We’re talking smart mouthed teen detective, Veronica Mars!
Since Veronica Mars has had a few different iterations along the way we decided to focus part one of our conversation on the first three seasons of the show. We talk about the movie and season four in part two.
Here you’ll find notes for the things we discussed and recommended in both part one and part two of our Veronica Mars conversation.
About Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is a teen noir mystery drama television series created Rob Thomas. The series is set in the fictional town of Neptune, California and stars Kristen Bell as the eponymous character.
The show begins after Veronica’s best friend has been murdered and she spends the first season diligently trying to solve that murder.
The show’s original run was from 2004 to 2007. And then in 2013, Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a feature film, which was released in 2014. A whole five years later, in 2019 a fourth season was released on Hulu.
A note: You can easily shop for (most of) the books mentioned in this episode at the bookshop collection right here. As a heads up, that’s an affiliate link/collection, which means if you happen to buy a book there I’ll make a small commission (at no extra cost to you).
You can find Bill on Instagram @billfriday and on his website, billfriday.com
Casually Obsessed is on instagram @casuallyobsessedpodcast.
Part One: Rob Thomas Buy Us Drinks
Prefer to read it? Check out the episode transcript.
A few things we discuss in the episode:
- The problem of ‘cinematic’ television
- The many threads that came together to make Veronica Mars
- Whether or not we care about mysteries
- How the show got us hooked by not giving us too much information
- How Lily Cane lives on after death & the only dead girl content we’ll accept
Mentioned in Part 1:
- The Veronica Mars Movie Kickstarter campaign
- HBO’s Watchmen
- Cupid, Rob Thomas’s first television show
- Rats Saw God – Rob Thomas’s YA debut
- Freaks & Geeks
- Sunset Boulevard’s alternate opening
- Rachel Rising
- iZombie, a post-Veronica Mars Rob Thomas television
Part Two: We’re Not Angry, Just Disappointed
A few things we discuss in the episode:
- Veronica grew up quickly, and then stopping growing at all
- How does the Veronica Mars movie fit into things?
- Did Rob Thomas know this would be the final season?
- You gotta be single to solve crimes, apparently
- Days of Wine and Roses (or how the season should have ended)
- Can you have too much of a good thing?
- All.The.Feelings.
Mentioned in Part 2:
- Rob’s Rolling Stone interview
- The ‘epic’ speech
- The Days of Wine & Roses
- Noah Hawley’s Fargo
- An essay on live journal that I promised to include in the show notes and now can’t find the link for…
For fans of Veronica Mars
Bill Recommends
- Noir Alley on TCM (and the Noir Alley facebook page)
- The Big Sleep
- Double Indemnity
- Address Unknown
Chelsee Recommends
- Neptune Noir – Edited by Rob Thomas
- Sadie by Courtney Summers
- Brick (I said the film was “Chinatown in a high school” but that’s actually the setup for a different movie– Assassination of a High School President– which I recommend if you want a teen comedy turned noir)
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show)
Other Things On the Internet
- The show had SO MANY guest stars
- An Oral History of Veronica Mars
- “I didn’t think you could be any more butch”: Gender Performance, Expressions of Masculinity and Rape in Veronica Mars — an academic paper I wrote many moons ago, published in an undergraduate journal.