Essential Felicity: Freshman Year

Keri Russell's curls, and all that went along with them, came to the WB at the perfect time for me. As Felicity Porter began her life as a "University of New York" student, I was starting my senior year of high school. Watching her collegiate capers every week offered a preview of what I might experience the next year ... if only I'd attended school 3,000 miles away from home, lived with a humorously goth roommate, and made out with the RA for a mini-fridge.

The key episodes of Felicity's freshman year:

Pilot | Felicity asks crush Ben to sign her yearbook: brave. Felicity rejects her parents' plan for her to attend Stanford: braver. Felicity follows Ben all the way to the University of New York: bravest. And possibly very foolish. But as she so wisely says, "sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can pretty much change your life forever." (The small decision being: getting Ben to sign the yearbook. Cause moving from California to New York is actually quite a biggie.)

Hot Objects | The gang's first college party and Felicity's first major humiliation when one of her audiotape letters to Sally falls into the wrong hands. The silence is deafening as the entire dorm listens to Felicity announce: "I can actually picture what it might be like to be with a man for the first time. Sexually." Who DJs parties with cassette tapes in 1998, anyway? Oh, right. Sensa and her cousin Yuri.

Gimme an O! | Possibly my favorite Felicity of all time. F pencils Noel in for sex and preps for the big event like she would attack a chemistry final. But Elena's M&M study system can't save our girl this time, and neither can a call to the Victoria's Secret customer service line. Keri Russell and Scott Foley's facial expressions are priceless.

The Fugue | In which MTV's hotness of the '90s, Simon Rex, plays a crucial guest role. While Noel's busy mooning over his "beautiful symphony-composing girlfriend" Hanna, played by Jennifer Garner, Felicity "decides it can't hurt to make music with Eli, a senior art student" (as the DVD box puts it). Oh, but it will hurt. So good.

Felicity Was Here | Ben or Noel? This isn't the first time the question has come up (and it won't be the last), but the answer had never before been more critical than in this season one finale when Felicity is forced to choose between a European romp with Noel and a cross-country drive with Ben.

And that's not even mentioning: Felicity and Noel's first kiss over a game of Boggle, Felicity and Ben's mugging at gunpoint, Julie's date-rape by "the pink guy" aka Brian Krakow!, Felicity's sham engagement to Javier, Julie's search for her birth mother, Sean's docuventary, Ben's gambling problem, or Megan's mysterious box. What a show.