(Season 3, Episodes 1-3)
Well, I’ve done it. I’ve started the much-maligned third (and final) season of Veronica Mars. So far nothing has really offended me that much. Instead, it pretty much still feels like Veronica Mars, with one notable exception…
Why the hell did the producers feel it was necessary to mess with the theme song? I hate when show do this, and in this case it particularly bothered me, as I really loved the VM theme. In fact, I liked it so much, I went out and bought two albums by the Dandy Warhols. I suppose it’s not the end of the world, but the open title sequence could have been changed without taking the fun tune and turning it into some boring, run of the mill opener.
“Welcome Wagon”
Did I miss something at the end of last season? Did we ever find out about the Kane scholarship? I thought that Veronica was aiming to go to Stanford, and didn’t want to go to Hearst. Now, as the season opens she’s at Hearst and there’s no explanation?
As I was watching this episode I kept thinking how familiar Parker looked. I’m usually good at placing faces, but I had to head over to IMDb to find out that Julie Gonzalo was Maggie Decker on Eli Stone. She looks completely different with long blonde hair! Of course, the fact that she is playing a ditzy college freshman instead of a smart young lawyer didn’t help either.
This episode played out like just about any other case-of-the-week episode, with Veronica trying to find Piz’s stuff after it’s stolen. Aside from that, there was the death of Kendall and Keith’s adventure in the desert. I suppose it would have been too much to ask to get some more Charisma Carpenter in season three, but did the writers have to kill her off?
“My Big Fat Greek Rush Week”
I’m having a little trouble getting on board with this serial rape story line. If this sort of thing were happening in real life, the entire Greek system would be shut down in a second. The fact that there are still frats and sororities around, having big parties, whether they are supposed to or not, is a little hard for me to swallow.
I did enjoy this episode though, with Veronica going undercover in a sorority during rush week, trying to figure out if the group was involved with the rapes on campus. I really enjoyed watching Veronica fake getting drunker and drunker at the party until she ended up overplaying her hand and got sent home.
The B plot in this episode, with Wallace and Logan on separate sides of a prisoner/interrogator faux torture experiment was weak. It was a good opportunity for Logan to be a snarky wise ass, but otherwise it was pretty useless.
“Wichita Linebacker”
Hey, a Weevil sighting! I wish the writers would find a way to work all the characters into each episode. There aren’t that many on the show, but it seems like they only ever have four or five of the main players in each episode. I wonder if this had something to do with the budget of the show during this final season. I digress, but I enjoyed seeing Weevil working with Keith. I think that would have been a fun partnership this year, but alas. It was not meant to be.
This episode was pretty standard VM fun. I am a little excited that Ed Begley Jr is playing the Dean, because, really, my life just doesn’t have enough Ed Begley Jr in it. I hope that there is as much back and forth between Veronica and the Dean as there was between Veronica and principal Clemmons.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Aug 14, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
I’m totally with you with the opening credits change. I hate it! I think they were going for a more mature non-high school feel, but I prefer the old credits much better.
Unfortunately, the budget was a big issue in the 3rd season, so most of the main characters (except Veronica, Logan, and Keith) miss quite a few episodes.
As for Veronica going to Hearst, I think that we are led to believe that since she walked out on her final to see Aaron’s verdict, that she lost the scholarship. The bigger question for me is how did Dick, who didn’t even graduate, get into Hearst so easily? Summer school with his on-the-run father? That part didn’t make sense to me. And I do think killing Kendall was a little unnecessary to wrap up that story.
I’m glad to hear you don’t “hate” the season so far. I try to put it in perspective…a bad episode (or season) of Veronica Mars is still better than most of the crap that’s on TV right now.
There was an aside in a conversation between Veronica and Logan in the first episode of the season that mentioned that Dick’s dad made a call to the governor and got him into Hearst. Easy to miss though.
I did catch that, but it still seemed a little far fetched to me. I just hate that contrived “everyone goes to the same college” thing. But I guess there was no other way to get them all into Hearst. At least they didn’t make Weevil a student too! Though maybe if they did, he would have been used more….season 3 definitely suffers from lack of Weevil.
Definitely not enough Weevil. Not only do we see him less, he has next to no interactions with Logan. Maybe it was because they were no longer at high school with the city’s income gap being so evident, but I loved the racial jabs between those two. “Echols Family Christmas” is one of my favorites b/c they both dish it out pretty well.
And I think its funny to see that the criminology prof is the teacher from Saved by the Bell: The College Years
I think I read somewhere that the actor that played Weevil was sick. That’s why he isn’t seen much and why he got fatter looking over the hiatus.
Kendall’s death annoyed me to no end. She got barely any screen time then quickly killed off screen. The fact no one ever finds her body made me think it might become one of the mystery arcs, but then the CW made Thomas dump the mystery arcs, and then the show was canned. So we will never know and the Fitzpatricks run free in Neptune.
It’s odd. While I complain about S3, I didn’t mind the song change. I liked both versions and understood why they made the switch. However, while I liked the sorority undercover, it seemed odd that the writers went out of their way to distance Veronica from the feminists, while making them as stereotypical as possible. Considering how strong V is, it’d make sense they’d make friends. And, if the show debunks theories about stereotypical popular kids, why not about other groups as well. It felt like Thomas was trying to say – ‘sure, she’s strong, but, don’t worry, she isn’t strong in that way’
This last season is weak compare to the first two seasons (and i loved the season 2 mostly for the Logan/Weevil storyline) but stay still better than most of tv shows aired now..