Tim Goodman. Feed the Machine: "Friday Night Lights," "Veronica Mars," uh, Ted Danson?: That's a decent little night, Tuesday. Good stuff all around. Very curious to see if anyone who had NEVER seen 'Veronica Mars' decided to tune in for Season 3 premiere. I think Veronica made a successful adjustment to college, but we'll see what newbie fans think. I pretty much get the gist of what diehards are saying (mostly: Stop comparing her to Buffy.).

I posted fr this to dlww at the time Posted by m at 10/04/2006 02:56:00 PM but my attn then was on FriNiLights (& the NYTimes rvw), and not at all on VeronicaMars...

-The premiere was good, but if we were supposed to hang on to last seasons rather downplayed narrative footnote that skipping a final to hear the Cane murder verdict is what landed Veronica at the local college rather than Stanford, well, not quite. Also, her new college is seemingly private, and did you note the shiny new car? So how is it that Stanford was out of reach, but a local private wasn't? I shouldn't be too picky over a fictional show, but it's out-of-character for resourceful, never out of the game Mars to go "eh" and stick with the local school when she'd have access to probably hundreds of thousands in merit and need based financial aid.
And the discordant version of the opening number grates.
--Veronica Mars has changed the intro. I am fine with changing the visuals, but remixing the Dandy Warhols is going too far.
--They didn't really explain why she ended up at Hearst, you are right. I thought it was a decent premiere. In a lot of ways it was being treated as a series premiere, and I think it was effective.

-Glad to see Veronica Mars come back. I liked the premiere a lot. House and VM are the two I tivo on Tues.

-Veronica Mars is "not twisted enough"? Heh. Only someone who hasn't seen much of the show could say something like that. VM is a pretty dark and twisted show, and it's about actual HUMAN BEINGS who are doing the dark and twisted things. I find that endlessly more fascinating and interesting than anything about silly vampires and demons with bad makeup jobs. I enjoyed Buffy but it can't compare to my love for VM becaues I found the vampire stuff and fight scenes so silly and juvenile. I think it's purely a genre preference but give me a good old-fashioned detective story any day.

-Yep, Tim: Cult Show. Some conclusions: BSG fans don't like it. Same generalization prolly true too of Sci-Fi fans in general (I'm an exception! Enterprise and VM Season 1 were my only two must-watches 2 years ago!). Not at all surprising. Goes along with the next point about people having problems with the fact that its reality based: Many Buffy fans liked that Buffy was a comic book superhero and don't like Veronica because its stuck in the reality-based world and is "boring." Not twisted enough?: Repeating my recommendation to go back and look at "I Am God" episode from last season...totally twisted. That may turn off Gilmore fans, which is why the pairing of the two may have been a programming mistake (gosh, I'm an exception *again*?!? Feh!) Cult is cool. Go rent Eraserhead hrrrm? and wallow in it. "Everything is....fine." Posted By: RockCreekMark I've seen his cmmts recently...

... he listed songs in place of his top 3 shows in the end-year TV Show Face-Off!...
1. It Never Rains in Southern California
2. Downtown
3. Under Pressure
--(oh, 'Never Rains in Sunny California' was the song they played in the last scene of the last episode.)
--Good catch, I didn't remember that and I just watched it. So Pnm is correct, the mystery of RockCreekMark is solved. BTW Season three of VERONICA MARS was great, but the first two were nearly perfect. Check them out on DVD. Posted By: sonofabastard
---SOB - you gotta be kidding? Veronica walks outside in the last scene and it starts dumping rain, and they play "It Never Rains In California". Sheesh - and I thought you were a Big Fan. PS - everyone that I recommend that show to loves it. Dumbass network.Posted By: eroseme
-----Cookies to all of you who figured out my list! :) But here are some notes: I'm unfortunately old enough to have heard "It Never Rains" when it was a top 40 hit: ending Veronica with it was just about perfect. "Downtown" is Juliet's theme on Lost of course. "Under Pressure" was in the *first* episode of Studio 60 that showed so much promise. (yeah). Posted By: RockCreekMark