Dawson’s Beat
This week for my blog post I went ahead and further analyzed the Dawson’s Creek episode we were assigned to watch for class. Under additional examination I feel like I learned a lot more about the episode and found a deeper meaning of the show as I picked apart the different pieces. From my count there were approximately 27 different beats in the hour long episode, which is just above the average number of 25. The length of the beats ranged from the shortest being around 30 seconds, to the longest being close to 5. I would say the average beat length was around 2 minutes 30 seconds right around the aveage lengths for beats in general. I had a harder time keeping track of the amount of beats there were per act, because there were so many different subplots and inter-twining stories. That being said, from my count there was about 10 in the first act, 7 in the second, 6 in the third, and 4 in the fourth and final act. The beats typically recapped information not necessarily through repititive language, but more through the characters themselves. I found myself remembering different subplots just because of the presence of certain character combinations.
From my count, this eposode had 2 main A plots, 2 B plots, 1 that was somewhere between A and B, which might make it considered an A plot, and 1 C Plot. The two A plots I found in this episode were the tension on Joey and Dawson’s friendship surrounding puberty and relationships (which is also a character arc which I will get into more later) and Dawson’s relationship with Jen. The B plots I found were Dawson talking about how much he loved movies, and how he was trying to get into the class, and Jen talking to a football player which resulted in Dawson asking her out on a date. The plot I was unsure as to where it belonged was much more prevalent, and I am quite sure (even though I have never watched the show before) that there will be more scenes and more development with Pacey and his english teacher. This was not nearly as prevalent as the other two A plots, but I do feel it had more significance than the other B plots. The C plot I found was the affair Dawson’s mom is having. While it isn’t particularly important to this episode, I am sure it will be an A plot in another episode.
As far as the episode goes, I feel that the A plots were pretty much resolved by the end of the episode, but the B and C plots were not. Like I said earlier, I believe this is because the B and C plot information is being introduced in this episode to be used as A plot scenes in another episode. In this episode there are a couple character arcs that are opened. This is not surprising considering this is the pilot episode, so therefore the characters introduced must develop as the show goes on. There are some relational character arcs that have clearly been opened, such as Joey and Dawson, Dawson and Jen, Jen and her Grandmother, Pacey and his teacher, Dawson’s mom and dad.
To be quite honest, I never watched this show, and thought it was stupid that a lot of my friends watched the show, but after analyzing the structure of the episode, I feel like I observed much more than I normally would have. If the show wasn’t so old and hard to track down old episodes, I might even watch more episodes!
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Similar to you, I had found that the pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek contained twenty-seven beats, separated into four acts, ranging from one to three minutes long each. I also found that the main “A” plot in the episode was the tension between Joey and Dawson surrounding their developing adolescence. I thought it was interesting that you considered the relationship between Dawson and Jen an “A” plot as well. When I watched the episode, I believed that their relationship was not as prominent as that of Joey and Dawson. It was also interesting to read your opinion on what the “B” subplots of the episode were, because they differed significantly from mine. In my blog post, I stated that there were 2 “B” plots, that of Dawson and Jen and of Tamara and Pacey. I agree with your statement that the “A” plot was resolved in that episode, but the “B” and “C” plots were not.
Like you, I found keeping track of the beats per act was challenging. I never made the connection of how the amount of subplots may have played a role at making this hard to count. Thinking about it now, this definitely complicated counting the beats because I was trying to pay attention to all the aspects such as arc development, length of beats, and all the subplots, so counting the number of beats was hard. I completely agree that the B and C plots you listed were not resolved because of how they will be continued over the series, especially the one about Dawson’s mom having an affair. I think this will indeed move from a C plot to and A plot, but I think it will span over a number of episodes and may not ever be ‘resolved’ for a while. It is interesting how you found it more interesting once you analyzed the episode. For me, I think analyzing the episode made it less fun to watch because I had to be constantly tearing the show apart. For many TV shows I like to just watch without having to count the scene lengths and all that. I do like how I noticed more of the subplots, but counting the length and amount of beats definitely made it less enjoyable for me.