"Pop-Culture Faux Pas" leads to a demand by fans to revisit Dawson's Creek "Reunion" with obvious "omit" on recent cover feature appearing in Entertainment Weekly.
Twenty years is a long time to wait and for fans of popular hit television series, there are fewer more exciting moments than when casts from those shows are pulled together to give their fans a glimpse of life after a series finale. No other news media outlet has been able to do this more successfully than Entertainment Weekly. Over the years the publication has been able to bring us beautifully crafted editorials on cult hit favorites like Buffy The Vampire Slayer for instance, but this week’s special double-issue (April 6/13) fell a little short.
Few series had as impressionable an impact on millennials and the cultural zeitgeist as Dawson’s Creek. The series premiered in 1998 and ran through 2003, created by Kevin Williamson (Scream) the show revolutionized the way that we regarded young people. It made stars of its four lead actors James Van Der Beck, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams each becoming an archetype for teen-angst in the 21st Century. Taking on several topical issues including teen suicide, sex, drugs and the anxieties and inadequacies typical to adolescents.
EW gathered the core-four for their “Dawson’s Creek Reunion” issue which promised the “cast reminisces about the landmark show” on its 20th Anniversary and treated “The Creek” fans with an exceptionally beautiful editorial spread, a story from EW writer Tim Stack and a PeopleTV sit-down with “the entire cast” which also included additional Dawson’s Creek cast mates Kerr Smith, Meredith Monroe, Busy Philipps, and Mary Beth Peil, except that it noticeably omitted series regulars Mary-Margaret Humes and John Wesley Shipp.
The actors played Dawson’s parents, Gail and Mitch Leery, for the series run; even with Shipp’s fateful car wreck in Season 5 which lead to his departure from the series, the pair each appeared in more episodes than Busy Philipps who joined the cast in its college years. No disrespect to Philipps who as Audrey opened up Joey’s (Holmes) world with her contribution to Dawson’s Creek mythology, the Leery’s each provided the significant parental voices in the developmental lives of these young people both in the show’s narrative and off-screen.
The show was shot on location in North Carolina away from the glare of Hollywood, but that didn’t keep its stars from achieving upper-atmospheric popularity. It did bring them all much closer together and encouraged a more familial bond than is typical among casts, which only translated more wonderfully on camera and resonated with fans. Though EW hasn’t acknowledged why Humes and Shipp were the exceptional to the cast reunion, social-networking went into overdrive on the day the magazine hit the stands as fans declared their affection for The Leery’s.
Many are hopeful that perhaps another more proper opportunity will present itself that will bring the entire group back together again, but the “pop-culture faux pas” has not gone unnoticed and surely photo editors will prove a lot more careful, especially EW’s own staff, when it comes to creatively pulling resources to recreate these favorite moment. In today’s world of the “reboot” and the “revisit” we now know that there is life after primetime conclusion and/or cancellation. With this glimpse into Dawson’s Creek revisited, could a reboot be in the making?
That perhaps is a story for another day. In the meantime, check out the “partial” reunion appearing now on the covers of Entertainment Weekly’s Reunion Issue and keep an eye for further developments as the world of Dawson’s Creek is once again open on our pop-culture radar!
