Veronica Mars

_****½

Working for her private eye father, Veronica Mars grows ever-more determined to solve the mystery of who murdered her best friend Lilly and absolve the accused of the crime she knows he didn't commit.

I was late to the game when it came to watching Veronica Mars, catching it during the run of it's second season, and found myself unable to get into the story at the mid-point. Fortunately, after getting a hold of the DVDs, I managed to enjoy the close of the series, and have always since had a spot in my heart for the pint-sized blonde detective.

The relationship between Veronica (Kristen Bell) and her father Keither (Enrico Colantoni) is a pleasure to watch. The two actors have so much fantastic chemistry that it's completely believable that these two have known each other for as long as either cares to remember. The father-daughter dynamic on television is so often played uncomfortably tense and here it's made clear that these two absolutely love each other, even when one is furious with the other.

Bell's acting is phenomenal, especially in the moments after she's woken up at the party. As a character Veronica is charming, witty, dangerous, and heart-breaking, and she truly feels like a real person.

The characters in this series are sometimes a little too quick to horrible action; Veronica wastes not a moment to taze Felix (Brad Bufanda) despite the fact that he had not yet crossed the line between playful and threatening, and her dog was mere inches away from him, already attacking one of his cohorts, clearly prepared to defend Veronica should Felix step out of line. In the same vein, villainous Sherriff Lamb (Michael Muhney) is beyond awful when our protagonist comes to him with her rape, not only refusing to follow through with a rape kit, but berating and defaming her despite her youth.

I question the timeline of Veronica's abilities; she states that her mother left her eight months ago, and her father had still been between jobs at that point, so I'm not sure how conceivable it is that Ms. Mars has become such a fine detective in such a short amount of time, especially juggling school assignments and whatever personal time she might still have had.

The acting from this cast is excellent and is greatly enhanced by the chemistry these actors share; Bell and Percy Daggs (Wallace) play off of one another incredibly well, cementing the friendship that becomes central to the episode, and Jason Dohring's Logan is such an accurately loathsome depiction of the entitled teenage male that one can't help but have flashbacks to all the boys he reminds them of. Even the minor actors in this piece, such as Daran Norris' Cliff, shine despite appearing very little. The only exception in this episode is Lisa Thornhill as Celeste Kane, who, while understandably angry with the protagonist and her family, is something of a caricature.

Mark Piznarski directs the episode, and it's absolutely beautiful. The shots of Veronica in slow motion as everyone around her is sped up lends to the solitary lifestyle that she's been forced into, and the flashbacks are blown out so much that it's almost as though they're a dream no longer fully remembered. Piznarski skates a fine line between the distressing realities of Veronica's life and the surreality of what it used to be, and it works wonderfully.

Rob Thomas paints the world of Neptune in a harsh light with every imaginable force coming down on his protagonist to keep her complacent, but it's somehow completely believable. There is an insane amount of information that Thomas must convey in this first outing, and through the use of flashbacks and voice overs it is done masterfully. Voice-over narration can often be clunky and affected, but here it's almost as though Veronica herself is reminiscing on her life, years down the line, while writing her memoirs, and it's an organic extension of what the series is to become.

Kristen Bell is smart in her acting choices, and Rob Thomas is good in understanding the universe he has created. Veronica Mars is an intelligent series that was cancelled far-too-soon, and has mastered the idea that one door opens as another is closed, creating layers of mysteries that could have kept this series going well beyond it's expiry date. It's always good when a show works with you to make you think, and this is a prime example of that kind of show done right.

Veronica Mars is in the running to become the feature for Thursdays. The series ran from 2004 to 2007 on UPN and The CW with a total of 64 episodes.