"We Used To Be Friends" was always my least favourite of the Dandy Warhols' radio singles, but thanks to its use as the show's theme song, by the time Kristen Bell's Veronica Mars utters those lines about midway through this engrossing first season, "we used to be friends, a long time ago" - in the same rhythm as the song, no less - it carries a charge.
I knew that the show had a sizeable cult following and the concept of high school noir was intriguing (Brick being the only obvious predecessor in that sub-genre), plus Bell was appealingly waspy as Leslie Knope's Eagleton rival in Parks and Rec, so this seemed a likely prospect - and yes, it is very good!
As it turns out, high school is a good setting for a show about a (teen) private investigator - after all, to those living through it, the stakes are high and everything feels meaningful, and there's a ready cast of contrasting types and motivations, not to mention plenty of rules (there to be broken) and mystery. And Veronica Mars (people use her full name a lot) is a terrific character to have at the centre of events - smart, tough and hard-edged while also vulnerable and prone to kindness towards others, an outsider who used to be an insider, and convincingly all of those thing as a function of both personality and (traumatic) events - and while the figures in her orbit vary in interestingness, all are memorable even if only because of their archetypal nature. (I do like Logan; also likeable in a smaller role is Tina Majorino of Napoleon Dynamite fame as Veronica's IT specialist; Alyson Hannigan also flits through two or three episodes as Logan's flighty sister.)
Also notable: issues of class are foregrounded throughout, from the very first line; and it gets right the number of twists, and the balances between lightness and the darker elements, and the overall mystery (who killed Lilly Kane? ... which reminds me that Amanda Seyfried is also good in her many appearances in flashback) and the episode-by-episode investigations into which she's drawn by various schoomates).
I knew that the show had a sizeable cult following and the concept of high school noir was intriguing (Brick being the only obvious predecessor in that sub-genre), plus Bell was appealingly waspy as Leslie Knope's Eagleton rival in Parks and Rec, so this seemed a likely prospect - and yes, it is very good!
As it turns out, high school is a good setting for a show about a (teen) private investigator - after all, to those living through it, the stakes are high and everything feels meaningful, and there's a ready cast of contrasting types and motivations, not to mention plenty of rules (there to be broken) and mystery. And Veronica Mars (people use her full name a lot) is a terrific character to have at the centre of events - smart, tough and hard-edged while also vulnerable and prone to kindness towards others, an outsider who used to be an insider, and convincingly all of those thing as a function of both personality and (traumatic) events - and while the figures in her orbit vary in interestingness, all are memorable even if only because of their archetypal nature. (I do like Logan; also likeable in a smaller role is Tina Majorino of Napoleon Dynamite fame as Veronica's IT specialist; Alyson Hannigan also flits through two or three episodes as Logan's flighty sister.)
Also notable: issues of class are foregrounded throughout, from the very first line; and it gets right the number of twists, and the balances between lightness and the darker elements, and the overall mystery (who killed Lilly Kane? ... which reminds me that Amanda Seyfried is also good in her many appearances in flashback) and the episode-by-episode investigations into which she's drawn by various schoomates).
