You Can Call Her Anything You Like…

…but her name is Veronica Mars. That’s a riff on a line off of Elvis Costello’s “Veronica” (‘cause I can’t think of any other appropriate song with the name Veronica in it). Veronica and Logan are in costume for an '80s-themed party in the pic above, so no, they don't normally dress that way.

I just finished watching the first season, and I must say that I’m really digging this show right now. It’s kind of filling the void that Buffy and then Alias left, in that the title character’s an independent, intrepid young woman, but it doesn’t have the fantastical, end-of-the-world elements that those two previous shows smartly cultivated. Its contemporary high school setting allows for resonant and realistic storylines, with a Nancy Drew-ish twist. So yeah, it’s also world-shaking, but on a different level altogether.

Spunky and resourceful Miss Mars (Kristen Bell), 17-year-old assistant to her private investigator dad, takes on cases big and small, from proving the innocence of the wrongly accused, to solving secret admirers’ identities. Each of her cases has interesting personal repercussions, and re-acquaints her, and consequently, her viewers, with the good, bad and fugly characters from school and beyond. Veronica can be equally lost as the people she helps at certain times, but her persistence at getting the truth often get her incontestably good results. She’s become an unsung hero to some, and a socially unacceptable weirdo to others. She’s been called names and bad-mouthed, picked on by the cool kids, and so on, but she knows how to retaliate.

I can relate to her because she’s the inquisitive outsider, and the show reminds me that I didn’t really fit with the cliques back then. I wish though, that I was just as skilled in wisecracking retorts all those years ago. That’s how affecting the series has been for me; it brings you back to the times when you wish you were wise and had the snappy comeback for the jerk classmate or some snarkass teachers. For those who sometimes wish they could go back to school and do things differently, they’ll find the show quite appealing, escapist, and even cathartic.

Veronica is that special character, that cleverly written girl who only wishes that things were normal, but she doesn’t stand idly by when things get crazy. She gets to the bottom of things, peer acceptance be damned.