Information about Felicity

Felicity
Felicity intertitle
Created by	J.J. Abrams Matt Reeves
Starring	Keri Russell Scott Speedman Tangi Miller Scott Foley Amanda Foreman Greg Grunberg Amy Jo Johnson
Opening theme	"Felicity Theme" by Judith Owen
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	84
Production
Executive producer(s)	Brian Grazer Ron Howard Tony Krantz
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	approx. 45 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	The WB
Original run	September 29 1998 – May 22 2002
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Felicity is a Golden Globe-winning American primetime television drama produced by Touchstone Television and Imagine Television for The WB network. The series revolved around the fictional college experiences of the title character, Felicity Porter (played by Keri Russell), as she attended the "University of New York", based on New York University, across the country from her home of Palo Alto, California. The show ran for four seasons from 1998 to 2002, with each season 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.

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.

Plot

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 his comment that he wished he had gotten to know her, she changes her education plans completely, deciding to follow Ben to New York rather than attend Stanford University for pre-med. Felicity's overbearing parents, concerned about Felicity's seemingly rash decision, come to New York to try to convince 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 find herself.

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, romance ensues, and the relationships between Felicity, Ben, and Noel form the basic dramatic conflicts in the show throughout the series.

A number of other characters appear play large roles in Felicity's life. Her roommate for the first two years is Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman), a goth Wiccan who occasionally casts spells on Felicity and others. Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson) is one of Felicity's best friends, as is Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller), who often takes classes with Felicity. Felicity also 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 her college career.

Cast

Main article: List of characters from Felicity

Felicity maintained an ensemble cast, keeping most of its characters for its entire four season run. Numerous secondary characters, including friends and love interests for these characters, appeared intermittently to complement storylines that generally revolved around this core group.

Regular

Character	Actor/Actress	Duration
Felicity Porter	Keri Russell	all episodes
Ben Covington	Scott Speedman	all episodes
Noel Crane	Scott Foley	all episodes
Elena Tyler	Tangi Miller	episodes 2-84
Julie Emrick	Amy Jo Johnson	episodes 1-48
Meghan Rotundi	Amanda Foreman	seasons 2-4
Sean Blumberg	Greg Grunberg	seasons 2-4
Javier Clemente Quintata	Ian Gomez	season 4

Recurring

Javier Clemente Quintata	Ian Gomez	seasons 1-3
Richard Coad	Rob Benedict	all episodes
Julie Emrick	Amy Jo Johnson	season 4
Meghan Rotundi	Amanda Foreman	season 1
Sean Blumberg	Greg Grunberg	season 1
Ruby	Amy Smart	season 2-3
Molly	Sarah-Jane Potts	season 3
Lauren	Lisa Edelstein	season 4
Zoe Webb	Sarah Jane Morris (actress)	season 4
David Sherman	Henri Lubatti	season 2
Andrew Covington	John Ritter	seasons 3-4
Trevor O'Donnell	Christopher Gorham	season 4
Tracy	Donald Faison	seasons 2-4
Dr. Toni Pavone	Amy Aquino	seasons 2-4
Greg Stenson	Chris William Martin	season 2
Hannah Bibb	Jennifer Garner	seasons 1 & 4
Natalie Crane	Ali Landry	season 3
Jane Scott	Tyra Banks	season 3
Lynn McKennan	Dash Mihok	season 1
Maggie Sherwood	Teri Polo	season 2
Professor Bill Hodges	Jim Ortlieb	season 4
Professor Annie Sherman	Sally Kirkland	season 2
Brian Burke/ "Burky"	Michael Peña	season 2
Carol Anderson	Jane Kaczmarek	seasons 1-2
Zach	Devon Gummersall	season 1
Blair	Shan Omar Huey	season 1
Edward Porter	Erich Anderson	seasons 1-4
Barbara Porter	Eve Gordon	seasons 1-4

Controversies

Writer age

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. (She claimed that her husband was her older brother.) She was soon hired by the WB Network as a writer for Felicity. Hailed as a child prodigy and "wunderkind," she was featured on Entertainment Weekly's October 1998 "it 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 half-million dollar screenwriting deal with Disney. Her real identity and age were exposed after a Felicity producer checked her social security number. Soon after, her contract with WB expired and was not renewed, and her deal with Disney fell through.

Ratings

The show's ratings declined in the 1999-2000 season. The popular press 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 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.

Trivia

• Scott Foley, who originally auditioned for Noel, was cast as Ben. However, when producers found Scott Speedman, they asked Foley to switch back to the role of Noel.
• During one episode, Felicity is attempting to complete a crossword puzzle and asks Ben what "Twelve letters, really bad TV show" could refer to. This is commonly believed to be a reference to lead-in WB show Dawson's Creek http://www.tv.com/felicity/a-perfect-match/episode/100678/summary.html.
• 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.
• According to Amy Jo Johnson, Julie's departure from the show in 2000 was a result of the actress's need to grieve for her 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. However, producers have said that the WB network wanted her to leave the show because her story lines were too 'depressing.'
• During the final episodes of the series, Felicity travels back in time thanks to a spell her Wiccan friend and roommate Meghan cast, in which she refaces several people and situations from past seasons. This story arc paved the way for cast members such as Amy Jo Johnson and recurring guests Amy Aquino and Jennifer Garner to return to the show for a few episodes before the end of the series. It also was a way to include the character of Elena in the storylines, despite the fact that her character was killed in a car accident in present-time.
• During the time traveling episodes in the final season, Tangi Miller's character of Elena was said to have been killed in the present day. When Felicity finally returns from the past, Elena is mysteriously resurrected and present at Noel's wedding, seemingly creating an error in the show's continuity. Producers have since explained the error as a problem in editing, as a scene in which Felicity left Elena a note on her last night in the past, telling Elena not to go to Columbia in order to avoid her fatal car accident was cut from the final episode due to length. These scenes have been restored on the fourth season DVD set to relieve confusion for fans.
• In commentary for the fourth season DVD, creator J.J. Abrams says the idea for Alias, which starred Scott Foley's then wife and Felicity guest star Jennifer Garner was derived from a half-joking story plot for an episode of Felicity. Abrams said that by the fourth season, it became difficult for the writers to think up new storylines for Felicity. Abrams said that he half-jokingly suggested an idea where Felicity was a secret agent, while still trying to balance her affections for Ben and Noel, and her school life.
• Interestingly enough, Jennifer Garner is also not the only major player from Felicity to have later moved on to Alias. Greg Grunberg also became a regular cast member of that series after Felicity ended its run.
• One Mad TV parody with Keri Russell appears on the Felicity DVDs, but there was also another one featuring Nicole Sullivan as Felicity and called "Intensity."
• Ed Redlich, the producer and writer of some episodes, also appeared in one episode as a character.

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.

Felicity: Freshman Year Collection (The Complete First Season)
Set Details			Special Features
22 Episodes 6-Disc Set 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio Subtitles: English Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)			Audio Commentary on "Pilot" J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves (Co-Creators, and Executive Producers)
Release Dates
United States	Australia
November 5, 2002	November 4, 2003

Felicity: Sophomore Year Collection (The Complete Second Season)
Set Details			Special Features
23 Episodes 6-Disc Set 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio Subtitles: English Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) Spanish			5 Audio Commentaries: Cast and Fimmakers Never-Before-Seen Network Pilot Episode Keri Russell's Audition Felicity "Emmy Parody" Spoof (Produced for the Emmy Broadcast)
Release Dates
United States	Australia
July 22, 2003	Withdrawn

Felicity: Junior Year Collection (The Complete Third Season)
Set Details			Special Features
17 Episodes 5-Disc Set 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio Subtitles: English Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) Spanish			Audio Commentaries: Cast and Crew "Docuventary: A Look Back at Season 3 With Greg Grunberg" Mad TV Parody
Release Dates
United States	Australia
September 21, 2004	Withdrawn

Felicity: Senior Year Collection (The Complete Fourth Season
Set Details			Special Features
22 Episodes 6-Disc Set 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio Subtitles: English Languages: English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) Spanish			Audio Commentaries: Cast and Crew "The Lost Elena Scenes" - This Exclusive, Never-Before-Seen Footage provides the long-awaited answer to Felicity fans' Biggest Question! "Fade Out" - Behind-the-scenes Reflections with Keri Russell and the show's creators Creating Characters - Q&A with J.J. Abrams, Keri Russell, Matt Reeves & Jennifer Garner
Release Dates
United States	Australia
March 8, 2005	Withdrawn

References

• Julie Keller (January 18 2000). E! Online.

Outside the U.S.

• 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 Bulgaria, the show was shown on Kanal 1.
• 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 Denmark, the show was shown on Kanal 5
• In Israel, the show was shown on Channel 2 and later on Channel 3 of HOT.
• 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 the Republic of Macedonia, the show was shown on MTV Macedonian National Television
• In Malaysia, the show was shown on TV2
• In Romania, the show was shown on TVR 1.
• In Spain, the show was shown on Telecinco, Localia, CosmoTV and ClanTVE
• In Estonia, the show was shown on TV3 Estonia.
• In the Philippines, the show aired in RPN 9.
• 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.
• In Turkey, the show was shown on DiziMax and later on, on S'nek.
• In Serbia and Montenegro,the show was shown on RTS ,national TV.
• In Latvia,the show was shown on TV3 Latvia.

External links

• TV.com: Felicity – includes full episode guide
• 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
• Felicity recaps at Television Without Pity