Dawson’s Creek Is Finally Heading To Netflix, But It’s Missing One Crucial Thing

Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and the whole Dawson’s Creek crew are heading to Netflix, and if you don’t wanna wait, don’t worry–the premiere is less than two weeks out. All 6 seasons and 128 episodes will hit Netflix on November 1, but they’ll be missing one crucial thing: the theme song. When producer Sony licensed Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” for the show, they licensed it for broadcast only and didn’t ante up for the rights to use it elsewhere.

Netflix is beholden to broadcast rights just like every other channel or streaming service, and they know what people are expecting from a show and decided to nip it in the bud in their tweet. Long-time fans of the show will know that the song didn’t appear on home video releases, or on the show’s current home at Hulu, so this is nothing new. But with Netflix’s gigantic audience, many people will discover this travesty for the first time on November 11.

Honestly, those of us tuning in to re-live the show, which aired from 1998 to 2003 on the WB network–now known as The CW–will probably miss the theme song exactly once. After that first episode, Netflix will shovel you into that endless Next Episode loop, and we’ll be jumping into each episode right after the theme song.

That first time, though, what you’ll hear is the song “Run Like Mad” by Jann Arden, which appears on international releases of the show. In 2018, Paula Cole expressed interest in a HuffPost essay in seeing the song come back to the show, disappointed at “being erased from the association with Dawson’s Creek due to (what feels like to me) corporate greed.”

Dawson’s Creek, like NBC’s Community, was originally produced by Sony during its run on the WB network. It’s unclear if Dawson’s Creek, like Community, will remain available on Hulu when it hits Netflix on November 1. At least James Van Der Beek won’t have to hide under a table anymore when the Dawson’s Creek theme plays.