Ryan + Seth / (Dawson * Justin Timberlake) = Dan?

I know that people said this actor doesn't completely or accurately represent the Dan in the book. I haven't read the book but I won't ask anyone to elaborate because it might be more appropriate for another thread.

Regardless, I've always loved Penn Badgley despite what stupid movie or show he was attached to. He's a good actor and has an innocent demeanor. Plus, he's cute. Dan also seems to be one of the more interesting characters on the series that isn't a woman.

ETA: Divided by Dawson times Justin Timberlake is a good thing right? I can't ever be sure because I actually like Justin (well I like the music and talent, not so much his personality).

IMO it's a very good thing. I like all four of those guys.

I think one issue might be that he doesn't look particularly "poetic" or brooding, which is fine by me. I get enough of that from Justin-Bobby.

One reason I was looking forward to this show was Penn Badgely. I loved Bedford Diaries and John Tucker Must Die and am willing to see past and book Dan/show Dan irregularities because of it.

Oh yay! Me too - I didn't think there were any Dawson or Justin Timberlake fans left.



For me, these two words work very well in books but don't always translate so successfully on television. Sometimes writers let those characteristics veer into dull or passive territory. So I'm thinking it's a positive change.

Thanks for explaining in a way that doesn't spoil anything!

Penn is the best part of this show, by far. But I think the character of Dan is nothing like the book - and I'm not sure how much I like that so far either.

As long as they never show him wearing combat boots on the beach, I'll be cool with the show.

I've never read the books. While I initially was interested in the show because KB is the narrator, I will most certainly be watching because of Penn Badgley. He was the only reason I watched the crapfest that was The Mountain. Okay, Oliver Hudson was pretty too. But Penn Badgley could (and can) act.

I just read that Penn was born in November 1986...which means the big 2-1 is coming upon him!

In my own personal fantasy, I'm taking the dude out to funnel some beer and do double-shots of vodka before we mess around in the back of his car. ;-)

Nah seriously though, I've liked this guy since he was on that show, Do Over.

I liked the whole protective older brother thing he brought.

I liked how he was a protective brother, too. It was sweet and endearing, and I am excited to see how their relationship plays out as their characters change throughout time.. like when Jenny starts to become part of the "in" crowd, and how he ends up adjusting to that, if they address anything like that in the show.


Anyways, he's not nerdy at all, so that's cool, he's different from Seth Cohen in that way.. he's just an outsider. Also, it was so weird to me how Chuck had to keep asking Dan his name, because you would think that everyone would know everyone in a small all-boys school that they had probably been attending for a majority of their lives. I can understand not being friends with each other, but you would think that Chuck would at least know who Dan was, or at least his name.

I think Chuck knew his name. To him though, anyone not in the group is probably persona non-grata to him.

I remember in an interview Penn Badgley said something about how he plays these kind of dorky characters, but he tries to make them cool, which I thought was obvious in the way he portrayed Dan. Maybe we just haven't seen enough of his character yet, but I'm finding it really hard to buy him as an artsy outsider like he's portrayed in the book (if that is in fact even what they're going for). He seems like just a normal guy, maybe even a little too cocky. That being said, I really do like Penn- I always thought Do Over was underrated!

I forget where I read this - it may have been here because it was very clever: Dan is like Seth Cohen, but with confidence in his uniqueness. And it actually works that he would be like that because a) having a character like Seth Cohen on the OC allowed real life people like Seth to be confident that they were not the only ones, hence Dan being okay with being different and b) Josh was bound to put a Seth Cohenesque character on the show since he identifies with it so well as opposed to anything else.

Penn's my favorite actor on this show next to Leighton Meester. I hope they do some interesting things with him.

After seeing the premiere, I think we need to throw some Pacey in here with the way Dan saved his sister and punched Chuck. That was total Pacey.

Agreed. He is the reason I decided to give this show a chance. I've been following him since The Mountain a couple of years ago. Hopefully this show is better than his last couple of TV ventures.

Yay, someone else who knows what Do Over is!

I loved that show, but I'm always a sucker for time travel. At least DO lasted longer than the ABC drama that was on the same year. I don't even remember who starred in that one, but I do remember Penn.

Dan is pretty good so far, although I'm surprised that they didn't show him drinking coffee at all. I can understand why CW wouldn't want to show him chain-smoking the whole time, but the coffee/cigarette addiction is a big thing in the books.

I also think that Penn Badgley is the hottest guy on the show so far. The actor they got for Nate just isn't as good looking as IMO he should be. I was watching the pilot with a couple of girls from my dorm, and one of them just kept saying "Dan is so fucking hot" over and over again. :)

I vote Dawson be replaced with Pacey. Then it's perfection.

Oh, I too have loved Penn since "Do Over." Le sigh...

I have to admit, I totally had slash fantasies about the lead of Do-Over and Penn. They seemed like they would have been such a cute young couple...

And no, I'm not a pedo. I'm only eleven months older than Penn Badgely, thank you.

I vote to have Pacey added in but not replace Dawson. Dawson was incredibly self aware (sometimes painfully so) and I sort of think Dan may be as well. We shall see.

I vote we talk about the character, which is the topic.

I'm really loving Dan in the show. I know a lot of people have been really dubious about how he's portrayed but I think his character works a lot better without him being a total angst-ridden existentialist. Realistically, his character would have no real romantic potential with Serena's character if they made him exactly as he was in the books. From what I've seen in the pilot, he's one of my favourite characters on the show. I just hope that they don't make him into Seth Cohen version 2.0.

Also, Penn Badgley is freaking hot!

Conversely I would be all about them making him Pacey 2.0.

And from what I've read on Wikipedia, I really hope he isn't like his book character, I'd like to see him have more of a chance with Serena.

OMG - He looks completely different from when he was on The Mountain. I really like his character and I love that his Cabbage Patch Doll was named Cedric.

Maybe this is already an unpopular opinion...but Dan is very 'blah' to me. The character isn't anything fresh, or interesting. People are doing the Seth Cohen comparisons, but I found Seth to be more self-depricating/funnier/actually had a personality, unlike Dan. I don't care if they make his character different from the books (in which he was so much of a charicature that it was hilarious, and I'm not sure how it would translate to the screen, though I would love to see it), just make his character SOMETHING. Please. Just my two cents.

So far, I love the character of Dan. I don't find him boring, I find that in a show filled with so much melodrama he adds a much needed shot of normalcy. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow more than anyone else on the show, probably because he is the least narrowly defined character so far.

Just saw 'The Wild Brunch'. Poor Dan! I wish things turned out for the better! I think it would've been awesome if he didn't care about what Serena had done in the past and rose above all the bitchiness to accept her. Of course, that means cutting the obligatory prolonged brooding short but it would've been an interesting step to his character.

I'm still liking Dan. Even though we don't really have a true sense of what Dan's character really is, as fashionista pointed out, I really like that about his character. All of the other characters have such defined roles in the TV show that he provides the necessary balance as just an average, almost anonymous guy. It makes the contrast between his world and that of the other kids so much more distinct.
Also, as much as I adored Seth Cohen, the 'Seth' character became so burdened with playing the role of the geeky, indie-kid that he pretty much just became a two-dimensional concept in the latter seasons of the show. I guess that's why I'm all for Dan's ambiguity. He's essentially a 'nobody' in the Gossip Girl 'verse and his interactions with its inhabitants gives him the opportunity to find out who he really is.

I didn't read his leaving the bruch as being strictly his feelings about Serena having slept with someone else. I thought he was pretty fed up with being brought to a ritsy brunch, then abandoned while Serena took off with someone else. He doesn't LIKE any of the other characters and isn't all that interested in their Drama.

Cedric the Cabbage Patch Kid is totally Dan's Captain Oats.

Oooh ooohh oooohhhhh!!! I saw Penn today around 5pm crossing Houston St. south onto Essex. He was with a bunch of really generic, gay looking hipster boys so I am sure they were headed to some awful place on Ludlow or Orchard. Surprisingly, since he is so freaking hot on TV, he is actually really plain in real life. I'm a little shocked at myself for even recognizing him. He is cute though, just rather bland. I would have said something to him ("Sorry about your ratings?" "Why does your character live in Williamsburg but the exterior of the building is in DUMBO?") but I was dying my hair and had a plastic shower cap on my head and purple dye dripping down my face, so I chose to keep walking. Maybe he hangs out in my neighborhood and I'll see him again... one never knows!

Something totally random...

Penn has the exact same birthdate as Nan Zhang, the actress playing Kati. I've always wanted to know someone with my exact birthdate but no such luck lol.

I love that Penn is artistically talented and a brainiac... he finished his hs equivalency at 14!

After yesterday's (or Tuesday's for us Canadians), I can say that I'm officially joining Dan's and Penn's Bandwagon. He's a really talented actor. Given the material he's got, he can be as funny in his deliveries as Season 1 Seth Cohen/Adam Brody.

He plays the sarcasm/irony so well, and he can play "the socially awkward" part (i.e. with Lily) as good as Adam/Seth. I was surprised, honestly. I didn't think he would be that good.



No offense, but ...

Does Dan have any friends at all? He seems like a cool guy. Yeah he doesn't have the money to fit in with the hoity toity snobs at school, but is it realistic that a teenager with Dan's looks, would have NOBODY to hang with other than his dad and sister? Give the dude *somebody* to hang with that isn't Serena. It's kinda...sad.

Well, we know Dan has a really good friend in Vanessa, who should be arriving this week or the next. I expect if Dan has friends, most of them will be outside of St. Jude.

As annoying as Dan's judgey-judgey assumptions about his classmates can be, I'm still enjoying his characterization. I think the chip on his shoulder is realistic, considering his situation. Blair was pretty awful to him (and unforgivably awful to Serena, from his POV), Chuck attempted to take advantage of his sister, and he probably did deserve that usher position over Nate even though he blew the interview. What makes Dan's characterization work for me is that the show isn't treating him like he's right. In fact, he's been consistently proven wrong about everyone except Chuck. When he made his speech about Blair being 95 pounds of girly evil, he was basically a stand-in for the audience, and we got to see how wrong we were together. (Although, most of us around here were already loving her because she is awesome.) I especially liked Serena telling him that they might have met and dated already if he wasn't such an anti-social tool.

The only thing I don't understand is why he's carried a torch for Serena all this time. Just because she smiled at him at a birthday party when they were freshman? I'm hoping the show will flashback to some of their interactions (or lack thereof) sometime in the near future.

Maybe Serena wrote (or stole) a poem about mermaids when she was 10 and used to feed her sandwich crusts to a skinny squirrel that got picked on by a fat, mean squirrel when she was in 3rd grade? And then, in a later ep, Dan will say something along the lines of how it's always been her & that she's undeniable...
Oh Josh, how I miss your departed show!

Dan has football sheets? Whaat? I didn't pick him to have jock-like taste in his bed linens..

Me either, but maybe Mommy Deserted bought the sheets when Dan was young (can't you just see her in the store - "Boys like football, right?"), and he just hasn't updated his manchester selections since then.

According to Blake on this little promo shown on The Tyra Banks Show, Penn Badgley had a pop single out when he was 11 called 'Be That Way'.
Me = want to hear.

Heeeee!

So, even though I'm completely protective of Blair to a ridiculous degree, I get so giddy whenever Dan tears into her. Do you think he dislikes her because she might have been mean to Vanessa? Or because she was born into the family she was? Or because he finds her bitchy? Or do you think she might have acted bitchy to him, which annoyed him to no end.

Dan's a bit obsessed with talking about her WHEN SHE'S NOT THERE and often when no one's talking about her, that I like to pretend that he had a small crush on her at some point and Vanessa either crushed his dreams or Blair crushed them personally. I can really see Dan taking something like that to heart.

"Hey, are you Blair--?"
"Out of my way, reject."

These two amuse me to no end, no doubt because Dan himself seems so adamant about his annoyance of her. I have no problem believing that he just doesn't like her, of course, but that's not as fun.

Haha. Is it wrong of me to really, really want to see a Blair/Dan relationship? Whenever I bring it up to my friends, they look at me as though I'm insane.

Oh no, I think a lot of people were into the Dan/Blair idea, it's been mentioned a few times. I was sort of for it until Blair/Chuck cropped up and stole the spotlight. But maybe in a season or two, somewhere down the road.

I find Dan likeable, and realistically annoying at times. I'm always half-and-half about him and Serena. Sometimes I find them cute and sometimes I'm just indifferent. The most recent episode was more to the cute side, simply because of when he went to the Palace to see Serena, he had such a devoted, in-love face, where he couldn't stop looking at her intensely. And she reciprocated in kind.

So I wouldn't mind him with either girls, except Vanessa, who will hopefully move back to Vermont.

I admit to hating him in the beginning and thought the actor was no great shakes, but now I find him amusing and at times brave, like when he confronted Cece, or when he punched Chuck, or threatened to punch Chuck -- again -- during that brunch (;

I'm not sold on a Dan & Blair relationship though and I don't see him constantly talking about her even when she is not the topic. Besides, Blair already has two love interests and I don't see what Dan has that would compel her to ditch Nate or Chuck, unless she got really mad at Serena and decided to steal Dan from her as revenge.

I'd rather not have Dan date Blair. Mostly because I prefer Dan to be untainted by the Waldorf manipulation machine. I love that Dan is so snarky about the UES folks. It's what makes him standout so much. It's also why I love his character so much. He has guts and I have no issue with people making fun of snobby rich people.

Behind their backs.

He seems to have no problem letting Serena, Blair, Chuck, Nate, Cece, and Lily know exactly how he feels.

-He gave Nate shit for getting the position at the Ivy Mixer
-Words with Chuck at the Rooftop and the Brunch
-Blair at the photoshoot, before the understanding...and everytime they are in each other presence
- Serena everyday
-Cece at the dance studio
-Lily: constantly

That's why I dig him. He has no filters, for better or worse

Well, you are right but to an extent. He does let them know how he feels, but only when he knows he has the upperhand--with Serena, she lets him; with Chuck--when he's being restraint or at his own party where he can't do anything about it to save face; with Blair--never except that rant about her to his father; Lily & Cece, again when he knows S has his back. I do admire him for when he asked S out to the ball in front of Cece and of course when he punched Chuck on the rooftop, but under most circumstances, his confrontations have been taunts when he knows the other person can't reciprocate fairly. He always takes cheap shots at Lily and Blair behind their backs to Serena, but when he talks to them, at even ground, he seems more like he has his tail caught between his legs and he whimpers and doesn't make direct eye contact (when Lily confronted him after he overhears her affair with Bass, when Blair messed with him on the phone when he called Serena in "Bad News"). I don't mind the latter because I think his character should be written as awkward and more introverted, but the "cheap" shots get a little immature and are self-defeating toward his character.

He does tend to have the moral high ground.

But compared to the kids in high society, he hasn't experienced as much pressure to deem himself more moral than they are. I feel like he's made Serena feel so bad about where she comes from that she's a total zombie around him and he kind of uses her as a shield while he stands up to those snobby rich people.

I think that's teh direction they're going, eventually they're break up will be that Serena's going to feel like she's the one constantly having to change in order to be with Dan.

Maybe I'm too anti-rich people, but he is by far the best character on this show. Yeah, he's judgmental. But, who here has never ragged on rich people. When you're not a part of that world, you tend to ridicule them especially when the world seems to think everyone should be like the UES'ers.

I'd be more sympathetic to Dan if his issues didn't just stem about his class status. He's an entitled douche to his parents too--I definitely see strands of Brandon Walsh in him.

I have no problem with his douchery to his mom - I personally can't stand her and think she deserves it.