I have a friend who's been trying to get me to watch Veronica Mars
for more than a year. It's not that I objected to the idea, but I was a
tad wary of the possibility of adding yet another show to my list of
obsessions, and anyway I figured it would be more fun to watch the show
with him. I finally got my chance last month when he cane back to town
for an extended stay. By this time, he'd hooked his sister, and the
three of us sat down to watch the show together. I was entertained but
not enraptured, and my lack of outward enthusiasm led them to suspect
they were forcing the show on me; I was hooked enough, however, that I
objected and insisted I really did want to see the rest of the season.
Last week, I finished it. Do I have another obsession to deal with? Nah.
But I would like to watch the last two seasons...
Until the merger, Veronica Mars
aired on UPN, which I tend to think of as the WB's older brother. So
when I sat down to watch this show, I couldn't help but compare it with Smallville,
which is similar in many ways but rather less edgy. Veronica (Kristen
Bell) reminds me a great deal of Chloe, the dangerously inquisitive high
school journalist who manages to crack most of the mysteries in her
little town, with plenty of help from a long list of contacts. Like
Chloe, she's gutsy and snarky; she lives alone with her father after her
train wreck of a mother takes off; there are certain mysteries she's
especially obsessed with solving... She even looks like Chloe with her
shoulder-length blond hair. Moreover, she pals around with good-natured,
indispensable Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), who's practically a
dead ringer for Pete Ross, right down to my suspicion that he has an
unrequited crush on Veronica. Toss in the Luthor-like dynamic between
smart-alecky rich kid Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) and his movie star
father Aaron (Harry Hamlin) and this show is only a few cornfields and
super-powered teenagers short of a small town in Kansas.
In
the pilot episode, we're introduced to the three major mysteries that
will preoccupy our heroine throughout the season. 1) Where is her mom?
2) What happened the night of the party that ended with her waking up
half-clothed in a strange bed? 3) Who really murdered her best friend
Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried)? She pursues the first two questions
quietly and occasionally, focusing most of her attention on the third,
because of which a man's life hangs in the balance, to say nothing of
her father's reputation. Keith Mars (Enrico Colatoni) used to be the
sheriff of Neptune, California, but when he went after Lilly's
influential parents following her death, he was forced out of office.
Now he runs a private practice with his sleuthing daughter, with whom he
enjoys a chummy relationship. While he tries to keep her from getting
in too far over her head, he recognizes that Veronica is a very clever
and determined young lady, so he generally gives her a pretty loose
rein.
Wallace, a newcomer to Neptune who meets Veronica when
she rescues him from humiliation on his first day of school, is
subsequently willing to put himself on the line for her, and there are
many scenes of them enjoying lunch together in the sun-drenched
cafeteria outside the school, plotting another covert activity. Oddly
enough, another of Veronica's good buddies is Eli "Weevil" Navarro
(Francis Capra), the gang leader who antagonized Wallace. Weevil's a
tough guy, but deep down he's a softie, and he too owes Veronica after
she clears his name when he is wrongfully sent to prison, so he often
lends a hand when Veronica needs it. Also firmly in her camp, though not
seen quite as often, is Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie (Tina Majorino), an
off-beat computer whiz who evidently plays a larger role in later
seasons.
And what would a teen drama be without a little
romance? Although prior to the beginning of the show, Veronica only had
one boyfriend - Lilly's brother Duncan (Teddy Dunn), who dumped her
without explanation shortly before his sister's death - she manages to
have three major romantic relationships in her junior year of high
school. The first and shortest-lived of these is with Troy Vandegraff
(Aaron Ashmore), a friend of Duncan's who seems like a great guy but
appears to be hiding something. Later, she falls for Leo D'Amato (Max
Greenfield), a sweetheart of a cop who provides a refreshing contrast to
the corrupt Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney), but that relationship is
compromised with the advent of ardent affections from a surprising
source.
The cast is solid, with the notable exception of Dunn,
who wanders lifelessly through nearly every scene. Keith is probably my
favorite character, a doting father with a fantastic sense of humor,
childlike enthusiasm and an unconventional way of getting his job done.
Wallace and Leo are instantly lovable, while Weevil and Logan are sweet
underneath a carefully constructed exterior. The latter is an especially
fun character, always ready with a smirk and a biting remark, and has
further to go than Weevil when it comes to being a decent guy, but he
steps up to the challenge impressively a couple of times. Mac is an
intelligent outsider who has much more in common with Veronica than
Lilly ever did; Veronica herself is nearly always likable, with a strong
sense of morality and loyalty to her friends and parents, though she
sometimes stoops to dubious methods to extract information. Among the
more minor players, I'm especially fond of cynical lawyer Cliff
McCormack (Daran Norris), who often assists Veronica in her endeavors,
and perpetually exasperated principal Van Clemmons (Duane Daniels), who
skulks about the school with a hangdog expression, wanting the best for
his students but annoyed by Veronica's ability to outsmart him.
Joel Silver and Rob Thomas are the show's producers, with the latter
having a hand in writing all the episodes. It's well written, though the
dialogue veers much closer to R-rated territory than Smallville does. Like LOST,
it makes frequent use of flashbacks, but these are filmed in a fuzzy,
jarring way, and we never stay immersed in them very long. Otherwise,
the cinematography is pleasing enough, and while most of the music used
on the show is a little loud for my tastes, it fits the tone well. One
of my favorite aspects of the show is the episode titles, nearly all of
which are a pop culture reference, from Star Trek to Leave it to Beaver.
Like the first season of Smallville, which features a succession of new Kryptonite-infected terrors to defeat, the first season of Veronica Mars
is full of individual mysteries, but the season-long arc is
well-defined enough that watching individual episodes out of order is
likely to be confusing, and most of the questions are tied up nicely
enough by the end that this season could stand alone. That it doesn't
need to should be a comfort to fans who are mourning its spot on the
CW's fall lineup, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the
series. There might not be any meteors to contend with, but Mars is out
of this world!
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