Arrested Development and Veronica Mars: 4 Years of Greatness

So what does a one hour drama grounded in reality and featuring a protagonist whose personality was forged in pain have to do with a half hour comedy involving some of the wackiest characters ever to grace the small screen? Surprisingly a lot, including insignificant details, witty writing, and even actors.

Let's start with each show's lifespan. Arrested Development premiered in the 2003-2004 television season, and Veronica Mars debuted the following year. This was a very important time for scripted television; reality television shows were starting to peak in their popularity (though they are far from gone four years later). Arrested was hailed as the comedy that would save the scripted sitcom. It was a single-camera documentary-style show without a laugh track that defied sitcom rules. The next year, another single-camera mockumentary appeared: The Office. That same year, Veronica was one of five new shows that restored the public's faith in dramas (the other four are LOST, Battlestar Galactica, House, and Desperate Housewives). Sadly, while these other four dramas and The Office all became critical and commercial successes, Arrested Development and Veronica Mars could never build the audiences required to stay on the air for very long.

Each show only lasted three seasons. Many of the reasons given for why each show couldn't build an audience, whether it be due to the highly serialized nature or unlikable characters (that one was lodged against Arrested), don't seem to hold up, since all five other shows were serialized, and Desperate Housewives' characters showed many of the same character traits that led to some people referring to the Bluths as "unlikeable" (one example is my mother; she loves DH, but can't stand AD due to the nature of most of the Bluths).

Sadly, we can only now wonder what would have happened if these shows had been more fortunate. So let's look at the other similarities. One of my favorite things about both shows was how the played with names. On Arrested, many of the side characters had some of the silliest names ever to grace the small screen. Names like Gene Parmesan, Cynthia Lightballoon, Bob Loblaw, J. Walter Weatherman, Annyong are intended to draw further attention to the fact that the people who inhabit the world of AD are not exactly sane or normal. Sometimes, the supporting players make the insane Bluths look downright functional.

Characters in Veronica Mars tend to get names that tie in with the episode's mystery or reflect on their characterization. For example, in one episode, the three important characters related to the mystery that week are named Rooks, Bishop, and Knight. In another, the perpetrator is named Gilbert T. Pardy, or Gil T. Pardy. Or take Tim Foyle, played by James Jordan, who acts as a foil for Veronica in the third season. Series creator Rob Thomas admits that the name was created when, in story pitching meetings. the writers wanted to create a foil character, and for a while, did not have a name for him. In scripts, they merely wrote "Foil", with every intention of giving him a non-clue name. But when someone said, "Tim Foyle", the writers thought it was too funny not to mention. Other name work in VM had to do with puns and coincidences, not unlike how names were dealt with in Arrested. Veronica MARS lived in NEPTUNE, and in Season 3, drove a SATURN (all names of Roman gods). At Neptune High, the secret society was called the Tritons (Triton was the son of Neptune), and at Hearst College, there was The Castle (William Randolph Hearst, the real-life analogue to Hearst College's fictional founder, built a castle in California). Hearst's granddaughter Patty Hearst even guest-starred in one episode and played a character named Selma (Simpsons fans know the joke here).

Both shows also used name games for episode titles. Nearly every episode of Veronica Mars was a pun on a book, film, or television show, including "Leave It To Beaver", "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang", "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week", "Lord of the Pi's", and "Ruskie Business". Meanwhile, many Arrested Development episodes had clever puns for titles, some of which were references like VM, some of which were puns on episode events, such as, "Pier Pressure", "Altar Egos", "The Immaculate Election", and "Prison Break-In", which had some amazing Prison Break references (my favorite involved a map on someone's body).

Both shows began referencing the other once they entered their second and third seasons. Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat, two AD regulars, showed up in the same episode of VM (but they sadly didn't have any scenes together; I was hoping that they would play lovers). A few weeks later, on Arrested, Cera's character asked Shawkat's character if she wanted to watch Veronica (the show title was bleeped, but we can hear "Ve(bleep)rs", and a subtitle "Reference to off-network teen detective show"). Unfortunately, these were in the third and final season of AD, and they were unable to have too many more references. In the third season of VM, a few more references were made, including Sheriff Lamb yelling "No touching!", a recurring line said to George Bluth, Sr. while in prison.

Both shows also dealt with the lead characters' fall from grace. The Bluths had all their accounts frozen in the pilot and became a public joke, while Veronica had to deal with her loss of status (among many other things) prior to the pilot. But what be the best similarity is how both have possible futures...

Arrested Development ended with a suggestion of a feature film, and Veronica Mars ended with the possibility of a fourth season as a retooled show. Sadly, the Veronica Mars: FBI show will probably only be seen on the third season DVD, and most likely, the film prediction at AD's end was probably nothing more than some fun by the writers, but still today, there are rumblings of both shows continuing. Numerous polls on the internet exist trying to get the AD film made, and cast members like Will Arnett have alluded to it in interviews. Meanwhile, rumors about a VM movie have started cropping up, along with talk about a comic book continuation, similar to the canonical Seasons 8 and 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, respectively.

I know that these may sound like pipe dreams, and they most likely are, but then again, one must only look at my early posts about Firefly and Serenity to remember that nothing is impossible...

Up next: His Dark Materials and their possessors...