Am I Watching The Same Veronica Mars?

Veronica Mars is halfway through its third season. For those of you unfortunate enough to have missed seeing it, you've definitely missed a treat. The show is primarily a whodunit mystery, with a large mystery arching through several episodes and a smaller, per-episode mystery to tide you over. The lead character and her friends are all teenagers. Seasons 1 & 2 were set in a high school; Season 3 takes place at the fictional Hearst College.

Yes, there are romantic elements. But those are only a bit of candy sprinkles on the donut that is the whole show.

So why do the CW promos make it seem as though I'm going to be tuning in to Days Of Our Detective's Lives? Urgh. It's so frustrating. I'm beginning to think the CW needs to find an alternate brand identity. They're one porch-swing conversation away from becoming the Massengill Network.


On a slightly related note, I have one musical suggestion for showrunners everywhere. I love this trend of including pop music to underscore the action. It works splendidly for Grey's and it's worked very well on other shows, too. But I would make one suggestion. Whenever you decide to use Leonard Cohen for your music of the week, please keep two things in mind:

1. Hallelujah is played out. Yes, it is one of my favourite songs. But I think we've now seen it used on just about every dramatic show under the sun. It's starting to lose its impact. Soon it'll be like Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now--more associated with products than with the moving lyrics of the original song.

2. Leonard Cohen is primarily a poet. 90% of the impact from his music comes from the lyrics. So if you're going to use Cohen to underscore the action of a show, it's probably best to do so underneath a montage or another wordless action sequence. During this week's VM I actually wished for Veronica and Logan to shut up so I could fully bask in A Thousand Kisses Deep. Not good, especially not for a scene with such important dialogue.