raging egotistical bitch (Who thanks to the wonders of karma, will never be nominated for an Emmy. In your face, Lauren! That’s what you get for fucking with The Jay). Thus endeth the story.

Vaya con dios, The WB. May you forever hold your place in television history as the best network for showcasing talentless, yet hot actors and for airing aesthetically pleasing, yet soul-suckingly bad television shows. You will be missed.

Bangarang!