'Felicity's' college life inspires

Courtesy of Touchstone Television Scott Speedman, Keri Russell and Scott Foley star in "Felicity," WB's new college drama.

By Erin Podolsky
Daily Arts Writer

What do the pink Power Ranger, Janeane Garofalo, and a girl with hair to rival that of any Noxzema poster child have in common? "Felicity" boasts all three and much, much more. As any faithful WB watcher knows from the barrage of advertising, "Felicity," the latest addition to the upstart network's arsenal of teen-queen dramas, premieres tonight at 9 p.m. The WB execs would have you believe that "Felicity" is a show you shouldn't miss.

They're right.

We meet the title character, Felicity Porter (Keri Russell), on the day of her high school graduation. She's been the shy girl in the corner for her entire high school career, but on this final day she gets up the courage to ask the most popular guy in her class to sign her yearbook. He writes something so profound that Felicity is forced to reevaluate her entire life.

She decides, against her parents' wishes, to give up her plans for Stanford and pre-med and follow a heartthrob, Ben Covington (Scott Speedman), to the University of New York.

It sounds corny and melodramatic, but the show's strong writing and acting make it somehow believable. It helps that neither Felicity nor Ben are paper cut-out characters. Instead, they're more like people in progress - and isn't that what we're all here for? To find ourselves in this big mess called college is the ultimate goal, and watching Felicity and company undertake that gargantuan task over the course of this television season is a welcome prospect.

Upon arriving in New York, Felicity moves in to her dorm and meets her resident advisor, Noel Crane (Scott Foley, a "Dawson's Creek" refugee).

Noel is full of helpful advice and never misses a chance to chat with Felicity, whose confusion over her situation quickly makes it clear that she is anything but what her name suggests. It's fairly obvious, even in their first meeting, that Noel is interested in Felicity in a way that RAs ought not to be (unless the rules of conduct for resident advisors is different in the wild and crazy city that never sleeps).

Like so much of the show, it's predictable that a strange love triangle is in the works, and that it will be just one triangle of many. We all know that prime time television thrives on all sorts of emotional tension, and much of the time it doesn't work or becomes irritating (attention, Kevin Williamson!). "Felicity" is different. It's predictable, but even the predictability of it is fascinating. There's so much in this show waiting to be explored - how the clichés are stacked up and torn down and the formulaic plot devices tossed in at every opportunity function to bring otherwise bland, stereotypical characters into vivid three-dimensional life.

The fourth main character is Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson) as Felicity's new friend who wastes not a moment before inadvertently creating a tense situation between Ben and Felicity.

Again, the show doesn't treat this with kid gloves or overblown clichés. Instead, Felicity is unafraid to speak her mind and tells Ben exactly how she's feeling - and it sounds completely natural.

Janeane Garofalo lends her vocal talent in an unbilled cameo as the voice of Felicity's ex-French tutor/pen pal. They write letters back and forth using cassette tapes as the show's voiceover framing device, yet another element that could easily have been botched but instead comes across as inspired.

Two, three, four years ago, you may have been Felicity, crying in her first lecture because she thinks that coming to New York was a huge mistake.

You may have been that popular guy who wrote something in somebody's yearbook and had no idea what the ramifications would be. You may have been that person sitting in class wondering what everyone else is thinking. Or maybe you've gone through your time here at the University without being any of those things.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter. "Felicity" has something with which we're all familiar. It's a wholly engrossing portrayal of those first wondrous moments of college. What matters is that it sends the other new shows of the season back to high school and graduates to a standard of television totally unexpected from the little network that could.

09-29-98