The List: #8 Veronica Mars

#8
Number of Seasons: 3
Years Active: 2004 - 2007
Networks: UPN, The CW

Veronica Mars, girl detective. It sounds stupid, I know. I know this because when I first heard the premise of Veronica Mars, I thought that it sounded like a terrible idea. But then I kept hearing good things about the series. In fact, the reviews claimed that this is the type of show that would seem like a guilty pleasure, but it is so good that it is just a pleasure, hardly a guilty one. And that is a correct statement; plainly stated, Veronica Mars was a pleasure to watch.

Ok, so Veronica is a teenager with detective skills, but Nancy Drew she ain't. Her father is the ex-sheriff of Neptune, CA and is currently an expert PI, and he has taught her a few tricks of the trade. But her desire to learn said tricks wasn't to indulge her cute fantasies or some such. She chose to learn from him in order to give herself tools to handle herself in life. She had a tough sophomore year of high school, wherein she changed from wide-eyed naive socialite to hardened, cynical counterculture outsider. After a series of horrible events, with the death of her best friend at the focal point, she lost her innocence (along with a few other things) and resolved to never be a victim again.

The series begins in her junior year, where she uses her newfound skills to help her classmates for a price as well as help herself stay ahead of the pack through bribery and blackmail. She tends to associate with the lower class of Neptune (there is no middle class, which leads to some strained relations between the haves and the have-nots), because of her prejudices towards the rich. Granted, a lot of them are not unfounded; like the town on Twin Peaks, there are few innocents in Neptune. Of course, this extends to the people in the lower class as well.

The first two seasons have a season-long mystery (due to network mandates, this format was changed for the final year) that guide the course of the story. Individual episodes tend to have a mystery of the week that takes up most of the plot each week, with a few clues and revelations about the big mystery popping up every now and then. But, like most of the series on this list, the character growth is as important, or perhaps moreso, than the plots, and this is something that is present in ever episode. The characters react to the situations that occur, and they change their behavior accordingly (the only character who is slightly resistant to this growth is Wallace, who never got the respect he deserved from the writers).

Like many shows that are a little too clever, Veronica Mars was canceled before its time. The bright side of this is that the show got three great seasons as opposed to one. In an effort to keep the show going, though, the creators changed the formula up for the third season, and even tried to move up their timetables for a fourth season that wasn't to be (basically, they were willing to jump ahead in time 4 or 5 years to do a story that was originally going to be for around Season 7). But as I said, we got three great years, so at least that's something.

Up next: #7...