Network: UPN/CW; Genera: Drama, Crime/Mystery; Content Rating: TV-14 (language, violence, sexual dialog, suggested sex and rape); Available: DVD; Perspective: Cult Classic (star range: 1 - 5);
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (3 seasons)
Who is Veronica Mars? Teen sleuth. Social outcast. Witty, pop culture savvy daughter to private investigator Keith Mars. The mystery that makes up the springboard season of "Veronica Mars" is an episodic puzzle involving the death of Veronica's friend, a false accusation, a disgraced sheriff and a famous veteran actor. If the idea of a mystery solving teenager sounds a bit like kid's stuff for you, the end of the first episode in which it is revealed that our heroine was ruffied and date rapped, should signal that this is far more than a 21st century Nancy Drew.
How do I love "Veronica Mars"? This is one of those shows I just eat up. Complex and detailed murder mysteries span entire seasons, building to show stopping finales (Season 1's "Leave It To Beaver", season 2's "Not Pictured" and season 3's "Spit & Eggs" are 3 of the best hours of TV I have seen). But I can watch each episode over and over with it's fast one-liners and cleverly woven pop culture references. Any show that routinely references "The Big Lebowski", "South Park" and "Battlestar Galactica" should get play from anyone. There is a satisfying richness to the dialog my ears haven't had the pleasure of hearing since "Sex and the City" left the air. It is pure joy.
One thing I love about it is that "Veronica Mars" exists in it's own fully realized, intricately detailed universe. The fictional affluent beach town of Neptune appears to have it's own language and town culture. From the zip-code birth rights of "the '09ers" to the secret society of the Tritans to the fraternity lore of Hearst College, it's easy to get lost in the show's epically spanning characters as well as it's original spins on typical high school cliques. Viewers might find it artificial that everyone in the town appears to speak in pithy one-liners and cult movie references, I on the other hand love this stuff.
I would be hard pressed to call "Mars" a comedy. It is clearly a murder mystery with all the drama that implies as well as exploring the numerous down-turns in Veronica's love life. Yet, it is so frequently laugh out loud funny. This is because the characters stand on their own, not necessarily at the mercy of the story or the tone of events around them, and they are funny, witty, sharp. "Mars" has an attention to character unheard of now thanks to the "CSI"-ing of TV, and not just character, but the authentically crafted relationships between them. Everybody in Veronica's universe has a different relationship with her: from best friend Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III) to the Q to Veronica's Bond, Mac (Tina Majorino) to piggish trust fund frat boy Dick Casablancas (Ryan Hansen) to on again off again boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring). But the driving force behind it all is the snappy back-and-forth of the Mars Investigates duo, one of the best representations of a single-father/only-child dynamic you will see on TV.
Kristen Bell carries the series effortlessly. There are so many lead characters on TV that don't deserve "their own show" - and then there is Veronica. Yes, Veronica has a wicked talent for "pixie spy magic", always able to crack mysteries that have left the towns bumbling sheriff baffled. Veronica is haunted by the death of her best friend, the abandoning of her mother, treated like a leaper in the community, used for her skills by the kid at school who couldn't care less about her. She's got the hubris to cheat on a class murder mystery assignment to show up the T.A., the paranoia to plant a tracer on her boyfriend's car, the exclusion from the in-crowd that has her routinely mocking all teenage institutions. Time after time she's the proverbial smart woman who makes bad choices. This is a juicy, one-of-a-kind, star-making role for Bell who deserves much better than the film and TV roles she has had to date since.
Critically praised, loved by a few, but pushed around by the UPN and CW who didn't quite know how to tap into it's brilliance for an audience who didn't know what to make of it, "Veronica Mars" never caught the audience it deserved. The show is a real reflection of high school and college experiences given a slight, purely cinematic exaggeration that makes it such bombastic pure entertainment. For example, when Veronica busts the arch villain, he'll tend to give a lengthy only-on-TV monologue about why he did it. If I have an quibble with the series at all it's with the Wallace/Veronica friendship. It is set up so well, the show's heart is in the right place, and yet Wallace and Veronica ultimately end up spending too little time together to really hit home any sweetness to their friendship.
Rob Thomas (who previously gave us the loved-by-me cult classic "Cupid") has put all the elements together here for an American TV masterpiece. It's funny, it's real, it's snappy, witty, breezy and robustly entertaining in a way that makes so many other shows look forced. You just have to see it.
* * * * * / 5
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (3 seasons)
Who is Veronica Mars? Teen sleuth. Social outcast. Witty, pop culture savvy daughter to private investigator Keith Mars. The mystery that makes up the springboard season of "Veronica Mars" is an episodic puzzle involving the death of Veronica's friend, a false accusation, a disgraced sheriff and a famous veteran actor. If the idea of a mystery solving teenager sounds a bit like kid's stuff for you, the end of the first episode in which it is revealed that our heroine was ruffied and date rapped, should signal that this is far more than a 21st century Nancy Drew.
How do I love "Veronica Mars"? This is one of those shows I just eat up. Complex and detailed murder mysteries span entire seasons, building to show stopping finales (Season 1's "Leave It To Beaver", season 2's "Not Pictured" and season 3's "Spit & Eggs" are 3 of the best hours of TV I have seen). But I can watch each episode over and over with it's fast one-liners and cleverly woven pop culture references. Any show that routinely references "The Big Lebowski", "South Park" and "Battlestar Galactica" should get play from anyone. There is a satisfying richness to the dialog my ears haven't had the pleasure of hearing since "Sex and the City" left the air. It is pure joy.
One thing I love about it is that "Veronica Mars" exists in it's own fully realized, intricately detailed universe. The fictional affluent beach town of Neptune appears to have it's own language and town culture. From the zip-code birth rights of "the '09ers" to the secret society of the Tritans to the fraternity lore of Hearst College, it's easy to get lost in the show's epically spanning characters as well as it's original spins on typical high school cliques. Viewers might find it artificial that everyone in the town appears to speak in pithy one-liners and cult movie references, I on the other hand love this stuff.
I would be hard pressed to call "Mars" a comedy. It is clearly a murder mystery with all the drama that implies as well as exploring the numerous down-turns in Veronica's love life. Yet, it is so frequently laugh out loud funny. This is because the characters stand on their own, not necessarily at the mercy of the story or the tone of events around them, and they are funny, witty, sharp. "Mars" has an attention to character unheard of now thanks to the "CSI"-ing of TV, and not just character, but the authentically crafted relationships between them. Everybody in Veronica's universe has a different relationship with her: from best friend Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III) to the Q to Veronica's Bond, Mac (Tina Majorino) to piggish trust fund frat boy Dick Casablancas (Ryan Hansen) to on again off again boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring). But the driving force behind it all is the snappy back-and-forth of the Mars Investigates duo, one of the best representations of a single-father/only-child dynamic you will see on TV.
Kristen Bell carries the series effortlessly. There are so many lead characters on TV that don't deserve "their own show" - and then there is Veronica. Yes, Veronica has a wicked talent for "pixie spy magic", always able to crack mysteries that have left the towns bumbling sheriff baffled. Veronica is haunted by the death of her best friend, the abandoning of her mother, treated like a leaper in the community, used for her skills by the kid at school who couldn't care less about her. She's got the hubris to cheat on a class murder mystery assignment to show up the T.A., the paranoia to plant a tracer on her boyfriend's car, the exclusion from the in-crowd that has her routinely mocking all teenage institutions. Time after time she's the proverbial smart woman who makes bad choices. This is a juicy, one-of-a-kind, star-making role for Bell who deserves much better than the film and TV roles she has had to date since.
Critically praised, loved by a few, but pushed around by the UPN and CW who didn't quite know how to tap into it's brilliance for an audience who didn't know what to make of it, "Veronica Mars" never caught the audience it deserved. The show is a real reflection of high school and college experiences given a slight, purely cinematic exaggeration that makes it such bombastic pure entertainment. For example, when Veronica busts the arch villain, he'll tend to give a lengthy only-on-TV monologue about why he did it. If I have an quibble with the series at all it's with the Wallace/Veronica friendship. It is set up so well, the show's heart is in the right place, and yet Wallace and Veronica ultimately end up spending too little time together to really hit home any sweetness to their friendship.
Rob Thomas (who previously gave us the loved-by-me cult classic "Cupid") has put all the elements together here for an American TV masterpiece. It's funny, it's real, it's snappy, witty, breezy and robustly entertaining in a way that makes so many other shows look forced. You just have to see it.
* * * * * / 5