ABC is the place to be on network television to find Joshua Jackson nowadays as star of Doctor Odyssey in the 2025 TV schedule, but many still remember him from his days as Pacey Witter on Dawson's Creek, and not just because James Van Der Beek's titular Dawson was the absolute worst at times compared to Pacey. The actor looked back on his days in Capeside and named a specific storyline he doesn't remember too fondly, as well as one physical feature of his character that he didn't love.
Joshua Jackson spoke with People about the WB show that marked his big break into television (since there are those among us who might count his first ever big break as the Mighty Ducks films), and he shared the Pacey storyline from Dawson's Creek Season 6 he could have probably lived without:
I don't think Pacey ever needed to be a stockbroker. I don't really think we needed to go there. … I don't know where that came from. I don't know what the point of that was. Didn't really feel like that's something that Pacey would've got up to. Off the top of my head, that's the one I don't think we needed.
I can't say I disagree with Joshua Jackson on this one, and I'm still enough of a Dawson's Creek fan that I was flashing back to Pacey while watching the series premiere of Doctor Odyssey! The sixth season wasn't the strongest of the show, and that wasn't the strongest story for Pacey.
At least Jackson's character ended the series on a high note after some missteps in that sixth season, thanks to a last-minute change to the ending that had Joey ending up with Pacey instead of Dawson. The Fringe alum named another element of the sixth and final season that didn't work for him:
I don't think we needed a goatee. Maybe that's it: it's goatee Pacey. It doesn't work for me.
The goatee wasn't the most popular look for good old Pacey, although Joey (Katie Holmes) shaving it off of him was part of one of Dawson's Creek's Top 10 best episodes... which also happened to inspire an episode of All American: Homecoming just last year, more than two decades after it originally aired on The WB. While Season 6 may not be the most popular of the show, "Castaways" has to be one of the most memorable episodes.
At least, that's likely the consensus among fans who were rooting for Pacey and Joey rather than Dawson and Joey. Fortunately, Joshua Jackson is with the former group, as he reaffirmed to People that he'll "go to my grave Team Pacey" because he's "way too petty" to change his mind on that show's endgame.
If getting Joshua Jackson's perspective on some of Pacey's less stellar storylines puts you in the mood to revisit the iconic show, you can find all six Dawson's Creek seasons streaming with a Hulu subscription now. I can't promise that the series that ran on The WB from 1998-2003 aged particularly well from start to finish, but it is fun to see stars like Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, and Jackson himself in some of their earliest work, when there was no way of knowing how successful they'd become in following decades.
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