Erica Batchelor critiques the “B” in Apartment 23
The Season 2 premiere of Don’t Trust the “B” in Apartment 23 kicks off with what seems to be a funeral for James Van Der Beek (a.k.a Dawson of Dawson’s Creek). The next scene flashes back two weeks prior when James receives a letter requesting his presence in a Dawson’s Creek reunion show. An arrogant James puts on the facade of “King James” as he rejects and quickly tears up the letter with pride. His best friend Chloe (Krysten Ritter; a.k.a. the “B” in Apartment 23) feeds into his ego trip and the two attend a runway fashion show seated front and center wearing an extremely large hat, hilariously blocking the view of the audience seated behind them.
Meanwhile, June (Dreama Walker; a.k.a. Chloe’s roommate) is upset over the rejected reunion and puts together a slide show of photographic reasons that James should do the show. The most important reason being the fact that her small town friends lived their lives around this show and thought of it as a religion. She succeeds and convinces him to do it “for the little people” before finding out the yearly letters were faked by Chloe to manipulate “King James” into doing fun schemes with her when he was feeling empowered.
Chloe ends up shooting June with a tranquilizer gun to stop her from talking to James about doing the show and reveals to him the letters were fake all along. He also learns his old costars hate him and refuse to do the reunion with him due to the gifts he bought the cast post production.
The middle of the show seems like a mid life crisis as James begs other teen stars such as Frankie Muniz (a.k.a. Malcolm in the Middle) to do a reunion show featuring Dawson. Thanks to Mark-Paul Gosselaar (a.k.a. Zach Morris of Saved by the Bell) James finally comes to terms with putting his Dawson’s Creek days to rest by having a viking style funeral. We flash forward to the opening scene where we see the friends place old Dawson’s Creek memorabilia into a boat and set it on fire to officially say goodbye to Dawson.
Being a new viewer to Don’t Trust the “B” in Apartment 23, I did not find this season opener to be anything special that would keep my attention week to week. It was entertaining and had its funny points; especially since Dawson’s Creek was a popular show when I was growing up. I felt I could relate to the plot line, but it just isn’t a show I see myself following religiously. If you are looking for something with a few cheap laughs without having to commit weekly, then this is the show for you.
