The Return of the Millennial TV Boyfriends
Adam Brody and Joshua Jackson are back and as charming as ever
The TV boyfriend.
You know who I’m talking about - the fictional boy (or man), portrayed by a dreamy actor who so charmingly and earnestly romanced his love interest that he set an impossible standard for almost any boy who actually existed in real life. If your romantic interests include men, I am sure that there is at least one TV boyfriend who still makes you smile wistfully when you think of him. Dylan McKay. Jordan Catalano. Tim Riggins. Jim Halpert.
Seth Cohen. Pacey Witter.
And last week, TV-loving elder millennials (and yes, a segment of Gen Xers, don’t write me) throughout the land had much to celebrate. Because last week - last Thursday, if we’re being specific - Adam Brody and Joshua Jackson returned to our television screens. Brody as the star of the charming Netflix romcom series Nobody Wants This, and Jackson as the lead on the absolutely bonkers ABC medical(?) cruise(?) drama(?) Doctor Odyssey (which you better believe I will be talking about in detail in future newsletters). These returns are important to me because these men are gorgeous and charismatic and should be on TV all the time. And their returns also sent me on a journey down TV boyfriend memory lane.
I remember the first time I noticed Adam Brody - it was in the third season of my beloved Gilmore Girls, when Dave Rogowski showed up to play the guitar and win Lane Kim’s heart. He was Lane’s perfect match. He was maybe the best love interest any of the younger generation of women ever had on that show. He read the bible in one night just to try and figure out if he had Mrs. Kim’s blessing to take Lane to prom.
(Here is the link to the video above, since I guess embedding a youtube video only works when you click through to the post, not on email.)
But unfortunately for Lane, shortly after Dave took her to prom, Adam Brody was cast on a new teen soap on Fox and Dave Rogowski was never to be seen in Stars Hollow again. The pilot of The OC aired in the summer of 2003, and the name Seth Cohen would soon be on the lips of teenage girls everywhere.
Seth Cohen was a lot of things when we first met him: Nerdy but secure in his interests. (This show - via Seth - was instrumental to the rise of Death Cab for Cutie among the teen set.) Socially awkward but also funny. But most crucially: Seth was head over heels in love with popular-girl Summer Roberts.
So of course it was only a matter of time before Summer - and all of America - fell for Seth in return. I’m struggling trying to pick the Seth Cohen moment that best shows off Brody’s charms. Is it when he recites the poem that Summer wrote in elementary school from memory and she plants one on him? Is it when he stands on top of a kissing booth and extends a hand, asking her to reciprocate his feelings in front of their classmates (which is actually totally manipulative but felt REALLY romantic when I was 18)? Is it one of the moments when he stops kissing Summer just to look at her in awe?
All good contenders. But I think the Seth Cohen scene that best shows Adam Brody’s skills as a TV boyfriend is the one that occurs in season one’s Valentine’s Day episode. Seth and Summer sleep together for the first time, it is awkward and bad, and Seth is convinced that Summer is going to dump him. And then . . .
SWOON. (Video Link)
Anyway, Brody has had supporting parts in a variety of tv shows and movies since The OC and also has been busy being the real-life husband to another member of millennial teen drama royalty, Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester. But it has been a long time since he was putting those ample charms of his to work as a romantic lead, and I’m thrilled to report that Nobody Wants This does not let those charms go to waste. I’m not going to share any clips since the series hasn’t even been out a week, but I promise you that Adam Brody remains a top-tier TV boyfriend.
Which brings me to maybe the ultimate TV boyfriend of them all. The one, the only, Joshua Jackson.
I joked on instagram the night of the Emmys - where Jackson showed up looking gorgeous in a tux to promote Doctor Odyssey - that I had been in love with him for thirty years. Except . . . I wasn’t really joking. Because when I first encountered Jackson as Charlie Conway in the Mighty Ducks movies, I fell fast and hard. Like, for ten year-old Stephanie, there were three boys in the whole world: Devon Sawa at the end of Casper, Benny from The Sandlot, and Joshua Jackson in The Mighty Ducks movies.
Fast forward a few years and enter . . . Pacey Witter. (Could you hear me actually sigh dreamily as I typed that name?) Pacey Witter, played so winningly by Mr. Jackson that the Dawson’s Creek writers room had to actually throw out their plans for the whole series - you know, the show pitched and sold on a love story between the titular Dawson and his childhood best friend Josephine (Joey) Potter - and instead lean into the chemistry between Jackson and Katie Holmes, making Pacey and Joey one of the most iconic love stories in teen drama history.
Listen. Dawson’s Creek is not a show that I recommend rewatching because it does NOT hold up. Even just searching for clips for this post - hoo boy, I had forgotten how overwrought and flowery all the dialogue in this show was. Which perhaps makes what Jackson was able to do with Pacey even more impressive.
Pacey. Who bought Joey a wall. Who remembered everything. Who did, perhaps, ruin real-life boyfriends for girls everywhere.
I, too, would have thrown caution to the wind to run away on a sailboat with him the summer before my senior year of high school.
Dawson’s writers tried their best to keep the Joey-Pacey-Dawson love triangle going through the show’s entire run, but it was obvious to everyone that there was no way Pacey WOULDN’T get the girl. Jackson was so good at being a TV boyfriend that he stole the girl out from under the show’s title character . . . that’s a talent.
Jackson hasn’t been missing since his Capeside days - he was very good (and also very swoon-worthy) on the excellent sci-fi show Fringe in the 2010s, and has done some limited series work in the past decade. But Doctor Odyssey is putting his charm front and center, and I am extremely seated for it. (I have SO MUCH to say about the ridiculousness of that show that I am considering doing some old-school long-form recaps of it - or at least of the pilot - for this substack. Because, you guys. It is crazy and so stupid. And it made me so, so happy.)
Ultimately, I have to say: elder millennials, we did extremely well when we fell for Adam Brody and Joshua Jackson. Their charm remains off the charts, they have only gotten better looking with age, and they are here to remind us that even in our forties, we deserve a good TV boyfriend.
Channel Surfing
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it at all yet, but: Nobody Wants This. It’s good! I have now watched it twice.
Remember when Grey’s Anatomy spent a whole season building to Meredith’s “last episode” and then Meredith . . . never left? Why is she still here? While we’re on the topic, why is stupid Owen still here? Why am I still watching Grey’s Anatomy?
This is just me bragging, but I have hit my reading goal for the year! I used to read 30 books a year without breaking a sweat, but since I went through some major life upheaval in 2021 (I know, who among us didn’t?), I haven’t been able to clear more than 15. This weekend, though, I finished my 20th book in 2024, and I have to say that I do feel so much more like myself when I am reading regularly.
Too many performers that I greatly admired have passed recently, but the news on Monday of Broadway star Gavin Creel dying of a rare brain cancer at the age of 48 made me incredibly, incredibly sad. He was a huge talent, was incredibly beloved by the New York theater community, and it seems surreal that we’ll never see him on stage again. I found the obituary from People especially moving.