05.22.07

What goes on in that place in the dark?

Posted in Personal at 7:57 pm by Joe Blubaugh

So it’s done.  Goodbye Veronica.  I’ll miss the entertainment value, the highly improbably rich-poor dynamic, and the dialog that delightfully treaded the line between Gilmore Girls absurd and One Tree Hill banal.

I won’t miss this season, though.  Weevil has just turned into one giant charity case when he could have been a great story about a guy trying to live clean.  Mac and Wallace are barely there.  Veronica can’t carry a show on her own, and Logan is so moon-eyed and mopey that I could care less what happens to him.

The biggest problem with VM season 3 has always been that college is just not as good a setting as high school. The show had to spend too much time introducing relationships between characters to get a good mystery going.  Then, the characters would disappear for a while.  College is too big for a show that tries to have a continuing plot line like VM, and the experience is so varied that you can’t appeal to a stereotypical experience the same way as in high school.

VM relied on the stereotypes, twisting them slightly and making them more fun. They failed that every time they tried it in college, with sorority girls, frat boys, and feminists.  The two-episode shadow organization from tonight’s episode is a prime example of the problem.  There’s no archetype, no history to draw on. Still, it almost managed to pull me in because the writers finally hit a plot that resonates: Wallace willingness to sacrifice his own luxury for his morality and his friends. Unfortunately, they discarded it far too quickly in favor of another go-round with the Kanes.
Bonus points to tonight’s episode for the Neko Case.

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