Veronica Mars

(S03E10) Well folks, don't get used the this new semi-season-long mystery, as everything said recently by Rob Thomas and crew indicates this will be the last of them.

Here's my problem with the idea of no long mysteries. Sure, there are a lot of what I call "mini-mysteries" for Veronica to solve all season long, and we've seen our share of them on this show. But can we really tolerate and believe that she's going to have a new mystery every week? I guess if it worked for Scooby-Doo it'll work for Veronica, eh? But I guess what I feel will take me away from this show is their over-reliance on relationship drama as the glue that holds everything together. Yuck.

Anyway, I digress.

Veronica Mars (9PM, The CW)
It's State of the Union night (see below), which is usually a television wasteland. For those of us who don't care to watch an hour of meaningless babble, 'Veronica' comes to the rescue. Last we saw the perky detective, she caught the campus rapist and broke up with boyfriend Logan (why, I still can't figure out). Now, she and Papa Mars are on the case of the dead dean.

Hiya, kids! Schedule Boy here, nearly fully recovered after a bout of stomach virus that hit the S.B. home. Thanks for all the flowers, candy, and $100 bills.

Anyway, I just stopped by the TV Squad offices (in the palatial studios that once housed the Krofft Supershow) to let you all know about the return of a number of fan favorite shows to the prime time line-up. Most of these have not had a first-run episode since the beginning of December. So, their return is eagerly anticipated (or feared, in some cases).

It begins tonight with the return of Prison Break on FOX, Everybody Hates Chris on the CW, and Heroes on NBC. Out of all three of these Heroes is probably the most anticipated. This has been the surprise hit of the season and has already been renewed for a second by the network. Also returning to the NBC schedule tonight is the love-it-or-hate-it Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. This show seemed to pick up a bit of steam right before it took its holiday break. Here's hoping that it continues in the upcoming weeks.

The CW is now streaming full episodes of select series on its site. Right now you can watch episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill, Girlfriends, Beauty and the Geek, The Game, All of Us and Supernatural. As far as I can tell, it looks like episodes are added soon after they air on television, so there are no "sneak peeks," at least not yet.

Also, for you Mac users out there, the in-browser player should work just fine. According to the site's FAQ, the player will work in Firefox, too. I'm completely useless when it comes to technology, so if I'm wrong about that, share your complaints in the comments and we'll all break into The CW headquarters together and demand they scrap this player for a better one. Also, we'll snag Kristen Bell for this cloning project I've been working on.

I encourage y'all to also check out this list of sites where you can watch full-length episodes. Note that this is a list of legitimate sites, not torrents or sites like YouTube. Of course, if you use those methods, what do I care?

When I was at the CW's "all-star" party tonight, I determined that I was far too old to be a CW watcher, because I recognized very few of the "stars" that were there. I mean, there were a few I recognized: Yanic Truesdale, Matt Czuchry, and Sean Gunn from Gilmore Girls (I called poor Sean "Tim" for some reason), the casts of Everybody Hates Chris and Supernatural, and Stephen Collins from 7th Heaven. But since neither Lauren Graham nor Alexis Bledel decided to show up, the only person I wanted to talk to was Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars.

I saw her walk in, fashionably late. I tried to casually approach her, but when I asked if she had a few seconds, she very politely told me that she wanted to settle in to the party, but would come find me when she's ready to do interviews. I only half-believed her, and, sure enough, she soon got swamped by reporters. Oh, I saw her a few times as I wandered the party (I tend to do that when I have no one to talk to), but she never approached. So, as I was on my way out, I saw her, coat slung over arm, talking to a reporter. I asked if she'd give me a few minutes, and she said yes. The transcript is after the jump. It's not Woodward and Bernstein, but she was just too damned cute to pass up:

Combine the modern miracles of the silk screen, the Hanes Beefy-T and Cafe Press, and you get more fans than ever emblazoning their TV-related affections across their chests, backs and sleeves. There are literally hundreds of tees that you could be spending your holiday booty on. What better way to tell the world that "Hiro is your hero" or that you're voting Stewart/Colbert in '08?

See ten of the best TV tees the world of online sales has to offer after the jump.

Welcome to the mid-2000's, CW Network! You've finally figured out that people don't just watch your shows on that big glowing tube (or LCD or plasma screen) in the middle of the living room!

That's what I thought when I read that the CW has decided to make its shows available for sale on iTunes. According to today's Cynopsis, the network will make episodes of Supernatural and Veronica Mars available. The network is also working on an embedded video player, which will play full episodes, including commercials, on the network's web site.

VM and Supernatural seem like the most natural choices to be made available online, given their fanbases. What I wonder is: given the relatively tiny audiences for CW shows, why didn't they jump on the online bandwagon sooner? As others have seen, it's a great way to get a little-seen show out to more people.

After catching the latest episode of Veronica Mars this past Tuesday, I was sort-of left feeling empty about how things ended. It just seemed that there were some key elements I've been used to seeing in the previous big mysteries solved, something that made me think "ah ha!" when looking back at previous evidence. After reading comments last week from some observant commenters, it all becomes clear now ... and it's pretty damn cool.

(S03E09) This episode was just way too fast for a partial-season ender. While we got answers for the bulk of the episode, there are definitely some questions left hanging around unanswered. But I'll get into those later.

My first thought when Veronica was running away in the opening scene was that it was unlikely that her pursuer was a girl. I just couldn't see her fleeing away from one of the feminiazis, no matter how menacing she was nor the fact that I, for one, would run away from that she-bitch in a dark dorm hallway. Yiieee.

In an odd bit of network news, The CW nixed a lesbian kiss planned between Veronica Mars guest-star Patty Hearst and actress Keri Pratt. Hearst, playing a trustee to the fictional Hearst College on Tuesday night's Mars episode, didn't get to lock lips with her lady love due to an intervention on the part of the suits. Reporting to the New York Daily News, Hearst said, "I meet Keri and I'm like, 'Hello.' We didn't know until we were on the set we couldn't actually kiss. We were all set for that."

This is just weird. Didn't The CW get the memo that lesbians kissing in primetime are hot? It's gay men kissing that are supposed to get the patriarchy all nervous. I guess when they figured out that it was the 52 year-old, Symbionese Liberation Army kidnap victim Hearst getting down Sappho-style and not uber-hot Kristin Bell they freaked. It just doesn't have the same sweeps promo potential as "Veronica macks on Mac."

(S03E08) We've known about this episode for quite some time now -- the Patty Hearst episode. Thankfully she didn't really have a whole lot of air time, because she's not an actress and, well, it showed. I mean, she wasn't horrible, just not great.

Speaking of Patty Hearst (I mean, Selma Rose), there was one mini-mystery I didn't much care for other than two details from it:

Fans of Veronica Mars can now rejoice, sort of. According to Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger, executive producer Rob Thomas has confirmed that the back seven episodes of the series have been picked up. This would make 20 episodes for this season. Traditionally, networks pickup the back nine episodes of a series to make it a 22-episode run.

Since this information is so brand new, Thomas says it will take some time to figure out how the last two story arcs will play out. However, he does confirm to the last arc will comprise of four-episodes. The second story-arc is currently being worked on.

Does this mean that Veronica Mars is in danger of not being renewed? Who knows this early in the season. Sepinwall thinks that the shortened order run may be due to penny pinching by the network, whose first year on the air has not been as stellar as they thought it would be.

(S03E07) Are folks really liking Piz's character as much as I'm reading. I'm really not sure I care for him a whole lot. I will say, though, that I loved Piz's slow turn toward Veronica at the mere mention of a missing person. But what's with Veronica's hair being all done up before she goes investigating? Did she really tell everyone to put everything on hold for 45 minutes while she threw a coat on and curled her hair?

Whether you think the whole shorter mystery arc is working for Veronica Mars or not, the CW has ordered three more scripts of the cult fav. Also eluding the chopping block this week is soapy One Tree Hill, which also received a three script order.

I'd love to see Veronica Mars stick around so long as it doesn't head down that strange, slow death path that took the life out of Alias when the creators were pressured to make its twisty plotlines more accessible to newcomers. It's hard for me to care about the continuation of One Tree Hill only because I'm old and do not understand the ways of these so-called teenagers -- at least teenagers who aren't also noirish super sleuths. It's great news for the fans, however, who couldn't even be sure they'd see their favorite shows back post-WB and UPN merger.

Now we'll just have to keep our eye on the Gilmore Girls to see whether The CW will issue a mercy killing on behalf of Team Palladino.

(S03E06) Dean O'Dell backing up Veronica -- who would've thought? Did I miss something or does Veronica still somehow have a job with a different school paper, one that's not the Free Press? Did she somehow get out of working in the library, or is there some other on-campus paper I'm forgetting? Not the Lampoon, is it?

I have to admit that after last week's episode, some commenters had a good theory that Wallace didn't cheat and had instead written something like "so-and-so is selling answers to this test." Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case. Though I was surprised to see some leniency coming his way with the cheating. Isn't that, like, expulsion material? Not to mention he stays on the basketball team?