Veronica Mars was one of those incredibly well-written and intelligent television shows that, if there was any justice in the world, would still be on the air today. But, alas, it died after three seasons- and this makes me incredibly sad. The story of Veronica Mars, daughter to an ousted Sheriff turned PI, the show might be described as a sort of Nancy Drew for the 21st Century- but Nancy Drew could never be as cool, hip or have quite the punk-moxie-panache that Kristen Bell brings to the title role of the teen sleuth.
The format of the show is simple: for seasons 1 and 2 there's a big mystery (who killed Veronica's best friend in Season 1, who made the bus crash in Season 2) that takes most of the season to solve. Along the way, Veronica, being a chip off the old block does her teen sleuthing thing and solves 'cases of the week' while gathering clues about the big mystery she's trying to solve. For the first two seasons it worked brilliantly as a sort of combination between the über-serialization of shows like Lost and more stable, run of the mill, week-to-week episodic television. In Season 3, however, the show decides not to have one big mystery, but a couple of little ones- plus the case of the week format previously employed in prior seasons and that's when it becomes a bit of a mess.
Not necessarily a bad mess, just a bit of a mess. For a start, by season 3 Veronica has graduated high school and moved onto college- always a tricky transition for a television show and one that's very rarely successfully done. (OK, so I haven't seen every episode of 'Boy Meets World.' So sue me.) Secondly, and I think this may have a lot to do with the show's eventual demise: Veronica Mars was on UPN. Now, UPN has merged with the WB to form, as all the world knows: The CW. But it's still the small kid when it comes to competing with other networks- and when there were two networks instead of one, the UPN was certainly hard for me to find, which explains why I never saw this show when it was actually on television. I'm not saying that a different network might have treated this show better- in my experience, if a smart, hip television show survives at all, it's something of a miracle- but they doubled down and changed things up in the third season, not because the show wasn't attracting attention (it was a critical success) but because they just couldn't get enough people to find UPN on their dials to watch the thing. (Lack of ratings... :-( )
Which, as I've mentioned makes me sad: this is a brilliant piece of television. Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars and Enrico Colantoni as her father Keith Mars have a genuine chemistry as father and daughter that makes for an incredibly believable relationship pretty much like nothing I've ever seen outside Gilmore Girls. Veronica's ably backed up by her best friend Wallace (Percy Daggs III), on-again-off-again ally, the gangster Weevil (Francis Capra), hacker/computer genius Mac (Tina Majorino) and her initially competing duo of boyfriends Duncan Kane and Logan Echolls (played by Teddy Dunn and Jason Dohring respectively.) The show takes place in a rich soCal town with a brutal class divide, so not only do we see a social commentary on the inanity of high school class structure, but it's a larger commentary on the American class divide itself- which I found to be incredibly interesting. Rich kids get away with anything and everything, while the middle class and poor kids have to fend for themselves. Veronica usually succeeds at correcting that fundamental injustice whenever she can.
As previously mentioned, the third season gets a little strange: first, there's the introduction of new college buddies Parker (Julie Gonzalo) and the strangely named Piz (Chris Lowell.) The two characters seem to float in and out of the general plot, never really finding their feet- at least not until the end of the season when Piz and Veronica start dating. Oh and then there's the irritating matter of Veronica's on again off again thing with boyfriend Logan. Previously what seemed to be a somewhat maturing relationship degenerates into farce as they talk past each other and generally fight over somewhat silly things that could be, in my humble opinion, talked about instead of breaking up just like that. The third season isn't all that bad though: there's a brilliant guest appearance by Paul Rudd as a washed-up early 90s rocker in one of the final episodes and I have to say, for a final episode of a show- the last episode, which finds Veronica facing a very uncertain future left me wishing there was more to come.
Sadly, it wasn't to be. Show creator Rob Thomas pitched a Season 4 which had Veronica beginning a career at the FBI, which looked downright intriguing. Flash forwards in television are tricky at best, but I really think this one would have worked. But maybe I just wanted another season to watch too.
Overall: This show should still be on the air. Smart, funny, intelligent and a compulsively watchable piece of television.
No comments:
Post a Comment