'Veronica Mars': It's elementary, my dear CW.

Sometimes I wake up screaming. Why?  Here's some dialogue from the opening of Tuesday night's return of Veronica Mars to the CW:

Veronica: 8 a.m.? Shouldn't you be in a wetsuit somewhere?

Logan: Early poli sci.

Veronica: And you're actually going?

Logan: Yeah. I even bought this amazing pen that accents text in neon colors.

Veronica: Ah! A highlighter!

Logan: Lots of advancements since the last time I buckled down. How about you?

Veronica: Violence in Early Adolescence.

Logan: You're going to be autographing textbooks?

Witty, charming, clever -- and Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring doing their perfect Gen Y Nick-and-Nora routine. So why do I wake up screaming? Because the CW's recently wrapped "The Pussycat Dolls Presents: The Search for the Next Doll" consistently tallied higher ratings than my favorite noir co-ed detective -- and that's a big, bad sign that points to this being the last mini-season of Veronica Mars.

The most recent episode reflected some changes to suck in a new audience while giving a nod to longtime fans: It seems as though the big, season-long mystery story arc has been abandoned in favor of one-off whodunits each week.

For the oldtimers, this debut was more of an ensemble, with beloved characters who were marginalized last season -- Veronica's best guy pal, Wallace, the hilariously fratty and lecherous Dick -- back in the game.

And the show remains intriguingly political -- Tuesday's episode dealt with hate crime, interreligious dating, underage drinking and the war in Iraq -- without becoming preachy or movie of the weekish.(And still funny! Veronica: Your fly's open. Dick: I know. Party ritual.) This kind of deft writing -- the episode was scripted by Robert Hull -- should be encouraged, not whacked in favor of another         booty-shaking reality show.

C'mon CW, give depth a chance.

(Photo courtesy The CW)

Comments

[GML]

I agree 100%. Bring back Veronica Mars next year!

[Jen]

yeah, CW, give depth a chance!

[Larry McGillicuddy]

I have to say, as much as I love Veronica Mars, I wouldn't want them to bring it back if they're gonna keep screwing with the structure. I absolutely hate this new standalone format. And the new proposed format for next season sounds like they're just caving in to the CSI buzz.

This last episode was one of my least favorite of the entire season. The attempt to deal with issues like race relations and underage drinking was on the level of a 7th Heaven episode (with better acting certainly). The only thing I liked was the relationship stuff with Veronica, Piz, and Logan.

[KristenBellFanClub.com Save Veronica Mars]

Help Save Veronica Mars! We can't lose this incredible, witty, creative, empowering WONDERFUL fantastic show.

We have lots of things you can do to Save Veronica Mars at
http://www.kristenbellfanclub.com

[Ehkzu]

Veronica Mars was run opposite House, which attracted the same audience. Probably the suits at CW didn't realize that because they were thinking demographics instead of psychographics. The suits at CW should have run it against just about anything else except for Gray's. OTOH Pussycat Dolls aimed at a different audience than House (duh), so House didn't suck the oxygen out of PCD's room. You could say House killed Mars but that's not really true. The suits killed it with stoopic timeslotting that guaranteed it wouldn't make the numbers it deserved.

All the suits needed to do was to actually think about the shows instead of trying to run everything from a spreadsheet like they learned in MBA school..Then they would have put something like PCD opposte House as soon as House caught fire. Mostly the programming week is full of routine fluff, against which Mars would have done much better.

What would be waaay cool would be for folks in Hollywood to realize they could make a tidy profit off another season of Mars done straight to DVD or on a cable channel.

But really, TV shows often do so well on DVD if they're cult faves like Buffy and Mars--when will someone take the leap and start producing series for the DVD market? Let the networks stew in their own tedious juices....
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