Felicity: TV Series (1998-2002)

Thursday, August 11, 2011



I'll be starting to write some reviews of my favorite TV series that I have watched from start till the end. I'll be starting with Feilicity and yes, I watch this show before at channel 9 (RPN 9). I really love this tv series especially because it focused on this girl starting a new life in college, struggling to balance normal life in the city let's not forget her love life.




Felicity was a teen drama that ran on the WB fro 1998 to 2002.  It centered on a young girl named Felicity who follows her high school crush Ben to New York for college.  After establishing herself there, the drama focused on the lives of Felicity, Ben, and their group of friends as they came of age in college at the turn of the millennium.


Felicity Porter (Keri Russell) is a shy, geeky girl living in California.  At her high school graduation, she gets up the nerve to ask her crush-to-end-all-crushes, Ben Covington (Scott Speedman) to sign her yearbook.  She’s so moved by what he writes that she dashes all her college plans (pre-med at Stanford) to follow him to the University of New York.  Her parents are not okay with this, obviously, and try to get her to reconsider, but after some waffling, she decides to stay in New York.


Once established in New York, she realizes that Ben is not interested in her so much as her friend Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson).  She strikes up a sweet, awkward romance with her resident advisor Noel Crane (Scott Foley).  Over the course of her first year, she also becomes friends with a competitive pre-med student named Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller), struggles with a strange, combative roommate named Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman), and deals with a flamboyant but lovable boss named Javier (Ian Gomez) at Dean & Deluca.

Over the course of her four years at the university, Felicity deals with many of the normal college issues.  Although her love triangle with Ben and Noel forms the basis for the dramatic tension in the series, the supporting characters are given their own story arcs and add a richness to the show.  Issues such as drug use, date rape, unwanted pregnancy, plagiarism, and alcoholism were covered over the show’s four seasons, and for the most part, they were covered without being too heavy-handed.


Thanks to a largely talented cast and strong writing, the show remained interesting and engaging throughout its run.  Although it faltered in the ratings during the second season (some blame Russell’s dramatic haircut while others point to the show’s move to Sunday nights) and veered into the strange in the last third of its final season, the show was one of the smartest, most realistic shows on the WB in the late 90s.


Problems with the show included Felicity’s complete inability to choose between Ben and Noel (she wanted them both, I think, which was completely unfair, not to mention impractical).  As the end of the series neared, the characters were uttering “I want to be with ____” so often that one could have created a drinking game out of that statement alone.  At some point, viewers wanted Felicity to just choose already, and it started to go on a little long.  The waffling between the two male love interests and the ill-advised time-travel arc near the end of the fourth season are the show’s major flaws, though.




The show was an entertaining look at coming-of-age in college in the late nineties.  It was a show that I really watched and keep an eye on.   Smart, funny, and often heartbreaking, this is a show that I absolutely recommend.


P.S.–I am now, and always will be Team Ben.  Sorry, Noel.

Let's go back to memory lane, watch the opening theme here:




You Might Also Like

3 comments

  1. I absolutely loved this show! I think the first season was very slow..I honestly skipped a few episodes (which I never ever do) but, the twist at the end of season 1 where Ben asks Felicity to go on a road trip with him turned things around. I LOVED it ever since then. I am also team Ben - always have been and always will be!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I for one, I'm a solid team Ben :) I just love their tandem and I might watch this again, been wanting to. I really miss Felicity :)Thanks for dropping by :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes! I love their tandem too. It's not like a relationship i've seen on any other tv show. despite all their hardships i love that they stick together. The time they broke up after Felicity slept with Noel..and she wrote Ben that letter about the secret language they speak without words..just made me melt! :)

    I may watch it again too!

    ReplyDelete