Chicago Tribune | The Watcher February 20, 2005 UPN tries building a mystery :
Bell, who had an impressive two-episode star turn in the first season of HBO's "Deadwood," plays the title character with impressive intelligence; she's the kind of actress whose thoughtfulness and innate wit improve any script, and the scripts for "Veronica Mars" are good to begin with.
"She is smart," Thomas says of Bell, who was the second actress he saw for the part. "That's a tough thing for actors to fake."
"People ask me what separated her from all the others who auditioned, and it's largely that you have to believe that Veronica's outwitting people every week," Thomas recalls.

As dark as that sounds, the first draft of the "Veronica Mars" pilot was even darker.
"Their fall from grace was a lot further," Colantini says of that first "Mars" script. "Where they lived was definitely the other side of the tracks. What she was doing at 2 a.m. was a lot more risque and a lot more dangerous for her."
Thomas confirms that his original pilot script, which he wrote "on spec" or on his own time, was a somber affair.
"When I wrote it, I thought, this could only be on HBO or Showtime. It's too dark for network TV," he says. "And it would certainly be a different show, it would be closer to 'Twin Peaks' if it were on HBO. Being on UPN, it's closer to 'Buffy'."