Veronica Mars: Season 1

This honestly was not how I imagined I would spend a week of doing absolutely nothing. I had it in mind that I would be watching more TV, but at the beginning of the week I didn't have any wifi and I had borrowed this season from a friend I'm living with. And thus came the binge watch of Veronica Mars.

I had heard of Veronica Mars of course. Kristen Bell's breakout role, a neo noir about a high school girl working as a private investigator. It was something that I had heard really good things about it but could never find the reason to actually go out of my way to watch it. Well, as the circumstances I described above unfolded, I started it and ended up forcing myself to get through it so I can just move on with my life. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'll describe in a little bit.

Veronica Mars follows the title character who is your average high school girl... except that she's a private detective.

Right from the get go, Veronica paints herself as an outsider, a social outcast. But whats more is that she used to be a part of the popular crowd. That was until her best friend Lily (played by a very young Amanda Seyfried) is murdered, her father(played by Enricio Colantoni), the former Sheriff of the town, botches the investigation, and her and her boyfriend Duncan (played by Ted Dunn) breaks up with her.

Suddenly, Veronica is shamed as a slut, thrown out of any popular circles, her mother skips town, and is possibly drugged and raped at a party.

As you can see, this show is foaming over with high school drama and bullshit that you know I really can't stand. Its telling that the final season of this show was aired on the CW.

The mother fucking CW.

I've wrote a lot on the CW. You can read my DC TV rant, or my review of the Pilot of Arrow. But you might just get the picture if I just tell you that the CW is a horrible place where people think that just because you're pretty, you can act. Its not true. Just because you accentuate the stereotypes we all apparently saw in high school, doesn't mean that you're entertaining television.

And yet, the CW does not leave. One way or another I end up writing reviews of television shows from the CW and it might not cease quite yet. I still have to finish the 1st season of Arrow, and I may have promised my girlfriend I would start watching Vampire Diaries when I get back...

Now to be fair, the first two seasons of Veronica Mars were on the UPN network... I don't know what the UPN network was like back in the day its just a shame because this show does not feel like your run of the mill CW highschool bullshit.

The people in this show can act. I'm not saying they should win an Oscar (or an Emmy if we're being correct) but its entertaining and I don't feel patronized. I don't know why Veronica Mars was cancelled after the third season but my uninformed self blames the CW.

But enough about that. I say that this isn't like your typical CW show because while it has its highschool bullshit moments, the show has another side.

Along with being a high school student, Veronica works with her father as a private detective. A usual episode has about three threads to it. One is a job Veronica is doing for her friends in highschool, one is work Veronica is helping her father do as a private detective, and the third thread is more of a season wide thread. Something having to do with the murder of Lily Kane, her rape, or her mother.

The latter two are where things get really good for the show and it just gets interesting.

I have to give Kristen Bell credit. She has talent for making a petite blonde girl look at least a little bit intimidating. Veronica is smart, she's sassy, and she's just down right entertaining. From the very beginning, you feel for the experiences this character has gone through, but its not pity, its the persona she builds for herself that tries to make Veronica that strong independent woman that everyone wants to root for. She doesn't need to be popular, she doesn't need to be the most gorgeous, she's got her brains and her personality.

That being said, I don't always buy it.

There's a line near the beginning of the season where she's talking with Weevile (played by Francis Capra), the leader of a biker gang who is poor, has a criminal record, and just isn't in the popular circles as well. He says, you come down here and act like we're the same but at the end of the day, you're just like the other popular kids. You like to paint yourself as a loner, but you're really no different from them.

And that's not really developed that much. He has a point. Veronica, while cast out of popular circles and slut shamed, never seems to really have a problem working with all the people who say they hate her. Sure, Logan Echolls (played by Jason Dohring) and the other popular kids make fun of her but its really out of no context whatsoever. They're just assholes... because they're assholes.

I guess the idea is that her father was so set that Jake Kane, Duncan's father, killed Lily Kane, that Veronica chose her father over her friends and created herself as a social pariah...

I don't know, there isn't a lot of consistency with that line. Maybe its looking into the effects of peer pressure and high school drama and how people don't actually hate Veronica, they are just following the trends? I don't know.

Its also a matter of, as much as Kristen Bell wants to tell me that she's unpopular and nobody likes her... I just can't always buy it.

They have all these flashbacks to when Veronica was a part of the cool kids crowd and she's got her long hair and her trendy outfits, and then you look at her in the present day...

 I don't know. I just don't buy it all the time.

Kristen Bell is adorable. You'll see in the video I post at the end of this review. How can anybody not like her?

Quick side note: The way they make fun of her and all the unpopular kids is really, really funny. Not in its stuff I'm laughing at but more like who in gods name would tease someone like this?

For example: There's an episode where a girl accuses a teacher of sleeping with her. So she becomes unpopular. People start making fun of her. You want to know the way they do that? The way they make fun of her is sing Don't Stand Too Close To Me from The Police...

Anyway, I've gone on a long rant about Veronica, let's talk about other characters and the plot of the show.

The other characters are alright. For some reason I really like Enricio Colantoni. He was the main reason the show was intriguing to me in the first place. Honestly, him and Kristen Bell just steal the show. You've got Percy Daggs III, a new kid who becomes Veronica's best friend. You've got Duncan... Teddy Dunn is kind of a shitty actor honestly.

Francis Capra is fun... enough. He's not the greatest actor but he does fill a fun role. A part of private investigator story lines is that they tend to work with people that the law wouldn't usually work with. Now I think they really just gave Francis Capra a leather jacket and a motorcycle and suddenly he's suppose to be Mr. Badass, but what really could they do? It was a shot and it paid off... sorta.

The big kicker is Logan Echolls. From the beginning, Logan is described as a psychopath, a bully, an asshole. Now his family life is shown and its not exactly the best upbringing. But where the show got it right with making Veronica have a fucked up past but getting through it, I almost feel like I'm suppose to like Logan because I feel bad for him. And it doesn't really help that Jason Dohring isn't that great of an actor. Maybe its the script, and maybe he gets better in later seasons, but I had too many times where I wasn't impressed with Logan Echolls as a character. I think he gets slightly better as the show goes on and perhaps he got a lot better as they kept him around, but I wasn't really impressed with him overall.

The fun part about this show is all the cameos and early work this show provided for people who have really become successful since.

There's Kristen Bell of course, but Paris Hilton, Leighton Meester, (okay those weren't the best to start off with.) But Adam Scott, Amanda Seyfried, Alyson Hannigan, Tina Majorino, Aaron Ashmore.

Hell, Aaron freaking Paul had a guest role in this show, well before Breaking Bad.

I know this show isn't nearly as old as I'm making it out to be, but it is fun seeing a lot of these characters, and cameos, and guest appearances, and laughing to see where they are now. Some of them have been very successful... and some of them haven't. Its like watching old episodes of Law and Order. Every once in a while, you see an actor who was just starting out show up as a guest in the episode. Its a fun game of where's Waldo.

On top of that, its a fun ensemble. While not everyone is the greatest actor or actress, the whole of the show works well together and the characters really play off each other well.

But what about the story?

A lot of the show focuses on the investigation of the murder of Lily Kane. This murder is surrounded by lots and lots of different characters and suspects. All behind it theres a cover up, affairs, secrets, the works. As much as I've had my criticism of Amanda Seyfriend in the past, she's a great center point for the entire show. They lay it out in the first episode that everything fell apart for everyone after the murder of Lily Kane.

And then there's the Kane family and the secrets they have and you keep guessing every episode who could have done it. Now I just watched the finale of it about an hour ago and I'm still out on whether or not I think it was a good reveal.

It's something you won't expect, and yet it makes a lot of sense. Even watching this knowing they made a movie and seeing who is in that movie and deducting from who was in later seasons, I still had doubts on who it could have been.

And that's where the show gets really, really good.

I love the idea of Private Detectives. I think its a kind of old fashion idea, but whether its Phillip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Liam Neeson in A Walk Among The Tombstones, Casey Affleck in Gone Baby Gone, or Veronica Mars, Private Detectives have the potential to be one of the greatest TV/movie professions ever.

The investigating, the mystery, not just in Lily's murder but throughout the show is just good. Lukcily, this is the meat and potatoes of the show and it only gets better as the season goes on. The show gets bolder, showing more high profile cases. People are actually in danger, all culminating to the murder of Lily Kane.

Now is it as grisly and edgy as Gone Baby Gone or A Walk Among the Tombstones? Not at all. Even the episode where they go after a serial killer was a very mediocre episode and not really that great. The episode where someone is kidnapped and the father doesn't want to go to the police doesn't really amount to much.

But it is really interesting. And it kept me coming back for more. And that's the struggle I had with this show.

I would never want anybody, especially a guy, to think that he couldn't watch this show because the main character is a female. And I would hope that we've gotten to a point where that's not the case. However, the show is not exactly marketed to me as a guy.

I'm not saying guys can't watch a show like this. But it reminds me, in many ways, to the Nancy Drew novels. There is nothing saying guys can't read Nancy Drew novels. In fact guys should probably read Nancy Drew novels, and they would probably enjoy them.

But were Nancy Drew novels written for men?

In many ways Nancy Drew was written as a female counter part to The Hardy Boys.

Now I have read neither so a lot of this is based off of the cultural impact of both books and what I can deduct from both of them. To me there's not much of a problem with Nancy Drew written with girls in mind and The Hardy Boys written with boys in mind.

The problem I have is when people think that one cannot read the other one. Like I've said before, there's nothing wrong with boys reading Nancy Drew or watching Veronica Mars. The fact of the matter is, if you're going to watch it, and you're a guy, expect some "girly" elements to it. You're going to get your highschool bullshit, you're going to get your relationships that kind of convolute the plot a little bit. These are not necessarily things that only girls will enjoy, but by what has been created as a norm, these things are considered "girly".

On the same hand, you get a murder mystery, scandal, and fun dialogue that both men and women can enjoy.

I should really do a comparison between this and the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both had a little bit of the same problem. Its really interesting most of the time. The plot is intriguing that you just keep coming back and yet, for me, there was always something holding me back from saying this show is my shit and exactly what I'm looking for.

Maybe its the primetime content that doesn't allow the show to be edgier. Maybe its the acting, or maybe its stereotypes that subconsciously tell me I shouldn't be watching this show, its a girly show.

I don't think that's the case, mainly because the show is really good. I know that for a fact. And while I had my doubts about it and wondered if I should be watching something else, I had to binge watch it, as fast as I could. Mainly because I wanted to move onto something else, but I knew that would still have questions burning, like who killed Lily Kane, what are the answers to a lot of the secrets Veronica Mars handles so perfectly.

Is it a perfect show? No. But its pretty damn close. The show is entertaining, its fun, its got a great cast, a great heroine, and I won't be surprised if I track down the second season and binge watch that as well. I mean I have to finish the show before I review the movie... right?

Man it has been a while since I have reviewed an entire season of a show. I understand why, I haven't really had the time, for a long time to sit down and binge watch a television show. This was not a bad one to start off on.

That's my review of the first season of Veronica Mars. Have you watched it? Without spoilers (of the later seasons, or the movie) what did you think? Do you think its a show everyone should watch? Comment and Discuss Below!

I'll leave you with this. Like I said before, Kristen Bell is freaking adorable. Especially when she sees Sloths. Enjoy!