Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT First Encounters Of The Close Kind
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.14.1999
Credits. A cat's tail mistakenly finds its way onto the set of a Ginsu infomercial.
Fade back up on a crew team's four boat rowing up a river. Pan over to a campus, festooned with fall foliage and Gothic architecture. Dawson observes that he feels like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but with a much much larger head. Oh, sorry. Really, Dawson feels like he's meeting the aliens from that film. Joey informs him tartly that "we are the aliens." No comment. Walking beside them, Jack "Misery Date" McPhee asks Andie "Total Commitment" McPhee what she thinks. Andie, typically, launches into a complete history of The University That Dares Not Speak Its Name. Apparently, Harvard wouldn't lend its imprimatur to this episode -- go figure -- and the Harvard campus looks nothing like this one anyway (Duke much?) so I probably shouldn't refer to TUTDNSIN as "Harvard" in the rest of the recap. But, much like Andie, I digress. Dawson observes that Andie should write for the catalog, but Jack says that it is the catalog, which he thinks Andie sent away for "when she was about nine." "Class of 2005, baby, early admissions -- I am going to ace this interview," Andie sasses him back. Um, Andie, sorry to interrupt, but they call it "early admission," singular. Joey says she has to go meet her roommate for the weekend, "A.J. Moller." Oh, hello, Anvil. So nice of you to, uh, drop by. Andie burbles that Joey will have "a blast," and she knows because she took the junior tour last year. "As a sophomore?" Joey asks. "Early bird gets into college," Andie percolates. Not when she cheats on the PSATs, she doesn't. Dawson asks Jack what he has planned. Jack thinks he'll "just hang out, I guess, do the tours thing, figure out what damn grade I'm supposed to be in on this damn show." Okay, he didn't say that last part, but you can bet I did. The group, standing at the metaphorically convenient four-way intersection of a footpath, splits up for the day.
At the film festival's registration table, Dawson gives his vitals to a sassy girl with braided hair; every time he tries to elaborate on one of his answers, she cuts him off. When she asks him his favorite director, he of course responds, "Steven Spielberg," and she gives him a skeptical look and says, "You're kidding." Dawson's says he isn't. Sassy gets up to put Dawson's festival tape away, saying, "Steven Spielberg. Undoubtedly a gifted filmmaker, but I mean, come on -- where's the edge?" Dawson lines up for his photo badge picture and shoots back, "Edge is -- fleeting. Heart lasts forever." Sassy prepares to take his picture and snorts, "Say cheese." Hee! I know she's just a plot device, but I like Sassy anyway. She asks him to sign a release form, and while he does, she gives him the eye. Oh, no, Sassy, please don't do that. Then she says he didn't provide a synopsis of his film, and Dawson says he didn't have enough room and starts explaining the Witch Island thing, but he's barely begun when Sassy cuts him short again: "Another Blair Witch Project, gotcha." She dismisses a speechless Dawson with, "Good luck," and goes to see to the next entrant; Dawson sighs. ["Sassy is my girlfriend." -- Wing Chun]