Series Review: Veronica Mars

A few months back I posted a review of the first season of Veronica Mars. This will be more my thoughts on the full series. I found a great deal on these DVD's, and after months of Thom telling me what a great show this was, I gave in and got them. I am so not unhappy that I did.

Veronica Mars began on UPN and ended on The CW. That first turned me off. I don't like that channel. But hey, this show was by far the exception to the rule. The series was created by Rob Thomas (not the guy from Matchbox Twenty) and followed Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars. Mars is the daughter of former sheriff Keith Mars who has gone on to become a private investigator. Though still in high school, Veronica is a smart kid who helps her dad with many of his cases. She even begins to use what she's learned from him to follow her own leads and take on cases of her own. This is a plot that easily could have not worked. With the fictitious town of Neptune, where the show is set, basically being Beverly Hills, some show about rich kids and a smart, kind-of-outcast-but-not, PI girl really could have sucked. Just like a show about how a girl in high school that ends up being a super hero that slays vampires doesn't sound the best on paper. But much like Buffy, this series lies in its dialogue and character development.

One of the great things about the show is that even seemingly ancillary characters, sometimes even from previous seasons, end up returning and having pretty big plot points. That's what made the show succeed so well. Rather than having a lot of new characters always showing up and making the viewers try to figure them out, they pulled from an already introduced well of characters to advance stories. And for the most part keep the individuals true to themselves. The mousy kid from season one didn't grow a backbone and become an extrovert. He kind of grew a backbone and stayed fairly quiet and reserved. This philosophy made the characters seem more real and believable, which really helped keep you in the Veronica Mars world.

Another great point of this show was the overarching plots that would span entire seasons. On top of the episode to episode whodunit's you have a mystery that you're given clues to in almost every episode. These brilliantly written overarching plots took you through twists and turns within the story and cast even the most established characters as hero's or villains. No one was safe in the Veronica Mars world, and just like in real life, the show gave you reasons to love and to hate almost all of it's inhabitants. The final episodes of the seasons tied up most of the plot points from the season long arch, usually ending in a place that you wouldn't expect.

A nice point that this show is on DVD now is the cliffhangers that end almost every episode. I can't tell you how many times I sat down to watch just one episode then head to bed, only to find that it's 5am and I'm forcing myself into bed, even though I really need to know what happened. The show just moves so fast, it really draws you in. One of my only complaints on the show happens right after UPN became The CW. The third season doesn't start great. It took me almost until mid-season to get back into the show. I know that The CW was pushing to have the show get away from the overarching plots and do more of the episode by episode stories, but I found myself for the first time watching the show not caring. They managed to bring me back, but it was kind of some crap for awhile there.

In 2007 Veronica Mars was put on permanent hiatus by The CW. Which is sad. There is so much tripe on TV right now. Most networks are going to almost exclusive reality/gameshow lineups, as the scripted show falls to the wayside. ABC just announced that it wants to bring the family comedy back. They're remiss they don't have a Rosanne or a Home Improvement anymore and want that. Well, good luck. Here was a show that had action, drama, comedy and mystery and was smartly written and acted, and it couldn't make it. Another show by an established name at FOX, Joss Whedon, is about to get buried in a Friday timeslot. That's right. The much anticipated Dollhouse will be flying to DVD shelves near you after getting canceled because no one watches TV on Friday nights. Good work FOX. With the bearshare of quality TV coming from cable channels like FX or pay channels like HBO, you can really see the dawn of the end of quality programing from the big four (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS). With smart shows being passed over for cheaper and easier to produce reality and gameshows the future looks bleak. Hopefully your pay stations and extend cable channels will keep hitting home runs with shows like Flight of the Conchords, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me. So let's look to the past to great shows like Veronica Mars. They may have ended well before their time, but with how inexpensive DVD boxed sets are becoming, we can relive the excitement that they had.