Veronica Mars
Created by Rob Thomas

VERONICA MARS is a seventeen year-old who helps her private eye dad solve cases on a new UPN drama that made its debut during the 2004-05 schedule. And despite my initial pessimism, believe it or not, it didn't totally suck. In fact, it's actually really quite entertaining and smart.

The show is set in the snooty seaside community of Neptune, California, where the rich and powerful more or less own the town, and would definitely prefer that their dirty little secrets remain secret. Imagine Peyton Place with beaches, and a lot of really good-looking teenagers.

Yep, that's right -- despite the promo spot's hints at "grit," Veronica Mars looked -- particularly at first glance -- suspiciously like a teen soap, along the lines of 90210 or Dawson's Creek, with just a dash of the detective genre tossed in for flavor. Precocious Veronica wants to be a detective just like dear old dad, who was the town's sheriff until a scandal forced him to resign. Helping out is fellow high school misfit Wallace Fennel and a gang known as the P.C.H. Bike Club Boys. Needless to say, clearing her father's name gets top priority in Veronica's book, though she'd also like to know who murdered Lilly Kane, her best friend and find out where her mother disappeared to.

I was torn about this one, at first. On the surface, it sounded dreadful, but damn if it didn't hook me. In fact, it's actually often very compelling, with a nice noirish (or at least noirish for television) aftertaste.The self-contained mini-mysteries (Who rigged the student elections? Who stole her friend's car?) are usually satisfyingly resolved, while the over-riding, season-length story arc regarding her mom's disappearance and Lilly's murder (and the season-end solution) was handled deftly, and wrapped up all the complicated red herrings and twisted familial relationships with the sort of emotional pay-off one usually expects of a Ross Macdonald novel.

Who knows? It might have turned a whole generation onto the detective genre. Or scared them away for life.

Despite its piss-poor ratings for the first season, UPN took a chance on a second season (the over-riding story arc this time had Veronica and her father delving into a tragic school bus "accident") and it slowly buut surely became that rarest of birds, a "cult favourite," successful enough to spawn a third season, which featured Veronica heading off to college.

Unfortunately, there are rumours that after three seasons, the show's going to be scrapped. So a Save Veronica Mars campaign has started.

UNDER OATH

• "Veronica Mars blows me away each week, with it's bittersweet endings that fit right into the P.I. formula."
  (Dave White)
  
  
• "Maybe I am a girly man, as my Governator Ahr-Nald might say, but I dig the Veronica Mars TV show. Tuesday nights me and my 16-year-old daughter Chelsea carve out some couch time and groove on this hip post deconstructionist Nancy Drew and her adventures in small town sleuthing. What makes this show work for me is not simply that its creator and exec producer, Rob thomas, draws on just enough of that Smallville by way of Dawson's Creek vibe to hook the youth, but the subterranean current flowing underneath the over-arching storyline comes straight from Ross Macdonald."
  (Gary Phillips, in Mystery Scene)

TELEVISION

• VERONICA MARS
  (2004, UPN)
  60-minute episodes
  Created by Rob Thomas
  Executive producers: Joel Silver, Rob Thomas
  Starring Kristen Bell as VERONICA MARS
  and Enrico Colantonias KEITH MARS
  With Percy Daggs III as Wallace Fennel
  Teddy Dunn as Duncan Kane
  Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls
  and Francis Capra as Weevil
  

• Season One...Buy the complete first season on DVD
• "Pilot" (September 22, 2004)
• "Credit Where Credit's Due" (September 28, 2004)
• "Meet John Smith" (October 12, 2004)
• "The Wrath of Con" (October 19, 2004)
• "You Think You Know Somebody" (October 26, 2004 )
• "Return of the Kane" (November 2, 2004)
• "The Girl Next Door" (November 9, 2004)
• "Like a Virgin" (November 23, 2004)
• "Drinking the Kool-Aid" (November 30, 2004)
• "An Echolls Family Christmas" (December 14, 2004)
• "Silence of the Lamb" (January 4 , 2005)
• "Clash of the Tritons" (January 11, 2005)
• "Lord of the Bling" (February 8, 2005)
• "Mars vs. Mars" (February 15, 2005)
• "Ruskie Business" (February 22, 2005)
• "Betty and Veronica" (March 29, 2005)
• "Kanes and Abel's" (April 5, 2005)
• "Weapons of Class Destruction" (April 12, 2005)
• "Hot Dogs" (April 19, 2005)
• "Tit for Tad" (April 26, 2005)
• "Up on the Roofie" (May 3, 2005)
• "Leave it to Beaver" (May 10, 2005)
  
  
• Season Two....Buy the complete second season on DVD
  
• "Normal is the Watchword" (September 28. 2005)
• "Driver Ed" (October 5, 2005)
• "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang" (October 12, 2005)
• "Green-Eyed Monster" (October 19, 2005)
• "Blast From the Past" (October 26, 2005)
• "Rat Saw God" (November 16, 2005)
• "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner" (November 16, 2005)
• "Ahoy Mateys!" (November 23, 2005) 27. 2- 5 2T7205 26 Oct 05
  28. 2- 6 2T7206 9 Nov 05 Rat Saw God
  29. 2- 7 2T7207 16 Nov 05 Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner
  30. 2- 8 2T7208 23 Nov 05 Ahoy, Mateys!
  28 Sep 05 Normal is the Watchword
  24. 2- 2 2T7202 5 Oct 05 Driver Ed
  25. 2- 3 2T7203 12 Oct 05 Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang
  26. 2- 4 2T7204 19 Oct 05 Green-Eyed Monster
  
• "My Mother, the Fiend" (November 30, 2005)
• "One Angry Veronica" (December 7, 2005)
  
• "Donut Run" (January 6, 2006)
• "Rashard and Wallace Go to White Castle" (February 1, 2006)
• "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough" (February 8, 2006)
• "Versatile Toppings" (March 15, 2006)
• "The Quick and the Wed" (March 22, 2006)
• "The Rapes of Graff" (March 29, 2006)
• "Plan B" (April 5, 2006)
• "I Am God" (April 11, 2006)
• "Nevermind the Buttocks" (April 18, 2006)
• "Look Who's Stalking" (April 25, 2006)
• "Happy Go Lucky" (May 2, 2006)
• "Not Pictured" (May 9, 2006)
  
  
• Season Three...Buy the complete third season on DVD
• "Welcome Wagon" (October 3, 2006)
• "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week" (October 10, 2006)
• "Witchita Linebacker" (October 17, 2006)
• "Charlie Don't Surf" (October 24, 2006)
• "President Evil" (October 31, 2006)
• "Hi, Infidelity" (November 7, 2006)
• "Of Vice and Men" (November 14, 2006)
• "Lord of the Pi's" (November 21, 2006)
• "Spit & Eggs28 November 28, 2006)
• "Show Me the Monkey" (January 23, 2007)
• "Poughkeepsie, Tramps & Thieves" (January 30, 2007)
• "There's Got to Be a Morning After Pill" (February 6, 2007)
• "Postgame Mortem" (February 13, 2007)
• "Mars, Bars" (February 20, 2007)
• "Papa's Cabin" (February 27, 2007)
• "Un-American Graffiti" (May 1, 2007)
  
• "Debasement Tapes" (May 8, 2007)
• "I Know What You'll Do Next Summer" (May 15, 2007)
• "Weevils Wobble But They Don't Go Down" (May 22, 2007)
• "The Bitch is Back" (May 29, 2007)

ALSO OF INTERTEST

• Thomas, Rob, editor, Neptune Noir (2007) ....Buy this book
  Collection of essays on the show, edited by its creator and executive producer, but evidently not authorized by the network.
  

RELATED LINKS

• Save Veronica Mars
  Unfortunately, after three seasons,the show's been scrapped. So a "Save the Show" campaign has started, complete with an on-line petition.
  
  
• Mars Investigations
  According to one of the creators of this site, "Veronica Mars is one of the best, if not the best, shows of this season. In an effort to help attract more people to the show, we decided to create a website to help introduce the show to new viewers... We share a common goal, our desire to see this show around for many seasons to come."
  
  
• The Temple of Veronica Mars
  A promising fan site.
  .
• UPN: Veronica Mars
  The official site.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Rachel Crane and Paul Guyot for the latest.