Primetime could use more girls like Veronica Mars.
She’s smart, independent and feisty, toughened up by her best friend’s murder
and her own subsequent shunning by the in crowd when her sheriff dad botches the murder
investigation.
She’s a likeable addition to the line of
strong modern-girl leads that includes Buffy, Felicity and Rory Gilmore. Those three, of
course, got their start on the WB.
Unfortunately for Veronica, she’s on UPN,
and on a night when the network’s viewers aren’t really accustomed to teenage
angst. Thus far, they've shown little interest in hers. Though “Veronica Mars”
works as good television, the time slot stinks.
You can already feel this show getting ready to
join canceled-before-their-time high school cult favorites “Freaks and Geeks,”
“Undeclared” and “My So-Called Life.”
We join up with Veronica (Kristen Bell) months
after her friend Lilly’s murder. Veronica used to be part of the cool crowd, on the
pep squad and dating Lilly’s hot brother, Duncan. But when her father, Keith Mars
(Enrico Colantoni), begins looking at Lilly’s powerful father as a possible suspect,
the townspeople get in an uproar. The father is eventually cleared but not before Keith
loses his job, Veronica loses her cool-girl status, and they both lose Veronica's mother,
who abandons them.
Since then, Veronica has gotten used to her new
outcast status, putting her energy into helping her dad at his new private investigation
service.
Each week brings a new mystery or two for the
girl detective to delve into, many of them coincidentally centering on her high school.
Who knew a wealthy beach town had so many underage criminals?
This show is not as smooth as the season’s
best new dramas, such as “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives,” which weave
their storylines much more naturally, but it has an appealing lead in the refreshingly
non-perky Bell.
But no matter, "Mars" is going to
have a tough time pulling in enough viewers in its Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot to survive.
Airing out of the utterly incompatible urban
comedies “All of Us” and “Eve,” which have dropped audience already
since last year, “Mars” will be lucky to last the season. Quality of show (on a scale of 10): 7.5
Lots of people have compared the show with
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but “Mars” is nowhere near as clever or
pop culture savvy. A better comparison would be “Felicity” with an extreme edge
to its plotting.
The parts that work do so very well. Bell
and Colantoni (“Just Shoot Me”) have good chemistry, best shown in an amusing
bit where Veronica pretends she’s pregnant and Keith plays the angry father to dupe a
hotel clerk into handing over a suspicious bill in episode two. It’s cute and
believable.
As in most dramas with high school settings, the
other characters are up and down. Eli "Weevil" Navarro (Francis Capra) holds
promise as a thug with a heart, but Veronica’s best bud Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs
III) is bland.
The plotting is interesting but the writing not
quite as sharp as either “Buffy” or “Felicity” in their best
days.
Positioning (on a scale of 10): 2
UPN knew it had a good drama with
“Mars,” but it didn’t seem to have room for it despite an underwhelming
lineup. There were only two open spots on its schedule for dramas, discounting
little-watched Friday night, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
It gave the more promising and more broadly
appealing new “Kevin Hill” the desirable post-“America’s Next Top
Model” Wednesday spot. That left “Mars” on Tuesday night, paired with two
urban comedies that offer little audience flow in the time period.
"Mars" is a show that should be drawing
teens and young women, but many of them are already addicted to “One Tree Hill”
the same hour on the WB. Another problem: ABC’s generic 9 p.m. sitcoms dominate the
family crowd.
In its second week, “Mars” lost 16
percent of its “Eve” lead-in among 18-49s and about one-third of its total
viewers.
One thing that may help the show is that MTV is
airing repeats from the previous week on Tuesday afternoons. Those sorts of word-of-mouth
teen-focused tie-ins are what UPN needs to keep this show on.
Perhaps once “Top Model” finishes
its fall run, “Mars” could slide onto Wednesdays alongside “Hill.”
That would have been too risky at the start of the season, but “Hill” has gotten
a strong beginning and would be a better partner than “Eve” and “All of
Us.”
Cachet, or the “Arrested Development” factor (on a
scale of 10): 3
The show has gotten fairly good reviews but
everyone’s wondering why UPN stuck it in the stinky time slot.
And UPN is already boasting about all the
well-known guest stars. Well, well-known if you like tabloid stars and ‘80s
heartthrobs – thus far Paris Hilton, Lisa Rinna (“Melrose Place”) and Harry
Hamlin (“LA Law”) are slated for appearances.
Overall (on a scale of 30): 12.5
A good show on the wrong network. If
“Mars” survives until next season, it will be as big a revelation as who
murdered Lilly Kane.
The Media Life Meter
Rating fall’s new shows |
| |
“Veronica
Mars” (UPN) |
Avg. for all
2004-’05 shows |
| Quality
of show (on a scale of 10) – Grading the writing, acting, premise and creativity of
the show. Is it any good? |
7.5 |
5.7 |
| Positioning
(on a scale of 10) – Does the show have a tough time slot or a compatible lead-in? Is
the subject matter appropriate to the network on which it airs? |
2 |
4.7 |
| Cachet,
or the “Arrested Development” factor (on a scale of 10) – Examining the
reviews, the star power and the prestige the network gets for the project.
“Arrested,” for example, has high cachet for being well reviewed and
intelligent, even though its ratings aren’t great. |
3 |
4.5 |
| TOTAL |
12.5 |
14.9 |
Probability
of Survival |
|
| 30-27 |
Odds are this show will make it to next season. |
| 26-22 |
Odds are this show will make it through this season. |
| 21-15 |
Show may not survive the season. |
| 15-9 |
Show will be canceled sometime this season. |
| 8 or lower |
Catch it while you can – this show may not make it to four
episodes. |
| Source:
Media Life |
|
