Have a drink with me now, and I'll fight you later.

Recently Netflix added Dawson’s Creek to their instant streaming collection, so I’ve been reliving my high school/college television viewing, and I have some thoughts:

1. What was with the shoes? Particularly Jen’s. I’m really not one to talk about other people’s fashion choices given my current attire (the only points today’s particular outfit scores is that it’s clean… for the moment), and I certainly have a soft spot for the clunky shoes of the late ‘90s, but girls built like Jen (and myself to a greater degree) really should take note of whether their footwear makes their legs look even stubbier than they actually are.
2. OMG the drama! Was everything really such a big deal back then? For example, Bessie’s “black boyfriend.” Was society really that offended by a grown, employed, unmarried, white woman cohabitating with the black, also employed father of her child? To my eye, Brody is the most stable adult on the whole damn show. Could we please stop referring to him as if he is some sort of an abomination? And even if we really must continue to be so offended, how is any of this Joey’s fault? Same goes for her dad. She actually sent him to jail the second time. How are the adults of Capeside blaming and judging her for his behavior?
3. Have the people who write those absurd articles about baby name trends seriously not noticed that three of the four girls’ names suggested at Dawson’s mom’s baby name shower have been the top three girls’ names for the last two years and in the top ten since 2005? The names were Emma, Sophia, and Isabella suggested by Jen, Bessie, and Gretchen. Grams suggested Rose, which does not seem to have shown appreciable change in popularity. The baby ended up with the name Lillian, after Joey’s mom, which was ranked #96 in 2002 when the episode aired and has steadily climbed to #22 now. Is this sheer chance, were the writers ahead of their time, or is our generation really that easily influenced and unoriginal?