And I’ll be running out this morning to buy my copy!
Best 100 bucks I’ll ever spend!
We had a glimpse at the artwork and learned some of the details in September but now I’m excited to examine it first-hand.
Check back later today for more details!
UPDATE
After going to three different stores, I finally found it!
First I went to Barnes & Noble, my go-to store for this stuff, but they didn’t have it and the guy even said there were limited pressings and Barnes & Noble as a whole company was only getting about 100 copies!
Borders didn’t have it either but then I found it at Best Buy.
Given how long it took to me to find a copy and what the Barnes & Noble guy said, I suggest buying it online (assuming you don’t have an urgent need to get it immediately, as I did).
It’s packaged like a scrapbook or picturebook with the thick pages often used in children’s books. Most of the pictures we have seen before either from promo shots or because they were taken as screen grabs from the episodes.
There’s an episode guide for each season as well as pages dedicated to each of the main characters with both a character bio and an a credits list for the actor. The character bios, titled The Life and Loves of _____, were very detailed in terms of both plot and personality for Dawson and Joey, but focused more on personality for Jen and Pacey and more on plot for Andie, Jack and Audrey. Andie and Jack also shared a page while Audrey had her own. Audrey had the shortest blurb, though, and Andie’s wasn’t much longer.
As gorgeous as it looked and as comprehensive as it seemed, I of course found several flaws.
Some of the pages would be for season X but they’d have pictures that weren’t from that season. The episode descriptions were vague (though that’s typical) and the text as a whole suffered from poor grammar and weak writing. But, worst of all, are the factual errors
Call me nit-picky but I have to get these off my chest. They’re kind of insulting since they are obvious errors to fans of the show and really makes you wonder who they have writing these things and checking them.
Here are some of the errors I found:(1) They said Gail and Mitch split because she goes to Philadelphia for a job. Well, she does go to Philly but they split before that because Mitch couldn’t get over her affair. (2) They said Dawson’s rejection drove Joey to Pacey romantically but actually a lot of time elapsed between Dawson’s rebuff and Joey developing feelings for Pacey. (3) They said Dawson broke up with Gretchen but she broke up with him. (4) One of the episode descriptions randomly refers to Jen as Jennifer, even though none of the others do and only Grams ever called her that. (5) They said Joey broke up with Pacey because of her feelings for Dawson but Pacey actually broke up with her and it had more to do with his feelings of insecurity. (6) They said in the series finale Joey finally admits she loves Pacey but she had admitted it many times in seasons past. She was really admitting that she *still* loved him. (7) They said Andie cheated on her college entrance exam but it was actually the PSATs. (8) They said Joey threw a surprise birthday party for Pacey, but it was really his family that planned it and she had no choice but to go along with it. (8) They said Pacey sailed around the world for a year after skipping graduation but it was neither the world nor a year. I forget where exactly his trip went but it was only for a few months. (9) They said Jack dated Toby during his senior year of high school but their first date wasn’t until the prom and they didn’t really start dating until after that. (10) I don’t remember Andie being short for Andrea but I *could* be wrong. (11) They refer to Jen as Jennifer on her character page but use Andie and not Andrea on her character page. (12) They said Jen and Pacey get advice on their love lives from touring musicians but it’s actually Jen and Audrey who do.
Again, perhaps these are really silly things to complain about but, being a journalist, I have trouble settling for less than 100 percent accuracy.
Moving on to the special features, these take 3 forms: a DVD, a CD and some factoids in the book. The book contains a few pieces of both interesting and ridiculously random trivia (Jack was voted best athlete in the senior class poll vs. the population of Capeside is 35,000). There’s also recipes–yes, recipes–from each of the characters, which is completely odd since these were never mentioned on the show. They could’ve had them relate to The Ice House or Leery’s Fresh Fish or Pacey’s restaurant but there’s no logic behind these. The CD contains 5 songs, including the theme song. I know the last song, Five For Fighting’s Superman, was definitely on one of the previously released soundtracks but I’m not sure about the others without looking it up.
The DVD special features include a few deleted scenes and the alternate ending to the pilot, all of which are available on a prior season release (I think it’s season 1). There’s a trivia game called “Final Exam” and I remember something similar being on another season’s set. But these did seem like new questions (based on clips, two of which included One Tree Hill’s Chad Michael Murray in his Dawson’s Creek role of Charlie), some of which were kind of obvious and others that would be difficult for a casual viewer. I, of course, rocked it but will admit I got 2 or 3 obscure questions wrong. I still ended up being a “Bona Fide Capesider” or something like that.
The highlight of the special features was “Creek Daze,” a retrospective with creator Kevin Williamson. There’s also a similar feature on the season 1 set but this was definitely a new interview. Most of the information has been heard time and again and is readily available elsewhere but it’s still a treat to hear it directly from him and seeing the clips mixed in. He mostly talked about starting the show and finding the cast and the flack the show got from critics (both in the industry and parents groups, etc.). But it was the first time (Paley Panel coverage aside) that I heard him address three major decisions: making Jack gay, killing Jen and having the series end with Joey and Pacey back together. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in tears by the end (mostly from the Jen stuff, but still).
I think I covered everything but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Enjoy the pictures below and keep your fingers crossed for Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete Series!
TeenDramaWhore 