Kevin Williamson, creator of the theatrical thriller Scream and the weekly teen-angst television series Dawson's Creek, brought elements of both these properties to the Twin Peaks-like TVer Glory Days. The series' 60-minute episodes focused primarily on 25-year-old Mike Dolan, author of a best-selling murder-mystery novel in which the characters were thinly disguised personifications of the people he grew up with in the small Pacific Northwest island community of Glory. When his creative batteries went dry, Mike returned home, to be met with hostility by his family members and former friends who didn't like being depicted (usually unsympathetically) in his novel. One disgruntled Glory citizen was Mike's childhood buddy Rudy Dunlop (Jay R. Ferguson), now the town's sheriff. Others included Mike's own bipolar mother Mitzi (Frances Fisher), his workaholic newspaper-editor sister Sara (Amy Stewart), and blowzy café owner Hazel Walker (Theresa Russell), who had once allegedly been "involved" with Mike's dad -- and whose literary counterpart was cast as the "murderer" in Mike's novel. The hero's only allies in town were coroner Ellie Sparks (Poppy Montgomery), who somehow managed to escape being caricatured in the novel, and Mike's 16-year-old sister Sam (Emily Van Camp), who fancied herself Glory's resident rebel. Inasmuch as the town was a hotbed of bizarre characters and quasi-supernatural events, it was only inevitable that murder would occasionally rear its ugly head, forcing Mike and Rudy to reluctantly collaborate as crime-solvers, with Ellie tagging along every inch of the way. Glory Days made its WB network bow on January 16, 2002.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
