Do you love me? Or remotely trust my taste, based on what you've seen elsewhere on the site? Or want a new tv show to rock your world? WATCH VERONICA MARS. You won't be sorry, promise. (And, if you don't want to take my word for it, read reviews from the critics.)

Ever heard of Veronica Mars? Yeah, I hadn't either. But then I noticed that Television Without Pity had added it to their fall lineup, so I taped it and figured what the hell, I'll give it a shot. It's on Tuesdays at 9 on UPN (I KNOW!), and my Tuesday night tv had a vacancy because Buffy was over, so I tried it. When I got around to watching it a couple of days later, I was impressed and intrigued. I probably watched the pilot another couple times before the next Tuesday. So, I knew I was a fan, but as the season progressed, my love grew expontentially. As the season progressed and the mystery started falling into place, I could barely control myself. It got so FRICKIN good, I well nigh had a heart attack at some of the twists. The waiting in between seasons is KILLING ME, and in an effort not to spoil myself, I'm going to pimp the show as a coping mechanism.

What is it about? Yeah, this may take a while. It's not confusing, just hard to sum up. For anyone who didn't watch Buffy, hearing the premise -- a girl in high school is a vampire slayer -- would not alone explain everything that made the show kick so much ass. So, the premise? A girl in high school works as a private investigator. Much in the way that Buffy placed the horror genre in a high school setting, and found ways to give a new spin to the cliches, Veronica Mars does the same for noir/detective shows.

Lilly and Veronica, the day of the murder

The cast, the writing, the dialogue, the story -- are all awesome. I'll start with the story. The story revolves around a central mystery, the murder of Lilly Kane, who was Veronica's best friend. Veronica's father, Keith, was the sheriff, and in the course of the investigation, became convinced that Lilly's father, Jake Kane, was somehow involved. Jake Kane is a very powerful, beloved man, and public sympathy is with the grieving father, and Keith gets booted out of office. Sometime later, a man confesses to Lilly's murder and is put in jail, but Veronica is convinced there's more to it and keeps investigating. So, there's that. But the fallout from Lilly's death and the surrounding investigation is much more extensive.

Veronica had been dating Lilly's brother, Duncan, but he breaks it off around the time of the murder. Veronica's mother can't deal with the loss of status and all the scandal surrounding the Mars family, and she leaves. Veronica, once part of the in-crowd, is now an outcast. A virgin, she is roofied and raped at a party. She finds she now has a reputation for being a slut at school. Lilly's boyfriend and Duncan's best friend, Logan Echolls, enraged by how the investigation was hurting the Kane family, takes it upon himself to remind her at every opportunity that she is ostracized, and basically torments her as a hobby.

Duncan and Veronica in happier times

Logan and Lilly

And all of that we learn happens before the events in the FIRST EPISODE. Whew! It's a whole lot of set up, but there's plenty of payoff. Veronica's mission in life is to find out what really happened to Lilly, and find her mother, to figure out what happened to her at that party and payback everyone who has made her life hell. Her dad set up a private investigation business, and she works for and with her dad as a PI.

A given episode usually has a mystery of the week (a case for the PI business or something going on at school), which are usually good, but not really the driving force of the show. It's Veronica's situation at school and her looking into the Lilly Kane case that are the heart of the show. She's very close with her dad, and the family dynamic is one of the show's anchors. It's not like I didn't love Twin Peaks or The X-Files, because I did, I really did, but after a point the shows' creators were just making shit up, and it made NO GODDAMN SENSE. So I can't tell you how awesome it is to watch a show that cares about continuity and arced the story before it began, and to know that there is a plan, and the plan is GOOD. It's a joy to watch Veronica put the pieces together. Little by little, things fall into place. The story advances. It is worth it to pay attention to the details, because they all fit together! It makes me HAPPY.

More coming over the summer, to pass the time between seasons, but here are some pretty pictures, courtesy of:

Veronica Mars

Logan Echolls

Duncan Kane

Lilly Kane

Wallace Fennel

Weevil

Seriously, y'all? Veronica Mars is kind of my hero. Smart, strong, ruthless, vengeful, just, crafty, sad, emotionally compartmentalized, witty, fearless, independent, vulnerable, rash, disillusioned, bitter, and morally ambiguous. She doesn't take shit from anyone. Kristen Bell is note-perfect in her portrayal of Veronica. I cannot praise her enough. Her line readings are so damn good, and she'll take you from laughter to tears within a scene. There aren't many characters like Veronica on tv, much less female characters, and MUCH, MUCH LESS teenage girls. There's been some discussion on TWoP's boards about how, essentially, Veronica is a teenage girl equivalent of a typical (male) dashing rogue. The morally ambiguous charismatic liar who gets away with stuff, solely because (s)he charms you. She's wrong sometimes. She does unethical things in the course of her PI work. And the audience loves her. Part of why is because of how the show lays down the groundwork showing how Veronica got to be this way, and how far she has come from the naive girl she used to be.

Weevil and Logan

Duncan

Veronica and Logan

One of the best things about the show is the writing, and how the characters get fleshed out over time. After just a few episodes, you feel like you know these characters. One of the most compelling, in my opinion, is Logan Echolls. Described by Veronica in the pilot episode as the school's "obligatory psychotic jackass," I hated Logan in the first episodes, but I loved to hate him. Bitingly sarcastic, Veronica is the frequent subject of his wrath. As the season progresses, though, Jason Dohring--the incredibly talented actor playing Logan--brings depth and pathos to a character who by any reasonable estimate is a giant asshole. Impulsive, brash, rude, tortured, unstable, loyal, and volatile watching Logan is often painful but always fascinating. Doesn't hurt, to quote Couch Baron, that he got a whopping roll of the charisma die, either. I claim dibs on Jason Dohring, for the record.