Meme question 3: Veronica Mars

kass asked: Reminisce about Veronica Mars (the show, not the character -- though you can talk about the character too!) and tell me what you love about it?

Oh man, I loooove Veronica Mars, the show and the character. I actually contributed a fair amount of money to the Kickstarter campaign for the movie, because I love it so much. Yeah, the third season is kinda sad, and the second season isn't as good as the first, but honestly, I don't care. Even the less than wonderful stuff was still better than pretty much anything else on TV at the time. And how many shows are there with a spunky girl detective who can take care of herself and who has a loving relationship with her father and who has a male best friend? Not a ton of them, for sure.

Veronica is who I wish I could have been. She's nearly fearless, and when her courage is strongest is not when she herself is threatened but when someone she cares about is. I loved her friendship with Wallace and with Mac, and especially with Weevil. It takes a lot for me to care about a character like Logan, and in that first season, the way they turned the story around into Logan and Veronica falling for each other as he slowly revealed a better human being underneath his horrible exterior, really wowed me.

I think that's why I was dissatisfied with subsequent seasons, because the way they drew us in to that relationship was so masterful, that the on again off again that happened later was not as interesting. But honestly, I always wished she would get together with Weevil anyway, I always felt like he was the one person who seemed to be most on her wavelength.

Although, you know, not having her with anyone would have been fine by me. If I could change one thing about the show, it would have been the coupling -- I don't think it's always necessary to have relationshippy things in a series, and I always kind of felt like that might have helped a lot of what was less successful in the second season and the third. Because Veronica on her own, solving crimes, interacting with her dad, being friends with awesome people like Wallace, Mac, and Weevil...well, it was all just grand, and really could have been enough. (I realize of course all the Veronica/Logan folks would strongly disagree, but sometimes I get sort of weary.) So many clever lines, so many clever put-downs, so many clever cases she solved. I don't know that we necessarily needed more than that (and I don't even want to get into the whole thing with Piz in S3).

Who wouldn't want Veronica as their best friend? That's what was so great about the setup of the first season -- all of us in the audience, of course, knew that Veronica was the best ever, but so many people in her school treated her like dirt. That conflict drew us to her as a character, made her story so compelling. And then you throw in the issues surrounding her father and his fall from grace and you get a perfect storyline that viewers can rally around. We needed to see Veronica and Keith solve Lily's murder, to take on those small cases that turned into something bigger. We wanted to root for them against all the dickheads in their town who couldn't see how amazing they were. I always love those kinds of stories, the misbegotten ragtag heroes (especially ones who had fallen out of favor) who are so clearly better than the people who think they're above them.

I also loved the adult relationships -- Keith and Wallace's mom, for instance, was delightful, and the way they handled Veronica's mother and the possible parentage issue was quite well-done and compelling. It's often hard for a show that focuses on young people to have believable adults, but they did that with grace most of the time.

I am truly excited for the upcoming movie. I know there will be a huge focus on the love triangle stuff, but that's not what I will be going to see it for. To me it's all about the brilliant, clever, witty Veronica solving a case with her friends and her dad, and if I get that, then I will be happy indeed.