Felicity

What’s the Story?

What happens when a young girl makes an all-important decision based on a crush? That's the premise behind the late-'90s college drama FELICITY. The series follows Felicity Porter (Keri Russell) as she chooses to go to college in New York City, thousands of miles away from her sunny California home, just to see what happens when she's in the same vicinity as Ben Covington (Scott Speedman), the soulful, though somewhat lost, boy she pines for. As fans of the show will attest to, this simple romantic plot is enough to propel the action for four seasons, as Felicity discovers that her feelings -- fervent as they are -- aren't enough to shape reality into the blissful scenario she may have dreamed it to be. Instead, it unfurls in all its glorious, sometimes ridiculous, messiness -- Ben does end up having feelings for her, but does she want him after all? What of Noel (Scott Foley), the hunky resident advisor she can't quite ignore?

Is It Any Good?

Anyone who's gone through college and lived to tell the tale will confirm that Felicity captures the roller-coaster nature of it all fairly well. (No wonder it engendered such deep loyalty -- and inspired various drinking games -- among its fans.) Friendships founder on the smallest disappointments -- though there are plenty of large transgressions, too -- and relationships (and, naturally, sex) are the source of constant analysis and scrutiny. New ones begin, and those that were once too intense cool off. And then there's the looming question of identity: After four years of learning how to grow up, who do you become?

In its final season, the show took on a decidedly metaphysical bent, with the suggestion of time travel thrown into the mix. (At this point, it also became a bit mawkishly soap-opera-like.) Did everything that happened over the series' run take place in real time, or can the whole mess be undone by going back in time? Confused? Join the club. Still, Felicity "graduated" its lead characters with their charm, if not their innocence, intact.