A friend who works in the same building as I do loaned me her copy of "Veronica Mars- The Complete First Season". Although I heard and read many positive things about the series, for various reasons I never watched it during its original run.On Saturday, I watched the pilot episode. I am happy to say that it exceeded my expectations. On the back of the DVD set's coverbox, "Veronica Mars" is described as a little bit Buffy... a little bit Bogart... with a dash of Nancy Drew. With an underlying theme of teen alienation and featuring a heroine who is both sarcastic and resourceful, the description on the coverbox was right on the money.
Most shows take at least a few episodes to hit their stride. However, "Veronica Mars" gripped me right from the beginning. Through Veronica's narration and the use of flashbacks, we learn in the pilot how Veronica was once a member of her high school's in crowd. This all changed when someone close to her is murdered. In addition to the loss of her status at school, the ensuing events surrounding the murder also have negative repercussions on Veronica's home life and the career of her father.
Moonlighting as a private investigator, Veronica's life is anything but boring. In the pilot episode alone, Veronica (played by Kristen Bell) helps and eventually befriends new kid Wallace (Percy Daggs III), gets payback against the town sheriff, and faces down the local motorcycle gang. Early in the pilot, Veronica's private investigator father Keith (Enrico Colantoni) cautions her to take backup when she does surveillance work on the town's richest citizen. In the scene where Veronica runs into the motorcycle gang (who she encounters while on surveillance), we learn exactly what her father meant by backup.
Because we are in the midst of football season and the MLB playoffs, I have only been able to watch just the pilot episode of "Veronica Mars" so far. However, I cannot wait to finish the remaining episodes of the DVD set to see how the murder mystery gets resolved.
10 comments:
I tried watching this show when it was on the UPN network, but I kept forgeting when it came on. After watching about three shows I quit watching. Not because it was not a good show, it is well written and has a good premiss. I think it moved to the WB last year along with "Girlfriends". It was among the only shows that network television deemed salvagable after UPN folded.
Veronica Mars is one of the few teen shows (actually, it's the only one) that I have liked, recently. It's crisply written, and stingily divulges its mythology. Hope you enjoy the DVD.
I haven't heard much about that show, it'll be interesting to see how it does.
HI Malcolm
I've never seen this show and have hardly heard anything about it, but your description makes me want to check it out....I wonder if they rent this show at Blockbuster....
Pjazzy: In a way, I am sort of glad that I didn't watch it during its original run. The pre-emptions, schedule shuffling would have frustrated the hell out of me.
X. Dell: I think that one thing that may have hurt the show is that people who never watched it thought that it was a show strictly for teens. That's another similarity that it shares with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. There is more to both than meets the eye. I will most likely buy all 3 seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD.
Frigga: Unfortunately, Veronica Mars didn't do too well (it was cancelled earlier this year after 3 seasons). Some fans of the show may have been grateful that it aired on two of the less popular networks (UPN and then the CW). If it had aired on one of the big 4 networks, it probably wouldn't have survived its first season.
Jessica the Rock Chick: If Blockbuster doesn't have it, I'm pretty sure that it's available through NetFlix (although I'm not sure if you use them or not). If you do get a chance to watch Veronica Mars, please feel free to let me know what you think.
I live in the UK and it never got a proper airing over here - it was only available on satelitte and I don't have that. I got interested, not knowing anything about it, because of all the internet chatter. Everybody just seemed to be saying how good it was. So eventually I got round to downloading the pilot off the internet and groaned at the opening shot of a panararmic view of a high school. I thought; chick flick teen TV.
Today is special for me because I am about to watch the very last episode ever made. I got through all season 1 and 2 and now, nearly season 3 as well. It is a fantastic series, brilliantly acted, produced and scripted, and Kristen Bell is one of those annoying people who is not only beautiful but also extremely talented.
She is very well supported by a first class cast as demonstrated by the fact that most of them have gone on to getting cast in other series as soon as this one was cancelled.
Don't miss it.
I've heard so many good things about that show but I never did watch it.
BTW my concert photos can be found on my flickr page on my blog
Stuart: Thanks for stopping by. I am really looking forward to seeing how the series wraps up.
Mistress of the Dark: There are probably a lot of people like you and I who heard good things about VM, but never checked it out. I guess one of the downsides of living in a 500+ channel universe is that there are way too many quality TV shows to follow. Another thing that I enjoy about TV shows on DVD is that I can watch the eps at my own pace.
Also, thanks for letting me know about the concert pics.
LOVE veronica mars! i rented the first 2 seasons from netflix, and then i bought them because i loved them so much. the 3rd season DVD comes out on october 23rd.
Karen: I finally got around to watching the 2nd episode on Sunday morning. It was the one with Paris Hilton. I loved the twists and turns in this show. Around the time that I wrote this post, I found out about the release date of the 3rd season. I probably won't be getting that until sometime next year. As for the 1st season, my goal is to watch all of the episodes within the next 3 weeks.
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