Want a Veronica Mars movie? Just kick in $2 million

I was a VM fan—it's like if Beverly Hills 90210 and Homicide had a child, and their first season was absolutely amazing—but the terms of the kickstarter were a letdown. You give $10 or more and for that you get sent updates from the set, and a pdf of the script on opening day. In short, you get promotional materials, to make sure you spend another $12.50 on the movie. I would have preferred it they promised special "kickstarter" screenings where contributors (at least those near urban centers) could see the movie for free. Even if the base level contribution was higher. Which may make no sense, but that would feel more right to me.

 

That makes no sense. They're trying to give you something you couldn't get otherwise.

 

That was who I was thinking of.

Also, I was watching Torchwood (a spin-off of Doctor Who) the other day and Marsters showed up as a very Spike-like character, and it was awesome. The showrunner clearly either wrote the character for Marsters or wrote it and thought, get me Marsters. I don't see any way that he would have needed to audition for it. It made me remember how much I loved Spike.

 

And, it would cost a fortune.

 

Veronica Mars is, in many ways, Buffy crossed with the best part of The O.C. Buffy was about high school cliques and growing up and feeling like an outcast or a freak, and VM is really a show about class (meaning socioeconomic status) as anything. The O.C. -- at least early on -- tried to touch on those issues, but really it was just a teen soap with indie bands and snappy dialog.

A lot of shows with attractive people dip their toe in the whole class disparity thing, but then abandon it and make certain that most of the stories are focused on the rich fantasy world. What elevates VM -- other than it's a crime noir -- is that it continues to poke around the class stuff in almost every episode.

I'm pretty sure I've written this before, but Bell is what makes the whole thing work. She and Enrico Colantoni, actually. (He plays her dad.) But Bell manages to have chemistry with every single member of the cast. She manages to be funny and tough and vulnerable and emotional when it calls for it. The acting isn't on the level of Mad Men or FNL, but it's pleasantly surprising in many ways. And Thomas did manage to create an entire universe for his characters. The adults don't just serve as props as they did on other shows with a teenage lead.

 

$35, which would be a pretty cheap night out, gets you the script, t-shirt and a digital copy of the movie in the first week of its release. That's not a bad deal, particularly if you really want to see the thing get made.

 

Terriers carried on some of this tradition a few years later. I'm not sure it was as transparent with those issues as VM was, but when I watched it I felt like I was watching a show which existed in the same universe as VM.

 

Very good point, Ken Marino's PI, the sheriff who replaced Keith, the high school principal, several teachers, were all good characters. As characters were added it always seemed to make sense that they were there.

The only thing I kind of just had to ignore and go with was that these movie star and tech billionaire parents would send their kids to public schools where they could get into fights with working class kids and Hispanic biker gangs. Maybe Logan you could write it that he'd been kicked out of every private school or something, but Duncan and Lilly wouldn't have gone to Neptune High.

 

I've lived in Silicon Valley. The public schools in the affluent areas are top-notch.

On the Hollywood front, a woman I know was very involved with the Malibu PTA when her daughters were there. They went to school with stars' kids.

 

If there's a character like Anya, I'm totally in. She's my favorite character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, completely unrelated to her attractiveness.

I saw Emma Caulfield in a small role in Royal Pains and got sad that she doesn't do better things now.

 

Wait, Ken Marino was on VM?

WHY DOES THIS NOT STREAM ON NETFLIX?

 

That's my (big) mistake. I was thinking of Spike, who is obviously not a demon, but a vampire. That's what I get for posting too early in the morning.