Just after the turn of the century the old WB was one of the favorite networks in our household. Loads of shows that seemed bogus & cheesy on paper (vampire slayers, mother-daughter best friends, brain surgeon opening a family practice) ended up working amazingly well on the screen. Probably because they were writer-driven shows that had interesting points of view and created fun places to inhabit.
Veronica Mars was one of those type of shows, and it wasn’t even a WB show, but somehow made it on to UPN, which was only ever on our radar so that we could curse the perenially underperforming Enterprise. But Rob Thomas had an specific universe that he wanted his teenage girl detective (see how cheesy those words sound?) to inhabit, and Kristen Bell led a cast that played that world out to a T, which was why it really felt like a WB show. And was a natural to go to the WB’s postdecessor (new word!), The CW.
So Veronica had an all-time-great first season, a not-as-great second season, and a pretty good third season. But nobody could get past the premise and it never caught on beyond its cult. And, today, it was finally and officially canceled.
Ironically, this officially makes the CW more of a successor to UPN than the WB — a network that we can pretty much ignore.
But I’m not sad. Not because I won’t miss it, but because . . . well, after awhile, you just get inured to these sorts of things. It was kind of expected. It was almost canceled after the first season (which would have actually been best for its long-term reputation, turning it into another My So-Called Life or Freaks and Geeks), and again last year. This year, I invoked my Arrested Development rule: rather than worrying about whether or not it would live further, I just enjoy its life right now.
Besides, I’m not so sure that the proposed FBI years show, or as I called it, Veronica Mars: CSI would have been as great. I think that network pressures (the same pressures that kept them from using more of their great cast in every episode — resulting in unsettling character disappearances for weeks at a time) would have eventually force them to devolve it into a procedural. And not only do I hate procedurals, what made Veronica Mars so great was that it was always about more than the mysteries.
So catch ya later, Veronica Mars. I’ll be watching your final two episodes next week, knowing that your first season will go down as one of the all-time greats, and maybe it was amazing that you lasted as long as you did. May generations discover you out there on the long tail.
antecedent