The review:
Rob Thomas created Veronica Mars, and I will be forever thankful. This show has always been hard to sum up in a way that makes people want to watch it* and it’s also a show worthy of watching, especially if you care about young women coming of age.** The first season has the best season-long mystery, and it also quickly sets the foundation what’s to come including tense drama, funny quips, the best dad-daughter relationship on TV, excellent (and trying) friendships, the best bunch of side characters, and a first-name portmanteau that fans (aka Marshmallows***) are still invoking all these years later.
The verdict: Recommended
Cost: Currently streaming on Hulu, also available at your library and in DVD box sets****
Where watched: at home
Consider also watching:
- Veronica Mars Season 2
- Veronica Mars Season 3
- Veronica Mars (the movie)
- Veronica Mars Season 4
Further sentences:
*Unfortunately, Nancy Drew has cornered the market on the term “girl detective” which means when you mention Veronica is the daughter of a P.I. and is trying to figure out who killed her best friend, everyone immediately goes to a very 50s place. Whereas this is a darker, early-2000s place.
**Things we talk about now, that we didn’t when the show first aired in 2004: how the trauma Veronica experienced changed her, for good and bad.
***Fans are called Marshmallows because of a thing Veronica’s friend Wallace says in the first episode
****Because you get extras and also because it has the original opening to the pilot that was not aired, but is much better.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
UPN, the network that aired this show, was concerned during early episodes that viewers would confuse Teddy Dunn and Jason Dohring, who play Duncan and Logan. A color code was created where Dunn wore blues, and Dohring wore earth tones. The color code was maintained for the duration of the series.
(Fun fact: my coworker said she still never could keep them straight.)
