| Genre: | College drama |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 4 |
| Num Episodes: | 84 |
| List Episodes: | List of Felicity episodes |
| Camera: | Single-camera |
| Runtime: | 42–45 minutes |
| Network: | The WB |
Felicity is an American drama television series created by J. J. Abrams and Matt Reeves and produced by Touchstone Television and Imagine Television for The WB. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard were executive producers through Imagine Entertainment.
The series revolves around the college experiences of the title character, Felicity Porter (portrayed by Keri Russell), as she attends the "University of New York" (based on New York University), across the country from her home in Palo Alto, California. The show ran for four seasons from September 29, 1998, to May 22, 2002, with each season corresponding to the traditional American university divisions of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years.
In 2007, Felicity was one of Time magazine's "All-Time 100 Best TV Shows".[1] AOL TV named Felicity one of the "Best School Shows of All Time".[2] In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Felicity Porter one of the "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years".[3]
See main article: List of Felicity episodes. The series opens at Felicity's high school graduation, where she asks Ben Covington, a classmate on whom she has a crush, to sign her yearbook. Moved by his comment that he wished they had gotten to know each other further, she changes her education plans completely, deciding to follow Ben to New York rather than attend Stanford University as a pre-med student. Felicity's overbearing parents, concerned about Felicity's seemingly rash decision, come to New York to try to persuade her to return home and "get back on track". Felicity has second thoughts about her decision, but soon realizes that she came not only to follow Ben, but to discover her true inner self.
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. Eventually, the two develop a romantic relationship, and the love triangle among Felicity, Ben, and Noel forms the basic dramatic conflicts in the show throughout the series.
A number of other characters appear and play large roles in Felicity's life. Her roommate for the first two years is Meghan Rotundi, a goth Wiccan who occasionally casts spells on Felicity and others. Julie Emrick is one of Felicity's best friends, as is Elena Tyler, who often takes classes with Felicity. Felicity also has male friends, including Sean Blumberg, who is always trying to produce new off-kilter inventions, and Javier Clemente Quintata, who manages the Dean & DeLuca where Felicity works for most of her college career.
A recurring episode opener of the show is a stark camera shot of Felicity sitting in a dormitory 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 provides a method for Felicity to narrate an entire episode. At the end of episodes like this, Felicity is often shown to be listening to a tape that Sally has sent in reply.
See also: List of Felicity characters. Characters are listed in title credit order and by appearance on the show.
| Actor | Character | Seasons | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Felicity Porter | colspan="4" | ||||
| Ben Covington | colspan="4" | ||||
| Julie Emrick | colspan="3" | colspan="1" | |||
| Elena Tyler | colspan="4" | ||||
| Noel Crane | colspan="4" | ||||
| Sean Blumberg | colspan="1" | colspan="3" | |||
| Meghan Rotundi | colspan="1" | colspan="3" | |||
| Javier Clemente Quintata | colspan="3" | ||||
Felicity was filmed in part in New York City, and is set at the fictional University of New York (UNY), based on New York University (NYU). Like NYU, UNY is located in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park, and the school is an important part of the show. Although like other universities, NYU normally welcomes being mentioned in film or on television as free product placement, the university refused permission for the show to use its name, stating that "[t]he negatives kind of outweighed the positives".[4]
In 1999, a publicly hyped young writer for the show, Riley Weston, was disclosed as a fraud for claiming to be much younger than she truly was. At the age of 32, she began marketing herself to television studios as a recent high school graduate, passing off her husband as her older brother. She was soon hired by The WB as a writer for Felicity.[5] Hailed as a child prodigy and "wunderkind",[6] she was featured on Entertainment Weeklys October 1998 list of the "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment", which described her as an up-and-coming 19-year-old. Shortly thereafter, she was offered a six-figure screenwriting deal with Disney.[7]
In the summer of 1999, after filming the first season, Felicity star Russell—known for what The New York Times described as "[t]hat glorious head of voluminous golden backlit hair"[8] —sent the show's producers a photo wearing a short-haired wig. They panicked before learning that it was a joke but then suggested to the actress that a new hairstyle would be appropriate.[9] After being shifted from Tuesday nights at 9:00pm Eastern to Sunday nights at 8:00pm Eastern (WB's weakest night) for the 1999–2000 season, the ratings for Felicity declined immediately. This decline occurred before the hair-style change, but the later hair-style change became conflated by some of the public and by some of the popular press and network executives with this earlier event and thus incorrectly blamed the earlier ratings drop partly on the later new hairstyle. After the negative reaction Russell rejected wearing extensions or a wig while her hair grew back. Although storytelling and time-slot changes had already created a ratings decline, a network executive said WB actors' future hair changes would "be given more thought at the network than it previously would have". In 2010, TV Guide Network listed the hairstyle change at No. 19 on their list of "25 Biggest TV Blunders", with several commentators arguing that it was the reason that the ratings of the show dropped.[10] Russell did not agree with the network's attribution of the ratings decline, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2000, "I think that's a pretty lame excuse. I think a lot more than a haircut was deciding the ratings [last year]", whichaccording to a September 29, 2023, Time magazine articleincluded the timeslot change, which cost the show one third of its viewers. Shannon Carlin, author of the Time article, also pointed to a decline in viewership for the network overall, which by May 2000, was in last place in ratings.[11] The haircut incident went on to become a popular culture reference within other television shows, both comedic and dramatic. Despite the controversy, Felicity continued for two more seasons.
All four seasons were re-released on DVD by ABC Studios on April 7, 2009, in "slimmer" packaging.[12] [13] [14] [15] On February 9, 2012, it was announced that Lionsgate Home Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series and planned on re-releasing it. Seasons 1 and 2 were re-released on May 1, 2012, and do not contain any extras, subtitles, or other languages besides English.[16] [17] [18] Seasons 3 and 4 were re-released on May 7, 2013.[19]
| Title | Release | Details | Special features | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Felicity: Freshman Year Collection |
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| Felicity: Sophomore Year Collection |
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| Felicity: Junior Year Collection |
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| Felicity: Senior Year Collection |
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The series debut garnered 7.1 million viewers.[23]
| Season | Episodes | Original airing | Rank | Viewers (in millions) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season premiere | Season finale | TV season | |||||
| 1 | 22 | September 29, 1998 | May 25, 1999 | 1998–1999 |
| 4.4 | |
| 2 | 23 | September 26, 1999 | May 24, 2000 | 1999–2000 |
| 2.2 | |
| 3 | 17 | October 4, 2000 | May 23, 2001 | 2000–2001 |
| 3.9 | |
| 4 | 22 | October 10, 2001 | May 22, 2002 | 2001–2002 |
| 3.2 | |
Felicity was nominated for 38 awards during its run from 1998 to 2002 and won several, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series for Robert Primes and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for Keri Russell.[28]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominees(s) | Result | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Artios Awards | Best Casting for TV, Dramatic Pilot | data-sort-value="Shulman, Marcia" | Marcia Shulman | ||
| Eddie Awards | Best Edited Series for Television | data-sort-value="Salfas, Stan" | Stan Salfas, Warren Bowman | |||
| Golden Globes | Best Actress – Drama Series | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | |||
| Best Series – Drama | Felicity | |||||
| People's Choice Awards | Favorite TV Drama | Felicity | ||||
| Favorite TV Drama Actress | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | ||||
| OFTA Television Awards | Best Actress in a Drama Series | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | |||
| Best Actress in a New Drama Series | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | ||||
| Best Direction in a Drama Series | Felicity | |||||
| Best Music in a Series | Felicity | |||||
| Best New Drama Series | Felicity | |||||
| Best New Theme Song in a Series | data-sort-value="Walden, W. G. Snuffy" | W. G. Snuffy Walden | ||||
| Best New Titles Sequence in a Series | Felicity | |||||
| Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Cinematography for a Series | data-sort-value="Primes, Robert" | Robert Primes | |||
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice TV: Actor | data-sort-value="Foley, Scott" | Scott Foley | |||
| Choice TV: Actress | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | ||||
| Choice TV: Breakout Performance | data-sort-value="Foley, Scott" | Scott Foley | ||||
| data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | |||||
| data-sort-value="Speedman, Scott" | Scott Speedman | |||||
| Choice TV: Drama Series | Felicity | |||||
| Television Critics Association Awards | Outstanding New Program | Felicity | ||||
| 2000 | ALMA Awards | Special Achievement Award | data-sort-value="Gomez, Ian" | Ian Gomez | ||
| American Society of Cinematographers Awards | Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Regular Series | data-sort-value="Primes, Robert" | Robert Primes | |||
| GLAAD Media Awards | Outstanding TV Drama Series | Felicity | ||||
| Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Music Composition for a Series | data-sort-value="Pelfrey, Danny" | Danny Pelfrey, W. G. Snuffy Walden | |||
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice TV: Actor | data-sort-value="Foley, Scott" | Scott Foley | |||
| data-sort-value="Speedman, Scott" | Scott Speedman | |||||
| Choice TV: Actress | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | ||||
| Choice TV: Sidekick | data-sort-value="Gomez, Ian" | Ian Gomez | ||||
| data-sort-value="Johnson, Amy Jo" | Amy Jo Johnson | |||||
| Choice TV Show: Drama | Felicity | |||||
| 2001 | GLAAD Media Awards | Outstanding TV Drama Series | Felicity | |||
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice TV: Actress | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell | |||
| Choice TV Show: Drama | Felicity | |||||
| 2002 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series | data-sort-value="Miller, Tangi" | Tangi Miller | ||
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice TV: Action/Drama | Felicity | ||||
| Choice TV Actor: Drama | data-sort-value="Foley, Scott" | Scott Foley | ||||
| data-sort-value="Speedman, Scott" | Scott Speedman | |||||
| Choice TV Actress: Drama | data-sort-value="Russell, Keri" | Keri Russell |