Beginning on September 29, 1998, as a "teen angst" romantic drama, the weekly, 60-minute WB series Felicity evolved into a "young adult angst" affair by the time the series ran its course on May 22, 2002. Each of the series' four seasons represented a different year in the college life of its heroine, dewey-eyed Felicity Porter (Keri Russell). Enrolling at the University of New York in Greenwich Village so that she could be near her high-school crush Ben Covington (Scott Speedman), Felicity soon discovered that Ben wasn't interested in her -- at least not at first -- but she decided to remain in school anyway. Just as Felicity fluctuated between a pre-med and an art major during her stay at U. of N.Y., so too did her romantic inclinations shift between Ben and her dorm advisor Noel Crane (Scott Foley), with both men falling in and out of love with Felicity at regular intervals, and she with them. During the series' first and last seasons, Felicity would report on her progress -- scholastic and otherwise -- in audiocassette letters sent to her old and never-seen friend Sally (whose voice was supplied by Janeane Garofolo).
Other series regulars included Felicity's rather odd roommate Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman), who may or may not have been into witchcraft; her best friend Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson), who after several failed romances, one with Ben, dropped out of school -- and the series -- at the beginning of season three; another friend and classmate Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller), a girl of humble means who was attending college on a scholarship, and whose boyfriend, Tracy (Donald Faison), refused to have sex with her until marriage (he eventually "gave in," but wedding bells never rang); Ben's naïvely optomistic roommate Sean Blumberg (Greg Grunberg), he of the thousand-and-one "get rich quick" schemes and ultimately Noel's partner in an independent web-design firm -- not to mention the husband of the spooky Meghan; Javier Quintata (Ian Gomez), Felicity's gay boss at Dean & DeLuca, a campus café; Zoe Webb (Sarah Jane Morris), whom Noel weds at the end of season four; Lauren (Lisa Edelstein), young mistress of Ben's father, who ultimately bears Ben a child. Outside of the series' outrageous "double surprise" finale, which is right up there on the jaw-dropping meter with the last episodes of St. Elsewhere and Newhart, Felicity is best remembered for the shock delivered to its fans at the beginning of season two, in which star Keri Russell showed up with a new, very short haircut forsaking the long tresses that had become her trademark. With one stroke of the shears, both the series and its star became the darlings of the tabloid crowd -- and, of course, Felicity enjoyed the best ratings it ever had throughout its four-year history.
