The Corner Penthouse

Mill Creek Entertainment recently released the Dawson's Creek: The Complete Series Blu-ray. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Kevin Williamson created this engaging drama, which chronicles a group of young friends' passage from adolescence to young adulthood in the small coastal town of Capeside, Massachusetts. Based on Williamson's own experiences growing up, Dawson's Creek focuses on fifteen-year-olds Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes), who have been friends since they were five and are trying to cope with the way their friendship is changing now that their hormones are raging. Add to the mix their friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and the new girl in town, Jen (Michelle Williams), and you can count on extra twists to the drama and their already turbulent lives.

[ EPISODES ]

The 20-disc set includes all 128 episodes of the six seasons that aired on The WB from January 20, 1998 to May 14, 2003. I can not tell you if the episodes are completely unedited. I believe that most of them are. The Paula Cole theme song is there, though it may be the 2021 re-recording. A lot of the other music is intact, but a few songs here and there have been replaced, according to sources who know more about the show's music than I do. The old archived Dawson's Creek Music site lists the original songs and the DVD replacements for Season 1 (no music replacements, I think), Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5, and Season 6. I don't know if any of the replaced songs have been restored for this Blu-ray, but I suspect that if it was replaced on DVD, it was still replaced here.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

The show is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio (16:9), reformatted as open matte from the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio (4:3). I believe that there is more image revealed on the sides, and possibly a little bit lost at the top and bottom (as is usually the case with open matting). The show is Not Rated. Audio languages include English. Subtitle languages include English.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the content listed below can be found on the stated discs. From what I can tell, this is most of the previously-released DVD special features, with a new reunion feature.

• DISC 01 - Audio Commentary on "Dawson's Creek/Pilot" - with creator Kevin Williamson and executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 01 - Dawson's Creek: From Day One (8:23) - This featurette is from 2003.
• DISC 01 - Time Capsule (6:53) - This featurette is from 2003.
• DISC 01 - Original Pilot Ending (1:09)
• DISC 01 - Deleted Scenes From Pilot (4:32) - There are three scenes in total.
• DISC 02 - Audio Commentary on "Breaking Away/Decisions" - with creator Kevin Williamson and executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 03 - Audio Commentary on "The Kiss" - with executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 05 - Audio Commentary on "Parental Discretion Advised" - executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 07 - Audio Commentary on "First Encounters of the Third Kind" - with executive producer Paul Stupin and star Kerr Smith.
• DISC 09 - Audio Commentary on "True Love" - with executive producer Paul Stupin and star Kerr Smith.
• DISC 10 - Audio Commentary on "Coming Home" - with executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 13 - Audio Commentary on "The Graduate" - with executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 19 - Entertainment Weekly's 20th Anniversary Reunion (55:12) - This feature is from 2018.
• DISC 20 - Audio Commentary on "Must Come to an End" - with creator Kevin Williamson and executive producer Paul Stupin.
• DISC 20 - Creek Daze: A Conversation with Kevin Williamson (17:35) - This featurette is from 2009.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

All 20 discs are placed in two individual 10-disc cases, which are inside a side-loading slipbox. No digital copy code voucher is included.

[ NOTES ]

Dawson's Creek: The Complete Series is available on Blu-ray and DVD. Some of the Blu-ray discs have as few as five episodes and as many as eight episodes crammed onto them, though the picture quality doesn't suffer as much as one would expect. Honestly, the video looks really good given the source material. While I doubt that every piece of music is there, a lot of songs are present. This is as good as it's gonna get. If you go into this with reasonable expectations, you will be pleased.

This item has been provided by Mill Creek Entertainment for review on this site.