How Pacey and Joey’s relationship redefined teen TV
The unlikely pairing of Joey and Pacey not only changed the course of Dawson’s Creek, it redefined teen TV for good
From the moment it hit screens in 1998, Dawson’s Creek irrevocably changed the teen TV landscape. Kevin Williamson’s emotional coming-of-age drama joined a WB stable that included Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and 7th Heaven, but no series depicted teenagers as self-aware, complex and verbose as those on Dawson’s Creek.
Loosely based on Williamson’s own adolescence as Spielberg-obsessed teen, Dawson’s Creek focused on four main characters; the eponymous Dawson; Joey, his tomboy best friend from the wrong side of the creek; loveable goofball Pacey; and cynical New York rebel, Jen. The first season centred on the love triangle between Dawson, Joey and Jen, while the introduction of twins Andie and Jack McPhee in season two gave Pacey a worthy love interest and, eventually, teen TV its first on-screen gay kiss.
But it wasn’t until season three that Dawson’s made a decision that would redefine teen TV forever: Pacey and Joey would fall in love. The influence of this decision can be seen in almost every teen TV show produced since, from the love triangle of Elena and the Salvatore brothers in The Vampire Diaries to the evolution from bickering to blossoming romance seen in Hart of Dixie’s Wade and Zoe. Dawson’s Creek did it all first, and in my opinion, did it best.
When Williamson created the series he saw Dawson and Joey as soul mates. They were the romantic heart of the show. And that was the story he told in seasons one and two. But his departure ahead of season three, and the subsequent promotion of 28 year-old Greg Berlanti (the mastermind behind the CW’s roster of DC Comics shows) allowed Dawson’s to go in another direction. As Berlanti told Vulture.com, ‘I would get Pacey with Joey and have a King Arthur-esque story – Dawson being King Arthur – exploring what happens when Lancelot and Guinevere fall in love.’
Joey and Pacey had been more enemies than friends in the early seasons, more likely to fight than flirt. But their chemistry was undeniable; no doubt aided by the fact that the actors playing them (Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson) briefly dated during the show’s first season. The scene is set for their relationship in the first episode of season three. After rejecting Joey’s attempt to get back together, Dawson asks his best friend Pacey to look out for his ex. The rest, as they say, is history.
Season three has since been seen as one of the very best examples of a slow-burn romance. It took 17 episodes for Pacey and Joey to share their first kiss – quite a feat when you compare it to the likes of Betty and Jughead in Riverdale (six episodes) or Aria and Ezra in Pretty Little Liars (the pilot!) This was a smart move for a number of reasons; it gave the audience enough time to get used to the idea of a non Dawson/Joey coupling, it allowed the showrunners to really showcase the couples’ chemistry, and it gave Pacey plenty of time to pine (and no-one pines quite as well as Joshua Jackson.)
This formula – an unlikely pairing justified by intensive build-up – has become a common teen TV trope. It often leads to the most popular relationships, the kind that lead to intense ship wars among fans. These relationships, driven by characters rather than showrunners simply executing their vision, have a better chance of resonating with the audience. Fan favourites Oliver and Felicity on Arrow, for example, are a far more convincing couple than the originally planned pairing of Oliver and Laurel.
Dawson’s writers also found that the previously antagonistic relationship between Joey and Pacey made for richer dialogue. Gone was the romantic mooning and earnest monologues that had characterised the Dawson/Joey relationship, replaced with sparky exchanges and verbal sparring that often spilled over into physical passion. The OC’s Seth and Summer and Gossip Girl’s Chuck and Blair could not have existed without Pacey and Joey setting the template for this kind of tempestuous relationship.
It wasn’t all fire and passion; Pacey Witter is the Internet’s ideal boyfriend for a reason, after all. When Joey chose to go to sea with Pacey in the season three finale, she helped to spawn one of the best crying face gifs ever created and kick-started a serious relationship that lasted almost a full season – an eternity in teen TV land. It also, arguably, made Joey Potter the show’s central character, finally eclipsing Dawson. In fact, Katie Holmes is the only main cast member to have appeared in every episode of Dawson’s Creek.
This shift made sense; Joey was now driving the bulk of the storyline and Dawson had never been very popular (Williamson learned the hard way why you should never write a version of yourself into your own show.) It also re-engaged the mainly female audience. They could relate to Joey – a teenager navigating her first serious relationship, trying to maintain evolving friendships, and pursuing her academic dreams against all odds – far more than they could to Dawson. Subsequent teen shows have encountered the same problem; it’s the reason why the narrative of Riverdale has shifted away from Archie (the hero of Archie Comics) towards Betty, and why Roswell introduces us to its supernatural world through Liz Parker rather than Max Evans.
Pacey and Joey stayed together for most of season four but, as is inevitable in teen TV, they broke up in episode 4x20. This wouldn’t have been a disastrous move for the show if they hadn’t then chosen to have the characters act as though the love story had never happened in season five – Pacey even ended up dating Joey’s roommate for most of the year! The show tried to remedy its mistake in season six, giving us one of TV’s best bottle episodes, the self-contained rom-com Castaways – 6x15 – but it was never able to recapture the magic of seasons three and four.
When the time came for Williamson to return and write the series finale, even he had to acknowledge that Pacey and Joey’s relationship had eclipsed his initial vision. ‘I was a Dawson/Joey diehard,’ he told Entertainment Weekly. ‘I remember saying to Julie Plec, “Julie, what would it be if Pacey and Joey ended up together?” I went to the trailer and I started writing it, and when I wrote it, I went “Boy, this feels right.”
Williamson realised that Pacey and Joey’s relationship had changed the nature of his show completely. It had changed the dynamic of the friendships between the core four, shifted focus to Joey as the show’s lead, and made the flaws of the Dawson/Joey romantic pairing painfully obvious.
It hadn’t only changed Dawson’s Creek. The impact of the Pacey/Joey relationship on teen TV as a whole has been seen time and time again over the last 20 years. And as a new generation of teen TV showrunners – a generation that fell in love with Dawson’s Creek and this couple in their formative years – comes onto the scene, its influence doesn’t look like it’ll diminish any time soon.