For a series that’s built off ideas and concepts that have been recycled for years, iZombie is remarkably fresh and compelling.
I’ve always been wary of the term “canon”. It’s a word thrown around to grab the attention of desperate fans who will grasp at any bit of hope that characters they loved could live on in a new format. Personally, I never place too much weight in future continuations of TV series outside of the on-screen setup. Those Buffy comics basically tore apart the tone of the series, with Joss himself even admitting to initially getting carried away by the removal of budget constraints and casting choices. So when a series of Veronica Mars novels were announced, I was hesitant about it. Even though we were promised that they wouldn’t negate, or be negated by, any future films, I wasn’t sure if the ideas should be wasted on paper [movie spoilers].
I’m not sure what my experience of this movie would be like if I hadn’t seen the series before. It was so completely tailored to those who know of every transgression, indiscretion and witty comeback. The show paid homage to its past incredibly well, but turned what could have been a depressing look at what could have been into a celebration of the show that won so many of us over. [Major Spoilers!]
The Veronica Mars movie is unprecedented. It shouldn’t have happened. I had completely resigned myself to the fact that the last we would see of Veronica was her walking into the distance on that rainy California day. It stung that we’d never get to see what happened after that. It stung even worse that the series didn’t see resolution in almost every plot it left dangling. I don’t think it fully sank in that the series I loved so much has finally lived on until I saw that first frame of Kristen as Veronica. Naturally I had built this movie up a lot in my head, but I was also a little worried that it might disappoint the legion of devoted marshmallows who contributed to its creation. As far as I’m concerned, it absolutely did not. [This is a spoiler free review!]
There were some aspects of a Veronica Mars: FBI series that worked, but as a long-time fan of the series, a jump to the fourth season with a new lease on life wouldn’t have gone over too well. Where were the characters we’d grown to love? Where was the young but loveable teen girl we’d gotten to know? There were some sell-able ideas here, but as a re-tooling of a moderately successful series, I never really got why they though it could work better than the show they already had.
It would be unfair of me to judge ‘The Bitch is Back’ as a series finale, given the circumstances, but there was so much about this episode that could have proven otherwise. Not only did it feel like it could have turned the series around, and gone back to the oh so memorable themes of its first season, but it managed to bring together characters, old and new, that we’d gotten to meet over the years, and tie each of them into the story in separate but believable ways; something that a lot of series finales fail to do. As an old fashion season finale, stories that arose during the season were tied up wonderfully, and the series looked set to head in an ambitious direction in its fourth year.
OK, so maybe I’ve been a little harsh for the past few reviews. This stand-alone thing actually worked rather well this episode, with that trademark snarkiness coming out in spades. The show’s unjust cancellation means that some of the interesting plots started during the next two episodes don’t see an ending or further exploration, but take ‘Weevil’s Wobble’ out of that context, and it works really well.
At this point Veronica Mars feels a little lost. Veronica is floating and and out of ever standard end of the school year plot that the series can find.
This episode brings logic to this new formulaic approach to the series. Bolstered by an effective guest star, ‘Debasement Tapes’ is one of the better stand-alone episodes that closed out Veronica Mars.
And so the transformation of Veronica Mars into a fully fledged teen drama is complete. Truth be told, it’s not as blatant as I originally thought. Watching ‘Un-American Graffiti’ all these years later the series still had quite a bit of its original charm, but the network meddling really didn’t do it any favours.
Though it segued away from teen clichés, ‘Papa’s Cabin’ was the weakest closer of all the mysteries the show has produced thus far. It was an entertaining episode in and of itself, but it pales in comparison to the highs of, say, ‘Not Pictured’ and more recently, ‘Spit and Eggs’.
Veronica jeering at Lamb from behind bars? Yes, please! As left field as this whole development was, there’s still a lot to be said for the writers’ ability to milk a situation like this for all its comedic worth. That’s not to say that this episode is all laughs though, considering where things stand by the time the credits start rolling.
This is the point when the show started to struggle with what it wanted to be; a mystery driven noir, an epic love story and a generic teen romance. We’ve got this arc’s mystery playing out, but it’s hard to really get as taken in by it all as we’ve been by past season investigations. Veronica and Logan’s break-up/make-up stuff is grating, and takes over everything else, and at times brings the show down a little. What’s happening to Veronica Mars?
This is the first of many “Veronica Does Modern Issues” episodes, but it’s an oddly affecting one, and another for the “truth is shit” books, especially when the we leave the story when Veronica does, with her latest client’s life in ruins.
The idea of trying so hard to make something work and watching it blow up in your face anyway is the worst. I think that’s why ‘Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves’ got to me a little.
From here on out it’s just a case of the waiting game; seeing how long it takes before the series starts to suffer at the hands of the Network Meddling Monster. The series retains a lot of its charm, and still stands up remarkably well to many other shows around but it seems like the series is starting to get a little less Bogart and bit more OC. Regardless, there's still a nice message behind ‘Show Me the Monkey’, and Mac’s new position close to center-stage is a welcome change.
I don’t have many readers on here, but I just wanted to give a quick run-down of what I plan on doing here over the summer months.
Spit and Eggs is more than just a thrill ride. It's an accomplished episode that masterfully ties up the season's opening arc, and convincingly sets up the following one. It's full of great character insight, surprising twists, game-changing acts of love and a killer chase sequence. Toy unicorns; who knew, right?!
This is one of those episodes that always bored me to tears. Now, I’m not saying that it’s bad on the whole, because thanks to the various moments of Veronica and Keith’s amazing interaction it was saved but when the main story behind the episode is flat and devoid of anything interesting at all it's hard to care about how it all ends.
The one thing running through my mind as I watched this episode was how it was the first time I ever found myself disliking Veronica, even if it was only partially. She spends most of this episode acting like a stubborn Nazi, but in the end her behaviour became necessary and this episode turned into something rather great.
