Veronica Mars

The story of Veronica and her search for the truth in the spoiled and famous Nepture is far more compelling that your average UPN teen drama.

Real characters, complex situations and issues and topics beyond who is hooking up with whom. The detailed story arc might make it a bit challenging for new viewers to pick up the threads, but each episode stands alone.

Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars mixes, humour and pathos, into both complicated life and death issues and high school life. Just as Buffy was about more than surviving high school with a social life, Veronica Mars looks at real things with a sceptical eye and an ironic twist.

Veronica Mars is a fantastic show - the greatest since Twin Peaks. I feel very sorry for those who can't appreciate its incredible acting, suave and wry humor, amazingly detailed storytelling and hyper-complex characters. The massive amounts of angst and intensity among these high schoolers is the only unrealistic (or rather, surrealistic) aspect of the show, and it is forgiven because this is an superbly crafted exercise in stylized fiction and symbolism.

The names, for one thing - Neptune, Tritons, Mars -, are not only planetary, but mythological. Neptune is a cold, distant place, but reluctant gods of war inhabit it. Keith and Veronica Mars do not instigate war, but when others declare it on them, they prove supremely good at it.

The show represents one of those very rare couplings of a great concept, great writing and great directing with a remarkable actress who totally "gets" the whole complex atmosphere of it, and can act the part perfectly. Kristen Bell is an incredible actress (I, for instance, became aware of this show solely because I took an interest in Bell after seeing her tiny but impressively acted part in the movie Spartan); she has every conceivable facial expression completely nailed, and on top of that she is also fabulously gorgeous - all the more so because of her obvious intelligence.

Veronica Mars is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the two best American TV-shows I've ever seen, and my rating of it would be 9 or 10.

This show WILL go down in history as a timeless TV classic.

I loved this show more than anything. It may or may not have had influence on me going to school to be a private investigator for some time.

It addressed concepts so before it's time. Rape, victim shaming, sexual freedom, women's rights, alcoholism, abuse on many levels. It took every concept seriously.

It seems like high school drama but it really was well written, well acted and funny at times.

Best show.

Season One: 8/10

Themes: Mystery, High School, Drama, Private Detective, Crime, Suspense, Murder Investigation, Lies, Blackmail & Relationships.

Review: This show has some really interesting and compelling things going for it. The main character being a smart, sarcastic bad-ass being amongst the first of those things. It's very easy to root for her and get sucked in with her shenanigans. Then again, I did find some of those 'adventures' to be a bit more on the boring side; especially when they focused on a storyline only related to one specific episode, rather than the over-arching plot of the whole season. I just felt like sometimes the show lacked direction and tended to drag. It still managed to be pretty entertaining but I definitely had a preference for the episodes that tended to be a bit more meaningful for the general plot and the character's relations to each other.

Top three character: 1) Veronica Mars, 2) Logan Echolls and 3) Eli 'Weevil' Navarro.

The first two seasons of VM were my favorite two seasons of television ever. The writing was smart, the characters' interaction touchingly human, and the story lines fun (both the episodic and long arch story lines). It can be cerebral at times and laugh out loud funny others. I have watched the first three seasons back to back four times. I consider myself a true Marshmellow. These seasons were ahead of there time on so many issues. It is fun to watch the "before they were famous performances" of Amanda Seyfried, Tessa Thompson, Kristen Ritter, and Tina Majorino. Ken Marino slays the role of the slimy PI as does Darren Norris the role of dead pan smart-alec public defender. All the minor characters contribute to the overall enjoyable quality of the show VM's Dad, principal, the antagonists, the supporting crew are all great.

Season four was pure money grabbing garbage. Characters whose traits led you to watch the show week after week. (Yes, I used to set my DVR. I am old. I accept it) changed to fit a more female oriented demographic. Which is NUTS because what made the show great was empowerment without condescension and blatant pandering. Not shoving an agenda down the audiences' throat the made the underlying messages seasons 1-3 more potent.

So the first two seasons A+ Third season A-/B+ Fourth season F