Felicity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Felicity | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | drama |
| Creator(s) | J.J. Abrams Matt Reeves |
| Starring | Keri Russell Scott Speedman Tangi Miller Scott Foley Amanda Foreman Greg Grunberg Amy Jo Johnson Ian Gomez Rob Benedict |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 84 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | The WB |
| Original run | September 29, 1998 – May 22, 2002 |
Felicity was an American television series that revolved around the fictional college experiences of the title character, Felicity Porter, as she attended the "University of New York," based on New York University, across the country from her home of Palo Alto, California. The series ran for four seasons from 1998 to 2002, with each season roughly 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. It originally ran on the WB Network.
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. This was a staple of early episodes, but became less frequent as the series went on.
The show had 84 episodes play on-air, plus one unaired pilot.
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[edit] Main Characters
[edit] Felicity Porter
Played by Keri Russell. Felicity is the main character of the show. She initially began in the series as an intelligent yet naive girl. Later as the show progresses, she learns to stick up for herself and adapt to life's changes. An only child, her father expects her to follow his dreams for her, of becoming a doctor like him. Out of all of her friends, she has the softest heart, often offering help and advice whenever needed. As a result, many of her friends feel a need to protect her from harm. Throughout the show she finds herself in difficult dilemmas. As a result, she matures with each passing season. She enjoys art work and seriously considers making a living with it.
[edit] Ben Covington
Played by Scott Speedman. Ben is the initial reason Felicty moves to New York. Like Felicity he moved from Palo Alto, Ca to New York. His home life is complex. While his father (played by John Ritter) is an alcoholic and continually makes promises only to break them, his mother continues to stay with him. Ben has difficulty expressing his feelings, especially in regards to his relationship with Felicity. Though quiet and thoughtful, he often makes hasty or detrimental decisions that he later regrets. He swims, runs and plays basketball.
[edit] Noel Crane
Played by Scott Foley. Noel is a kind and intelligent man. He first appeared in the show as Felicity's Resident Assistant. At first sight, Noel immediately became smitten with Felicity and pursued a relationship with her, despite the fact that he wasn't allowed to according to Resident Assistant rules. He has the most normal home life out of all of his friends, and only appears to display weakness when it comes to women, particularly Felicity. When Felicity suffers emotional traumas or questions her inability to perform certain tasks, he is always there to help and comfort her. He often works with computers and frequently uses his knowledge of them to help others.
[edit] Julie Emrick
Played by Amy Jo Johnson. Julie is Felicity's first real friend when she arrives in New York. She lives in the same dorm as Felicity, and they begin a friendship. She is a tame free spirit who enjoys singing and playing guitar. It is not revealed until later, that she has come to New York looking for her birth mother. She leaves during the third season.
[edit] Elena Tyler
Played by Tangi Miller. Elena is Felicity's first lab partner. She is fiercely competitive and has no problem expressing her anger. Although she is at first, confused by Felicity's uninhibited kindess she later embraces it. They become close friends and take care of one another. Her dreams of becoming a doctor mostly occupies her time.
[edit] Meghan Rotundi
Played by Amanda Foreman. Meghan is Felicity's first roommate during her dorm days. She is a goth wiccan with little care for what many think of her. Initially she and Felicity fail to see eye-to-eye on various situations. However, Meghan later finds herself softening up her hardcore personality, and even forming a close friendship with Felicity. Besides performing spells, Meghan does her best to defend Felicity at every opportunity while creating long and drawn out arguments with Sean.
[edit] Sean Blumberg
Played by Greg Grunberg. Sean is Ben's first roommate. He owns a studio apartment and is the second oldest of all the friends. He is talkative and friendly. He comes from a family of inventors and is constantly proposing new ideas to friends and strangers.
[edit] Javier Clemente Quintata
Played by Ian Gomez. Javier is Felicity and Ben's manager at Dean & DeLuca's, a coffee shop. He is openly gay and forward. The oldest of the friends. Though nosy, he always butts in with the best of intentions and forces those around him to listen to his words of advice. He can be counted on to lighten up the mood and help his close friends.
[edit] Richard Coad
Played by Rob Benedict. Richard lived on the same floor as Felicity, Julie, Elena, and Noel in the first season. He is annoying, meddlesome and crude. At the beginning of the show, he blackmailed Noel by threatening to expose his relationship with Felicty. Later on, he and Noel become friends.
[edit] Plots
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 a comment he writes, she decides to change her education plans completely, deciding to follow Ben to New York rather than attend Stanford University to prepare for the study of medicine.
Upon arriving in New York, Felicity discovers that her ideas were rather misguided. Ben has a girlfriend and apparently did not actually have strong feelings for Felicity (he has difficulty remembering her name when they first see each other). 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, romantic involvements ensue, and the relationships between Felicity, Ben, and Noel form the basic dramatic conflicts in the show and continue until the end of the series.
A number of other characters appear throughout the series. Felicity's college roommate for the first two years is Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman), a goth Wiccan who occasionally casts spells on her for good or evil. Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson) is one of Felicity's best friends for three seasons, as is Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller), who often takes classes with Felicity. Felicity 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 the time she is in college. John Ritter also guest stars on the show as Ben's father, and Jennifer Garner made two appearances in the first season and one in the fourth as Hannah Bibb, Noel's ex-girlfriend.
[edit] Ratings controversy
The show's ratings declined in the 1999–2000 season. Executives at the WB 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 network was bombarded with letters and e-mails from fans, who stated that they hated the haircut and they didn't recognize the title character anymore.
WB network executive Susanne Daniels said in early 2000, "Nobody is cutting their hair again on this network." In reality, the network didn't become that strict, but new policies were enacted requiring hairstyle changes to be approved by management [1].
Russell herself was surprised at the reaction, later stating:" People still take it really personally. They come up to me at breakfast places like, 'When are you growing your hair back?' ".
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.
[edit] Trivia
- Scott Foley was originally cast as Ben. However, when the producers were unable to find someone to play the role of Noel, they asked Foley to temporarily take the role.
- 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.
- Julie's departure from the show in 2000, was a result of actress Amy Jo Johnson's need to grieve for her passing 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.
- Grace of NBC's sitcom Will & Grace said in a 1998 & 2001 episode:
1998 (Episode #8, The Buying Game)
GRACE: [TO WILL] And I was at Bloomingdale's this morning waiting in line to buy wrinkle cream, and this Jennifer-Love-Michelle-Sarah-Felicity looking thing bumps into me and says, 'Excuse me, ma'am'.
2001 (Episode #70, Crouching Father, Hidden Husband)
GRACE: [TO THE GIRLS] Don't worry. I know what you guys are going through, and I can promise it's not always gonna be this hard. I'd like to tell you the story of a plucky young girl who went through the hell of adolescence, came out the other side stronger, self-possessed, with a damn good head of hair, if I do say so myself.
GIRL #1: Felicity?
GRACE: No, you weirdo! Me!
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 4th season, when the characers were in college, in an episode called "Where the Wild Things Are," in a frat house infested with the poltergeists of repressed, abused orphans, a girl is crying and cutting off her long curly hair as an effect of the possession. The character Xander says, “Anya, look around! There’s ghosts and shaking, and people are going all Felicity with their hair…”
- In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sabrina says "Everyone is looking at me like I was the girl who told Felicity to cut her hair."
- In an episode of Dawson's Creek, Dawson and Eve are shown to be watching an episode of Felicity.
- In the song "Spokesman", by Goldfinger "and who the fuck is Felicity, cause I got problems of my own"
- Creator J.J. Abrams says the idea for Alias, which stared Scott Foley's then wife and Felicity guest star Jennifer Garner from a half-joking story plot for a Felicity. Abrams considered an episode where Felicity spends her summer as a government agent, then returns to school the next fall like nothing ever happened.
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- Amanda Foreman (Megan), Greg Grunberg (Sean Blumberg), and Rob Benedict (Richard Coad) all appeared on Alias.
- In another WB series, Grosse Pointe, the producer says with sincerity "Relax, this is the guy who told Felicity to cut her hair."
[edit] 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.
- Freshman Year Collection – November 5, 2002
- Sophomore Year Collection – July 22, 2003
- Junior Year Collection – September 21, 2004
- Senior Year Collection – March 8, 2005
| Felicity: Freshman Year Collection (The Complete First Season) | ||||
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| November 5, 2002 | November 4, 2003 | |||
| Felicity: Sophomore Year Collection (The Complete Second Season) | ||||
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| July 22, 2003 | Withdrawn | |||
| Felicity: Junior Year Collection (The Complete Third Season) | ||||
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| September 21, 2004 | Withdrawn | |||
| Felicity: Senior Year Collection (The Complete Fourth Season | ||||
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| March 8, 2005 | Withdrawn | |||
[edit] References
- Julie Keller (January 18, 2000). E! Online.
[edit] International
- 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 Canada, the shown was shown on CTV television network, and is shown on W Network.
- In Croatia, the show was shown on HRT.
- 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 Spain, the show was shown on Telecinco, Localia, CosmoTV and ClanTVE
- In Estonia, the show was shown on TV3 Estonia.
- 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.
[edit] External links
- TV.com: Felicity – includes full episode guide
- Felicity at the Internet Movie Database
- FelicityPage.com – fan site
- 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
