The Freshman Fifteen

It's been almost thirty years since I graduated from high school. One of my classmates was a very, very smart girl. She not only had a fine mind, but a good work ethic and admirable study habits. We graduated and some of us trickled off to college (I graduated in a very small town where the majority of folk still thought of college as a way to delay growing up). I returned to the old native soil for midterm my first semester. Another classmate took it upon himself to organize a get-together for those of us who were back from college. As we pulled into the parking lot at Pizza Hut, she was getting out of her dad's pickup. I was struck, even in my narcissistic 18-year-old haze, by how drawn and tense she looked. While most of us were giddy about the new world of higher learning, she was not. At Christmas, she withdrew from school. Thirty years later, she's still in my hometown. She's still smart, still capable; college wasn't too hard for her academically. She just couldn't adjust.

Great TV shows set in high school often suffer the same fate. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was genius as long as its inhabitants roamed the halls of Sunnydale High; once they moved on to UC-Sunnydale and other pursuits, the show slipped and, even though it was capable of brilliant moments, it never again achieved that sustained level. We all know that Saved by the Bell: The College Years was a vastly inferior product compared to the original (/sarcasm). Many of us are sad that Freaks and Geeks was only around for a handful of episodes, but maybe that's a blessing in disguise. We never had to endure a clunky transition out of high school.

That's why the annual drama surrounding the impending cancellation/renewal of Veronica Mars is such a conundrum this year. The first season of VM was great. Rob Thomas seemed to tap into the same vein of pop culture as Joss Whedon; the show's dialogue snapped and it was blessed with a really good ensemble cast, led by a marvelous performance from Kristen Bell. Like Buffy at its best, VM's plots served as an examination of and commentary on larger social issues and themes. Also, the soundtrack killed. Season two was not as good, but it suffered only in comparison with the high standard set by season one. Plus season two featured "Dakota" by Stereophonics. That's a plus.

Which brings us to season three. As college transitions go, it hasn't been bad, but Thomas misses the self-contained world of high school, where you are so often forced into close proximity with people you cannot stand. Antagonists can be kept in constant contact without stretching credibility too much. Collisions between characters that are inevitable in high school become contrived when shoehorned into the more open, autonomous world of a college campus.Take Eli Navarro/Weevil (Francis Capra). At Neptune High his continued presence as Veronica's nemesis/conscience/sometimes accomplice was easily explained; season three's attempts to fit him into the ensemble via a job in the Hearst maintenance department feel contrived.

Now come the final five episodes. VM has abandoned the arc school of storytelling. The last five hours will solve stand-alone mysteries rather than being devoted to any sort of overarching case. Season three has already tinkered with the arc methodology. Instead of one long arc like the first two seasons, this season has already used two mini-arcs. The first dealt with Veronica solving a series of campus rapes. In the second she found the killer of the college dean. Neither of these arcs had the resonance of the first two seasons, but they were useful in knitting the episodes together and providing the show with forward momentum.

If the first two of the new stand-alone stories are indicative of the future, it might be time to let Veronica go. "Un-American Graffiti" was the first outright stinker in the show's history, a shallow, heavy-handed screed against racism and xenophobia. The B-plot wasn't too hot either. "Debasement Tapes" did feature a wry guest-starring turn by Paul Rudd, but the mystery itself was weak. The real flaw is not in the mysteries, however.

VM burst onto the scene as a tart teen noir. The Logan/Veronica coupling that began mid-season one added spice, but it appears that in the brave new world, relationships will be the linchpin of Veronica. That's bad news. It's the death knell for what made the show special. Rumor has it that a fourth season might just jump over college and introduce us to a Veronica already in the FBI. If the last two episodes are indicators rather than outliers, that might be a good idea.