'''Felicity''' is a
Golden Globe-winning
American primetime television drama produced by
Touchstone Television and Imagine Television for
The WB network. The series revolved around the fictional
college experiences of the title character, Felicity Porter (played by
Keri Russell), as she attended the "University of New York", based on
New York University, across the country from her home of
Palo Alto, California. The show ran for four seasons from 1998 to 2002, with each season corresponding to the traditional freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years
students attend at
universities. The series was created by
J.J. Abrams and
Matt Reeves. Notable guest directors included
Brian Grazer and
Ron Howard.
A recurring
episode opener of the show was a stark
camera shot of Felicity sitting in a
dorm room or
apartment holding a
tape recorder, recalling events in order to make a
cassette tape to send to an old friend named Sally Reardon (voiced by
Janeane Garofalo). This occasionally provided a method for Felicity to
narrate an entire episode. At the end of episodes like this, Felicity would often be shown listening to a tape Sally sent in reply.
Plot
The story of the series begins at Felicity's
high school graduation where she asks Ben Covington (played by
Scott Speedman), a classmate whom she has a
crush on, to sign her
yearbook. Moved by his comment that he wished he had gotten to know her, she changes her education plans completely, deciding to follow Ben to New York rather than attend
Stanford University for pre-med. Felicity's overbearing parents, concerned about Felicity's seemingly rash decision, come to New York to try to convince her to return home and 'get back on track.' Felicity has second thoughts about her decision, but soon realizes that she came, not only to follow Ben, but to find herself.
While Felicity works to sort out her emotions, she continues the basic motions of student life and moves into her dorm. There, she meets the resident advisor Noel Crane (
Scott Foley). Eventually, romance ensues, and the relationships between Felicity, Ben, and Noel form the basic dramatic
conflicts in the show throughout the series.
A number of other characters appear play large roles in Felicity's life. Her roommate for the first two years is Meghan Rotundi (
Amanda Foreman), a
goth Wiccan who occasionally casts spells on Felicity and others. Julie Emrick (
Amy Jo Johnson) is one of Felicity's best friends, as is Elena Tyler (
Tangi Miller), who often takes classes with Felicity. Felicity also has male friends, including Sean Blumberg (
Greg Grunberg), who is always trying to produce new off-kilter
inventions, and Javier Quintata (
Ian Gomez), who manages the
coffee house Dean & DeLuca where Felicity works for most of her college career.
Cast
Main articles: List of characters from Felicity
''Felicity'' maintained an ensemble cast, keeping most of its characters for its entire four season run. Numerous secondary characters, including friends and love interests for these characters, appeared intermittently to complement storylines that generally revolved around this core group.
Regular
Recurring
Controversies
Writer age
In 1999, a publicly hyped young writer for the show,
Riley Weston, was disclosed as a fraud for claiming to be much younger than she truly was. At the age of 32, she began marketing herself to television studios as a recent high school graduate. (She claimed that her husband was her older brother.) She was soon hired by the WB Network as a writer for ''Felicity''. Hailed as a child prodigy and "wunderkind," she was featured on Entertainment Weekly's October 1998 "it list" of the "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment," which described her as an up-and-coming 19-year-old. Shortly thereafter, she was offered a half-million dollar screenwriting deal with Disney. Her real identity and age were exposed after a ''Felicity'' producer checked her social security number. Soon after, her contract with WB expired and was not renewed, and her deal with Disney fell through. The story sparked much discussion about age bias in entertainment.
Ratings
The show's ratings declined in the 1999-2000 season. The popular press blamed this partly on a new
hairstyle by the show's star. Known for long and curly locks, Russell went along with the producers' idea that she snip her hair short early on in the second year after her character had a rough breakup with Ben. The ratings drop also coincided with the show's move to Sunday night, so it is unclear exactly how much effect the hairstyle change actually had.
Trivia
★
Scott Foley, who originally auditioned for Noel, was cast as Ben. However, when producers found Scott Speedman, they asked Foley to switch back to the role of Noel.
★ During one episode, Felicity is attempting to complete a crossword puzzle and asks Ben what "Twelve letters, really bad TV show" could refer to. This is commonly believed to be a reference to lead-in WB show ''
Dawson's Creek''
[1].
★ Noel discusses a website with Felicity during the show called www.noelcrane.com This is in fact an actual site that pertains to the show.
★ According to Amy Jo Johnson, Julie's departure from the show in 2000 was a result of the actress's need to grieve for her mother whom she had lost two years earlier. She explained that she had been unable to do so properly, due to the show's heavy workload. However, producers have said that the the WB network wanted her to leave the show because her story lines were too 'depressing.'
★ During the final episodes of the series, Felicity travels back in time thanks to a spell her Wiccan friend and roommate Meghan cast, in which she refaces several people and situations from past seasons. This story arc paved the way for cast members such as
Amy Jo Johnson and recurring guests
Amy Aquino and
Jennifer Garner to return to the show for a few episodes before the end of the series. It also was a way to include the character of Elena in the storylines, despite the fact that her character was killed in a car accident in present-time.
★ During the time traveling episodes in the final season, Tangi Miller's character of Elena was said to have been killed in the present day. When Felicity finally returns from the past, Elena is mysteriously resurrected and present at Noel's wedding, seemingly creating an error in the show's continuity. Producers have since explained the error as a problem in editing, as a scene in which Felicity left Elena a note on her last night in the past, telling Elena not to go to Columbia in order to avoid her fatal car accident was cut from the final episode due to length. These scenes have been restored on the fourth season DVD set to relieve confusion for fans.
★ In commentary for the fourth season DVD, creator J.J. Abrams says the idea for ''
Alias'', which starred Scott Foley's then wife and ''Felicity'' guest star
Jennifer Garner was derived from a half-joking story plot for an episode of ''Felicity''. Abrams said that by the fourth season, it became difficult for the writers to think up new storylines for ''Felicity''. Abrams said that he half-jokingly suggested an idea where Felicity was a secret agent, while still trying to balance her affections for Ben and Noel, and her school life.
★ Interestingly enough, Jennifer Garner is also not the only major player from ''Felicity'' to have later moved on to ''Alias''. Greg Grunberg also became a regular cast member of that series after ''Felicity'' ended its run.
★ One
Mad TV parody with Keri Russell appears on the Felicity DVDs, but there was also another one featuring Nicole Sullivan as Felicity and called "Intensity."
★
Ed Redlich, the producer and writer of some episodes, also appeared in one episode as a character.
DVD releases
The
DVDs were released over a period of four years by
Buena Vista Home Entertainment. They have been criticized for a few reasons, most notably because the
soundtrack includes different
music than the TV version. Some of the songs were changed, reportedly because high licensing costs would bring up the price of the box sets. On a technical level, some episodes did not have proper
telecine encoding, so viewers using
HDTVs could sometimes see
interlacing artifacts (though this problem can be mitigated in a few ways). The yearly sets are listed below with their American release dates.
| 'Felicity: Freshman Year Collection (The Complete First Season)' |
| 'Set Details' | 'Special Features' | |||
★ 22 Episodes
★ 6-Disc Set
★ 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
★ Subtitles: English
★ Languages:
★
★ English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) |
★ Audio Commentary on "Pilot"
★
★ J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves (Co-Creators, and Executive Producers)
|
| 'Release Dates' |
| |
| November 5, 2002 | November 4, 2003 |
| 'Felicity: Sophomore Year Collection (The Complete Second Season)' |
| 'Set Details' | 'Special Features' | |||
★ 23 Episodes
★ 6-Disc Set
★ 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
★ Subtitles: English
★ Languages:
★
★ English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
★
★ Spanish |
★ 5 Audio Commentaries:
★
★ Cast and Fimmakers
★ Never-Before-Seen Network Pilot Episode
★ Keri Russell's Audition
★ Felicity "Emmy Parody" Spoof (Produced for the Emmy Broadcast)
|
| 'Release Dates' |
| |
| July 22, 2003 | Withdrawn |
| 'Felicity: Junior Year Collection (The Complete Third Season)' |
| 'Set Details' | 'Special Features' | |||
★ 17 Episodes
★ 5-Disc Set
★ 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
★ Subtitles: English
★ Languages:
★
★ English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
★
★ Spanish |
★ Audio Commentaries:
★
★ Cast and Crew
★ "Docuventary: A Look Back at Season 3 With Greg Grunberg"
★ Mad TV Parody
|
| 'Release Dates' |
| |
| September 21, 2004 | Withdrawn |
| 'Felicity: Senior Year Collection (The Complete Fourth Season' |
| 'Set Details' | 'Special Features' | |||
★ 22 Episodes
★ 6-Disc Set
★ 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
★ Subtitles: English
★ Languages:
★
★ English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround)
★
★ Spanish |
★ Audio Commentaries:
★
★ Cast and Crew
★ "The Lost Elena Scenes" - This Exclusive, Never-Before-Seen Footage provides the long-awaited answer to Felicity fans' Biggest Question!
★ "Fade Out" - Behind-the-scenes Reflections with Keri Russell and the show's creators
★ Creating Characters - Q&A with J.J. Abrams, Keri Russell, Matt Reeves & Jennifer Garner
|
| 'Release Dates' |
| |
| March 8, 2005 | Withdrawn |
References
★ Julie Keller (
January 18 2000).
E! Online.
Outside the U.S.
★ In most of
Latin America, the show was shown on
Sony Entertainment Television.
★ In
Australia, the show was shown on The
Seven Network.
★ In
Brazil, the show was shown on
Sony Entertainment Television and
SBT.
★ In
Bosnia, the show was shown on
OBN.
★ In
Bulgaria, the show was shown on
Kanal 1.
★ In
Canada, the shown was shown on
CTV television network, and is shown on
W Network.
★ In
Croatia, the show was shown on
HRT.
★ In
Israel, the show was shown on
Channel 2 and later on
Channel 3 of HOT.
★ In
France, the show was shown on
TF1.
★ In
Germany, the show was shown on
RTL.
★ In
Italy, the show was shown on
Rai Due.
★ In
Ireland, the show was shown on
RTÉ Two.
★ In
Malaysia, the show was shown on
TV2
★ In
Romania, the show was shown on
TVR 1.
★ In
Spain, the show was shown on
Telecinco, Localia, CosmoTV and ClanTVE
★ In
Estonia, the show was shown on
TV3 Estonia.
★ In the
Philippines, the show aired in
RPN 9.
★ In
Poland, the show was on
TVP2 and currently on
TVP3
★ In
Norway, the show was shown on
TV3.
★ In
Finland, the show was shown on
Nelonen.
★ In
Hong Kong, the show was shown on
TVBPearl.
★ In
Sweden , The show was shown on TV3 and on TV4 as a rerun.
★ In
Turkey, the show was shown on DiziMax and later on, on S'nek.
★ In
Serbia and Montenegro,the show was shown on
RTS ,national TV.
★ In
Latvia,the show was shown on
TV3 Latvia.
External links
★
TV.com: ''Felicity'' – includes full episode guide
★
★
NoelCrane.com – site that was referenced several times in the show; it was updated during the show's run as if Noel Crane were a real person
★
Felicity recaps at Television Without Pity
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