Big budget Hollywood remake of the classic low budget zombie gore flick from the romantic mind of George Romero. A world-wide plague reduces most of the population to blood hunting living dead, but the few that survive go to the one place where they might just survive... the shopping mall.

Dawson's Creek is, first and foremost, one of the defining shows about teen angst and complicated teenage relationships. The first two seasons were the classic ones, as Dawson oscillates in his affections between beautiful Jen and his best friend Joey and manages to fall entirely between two stools. This is a show in which indecision and failure to commit is always going to lead to nothing good, however uncertain the prospects of commitment. Michelle Williams as Jen and Katie Holmes as Joey provide the show with its emotional centre of quirky intensity. James Van Der Beek as the essentially unreliable Dawson provides good looks and a hang-dog complexity of feeling to the mix, while Joshua Jackson as his sidekick Pacey provides both reliable comic relief and a sense of more depth to come in the show's later seasons.

This "Best of Seasons 1 and 2" provides good examples of what the show does best. From Season 1, "The Scare" is a finely judged commentary on teen horror films--the show's creator Kevin Williamson was also responsible for the Scream franchise--and "Beauty Contest" is a finely judged social comedy about the show's high-toned resort community. Other strands in "Beauty Contest" lead in Season 2 to the brief Joey-Dawson relationship in "The Kiss" and to its aftermath in "His Leading Lady", where Dawson directs Rachael Lee Cook as Devon in a movie script based sufficiently closely on earlier episodes that she reprises Joey's actual lines. Dawson's Creek is essential teen soap, savvy enough in its post-modern edge to play well with self-parody and intertextuality.--Roz Kaveney

Even viewers who consider themselves beyond their teen-angst years might find Dawson's Creek compelling. In the first series we are introduced to Dawson (James Van Der Beek) and Joey (Katie Holmes), who for years have watched movies and slept in the same bed; but they find that as they enter high school their relationship will inevitably change. That becomes especially clear when Dawson is immediately attracted to Capeside's sexy new arrival, Jen (Michelle Williams). Meanwhile, their friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson) pursues an unachievable love object.

Creator Kevin Williamson based Dawson's Creek on his own youth, and even though the characters may not really look or sound 15 years old, the Dawson-Joey-Jen interplay--especially embodied by the sad-eyed and cynical (but still adorable) Joey and the smart but emotionally inept Dawson--gives the show its heart. And just like Williamson's fresh take on the teen-horror genre, Scream, Dawson's Creek has a winking self-awareness, for example when Dawson says they're having a "90210 moment" or explains that they use big words because they watch too many movies. Highlights of the first series include Dawson's discovery that his perfect home life may not be so perfect, an unwelcome reminder of Jen's past, the Breakfast Club takeoff "Detention", the Scream takeoff "The Scare", a beauty contest in which two unlikely competitors square off, and the heart-rending finale. --David Horiuchi