March 22, 1998

Hail,

I'm back, and I'll probably be playing catch-up most of this week.

While I was off on my trip I had a chance to see "Dawson's Creek." It's been generating quite a bit of talk, but I'm not sure why. It looks to me like a very obvious, and not too well-done attempt to recapture the "My So-Called Life" market. I really wasn't very impressed by it.

I'm happy to see the last episode has been generating some conversation on the message board, and now it's time to add my two cents worth (of course, this Rambling is going to be replaced in the next couple of days).

If you didn't notice, it was written by Anne D. Berstein. Not counting Glenn, she's the closest thing the series has to a veteran writer. She's turned out some of the better episodes ("The Invitation," "Pinch Sitter," and "Road Worrier") as well as being the writer of The Daria Diaries. She's certainly getting herself a reputation here, and I hope we see a lot more shows by her.

The character development/background was great. I foresee many hippy flashbacks for Helen and Jake; they work pretty well. The Yeagers were great, although I think Daria should have gotten to know Ethan better. He seems quite a bit like Trent (Breakfast? I thought it was lunch time. I'm going back to bed), and he really liked the way Daria's room is decorated.

Speaking of Trent, this was a good development in the Daria in love plot. Oblivious he may be, but he knows by know how she feels about him. Now we just have to wait and see how he responds.

I'm glad to see the "lesser" characters being used more. It's starting to get to the point where this needs to become an hour long show to give the writers enough time to explore everything. This being on MTV, budget considerations are paramount, however, so I don't expect to see the extra time allotted (they already take too much time for commercials, and I don't see that changing either).

Okay, this wan't too in-depth, but I'm in a hurry to get the rest of the things I still need to do ;)

Wraith