- Title: Veronica Mars – The Complete Third Season
- tv.com: link
Okay, I’ve been a fan and supporter of this show since the beginning (read the Season One DVD review, and the Season Two DVD review). And I’m still a bit bummed that this is the end of everyone’s favorite tiny blonde teen detective. Veronica Mars provided many memorable moments throughout her three years on television. She portrayed a fierce vulnerability and one of the strongest and most complex women’s characters in recent memory (but hey, Survivor got renewed. Joy). You are missed, Ms. Mars, but enough of the maudlin, here’s Season Three…
In season three Veronica (Kristen Bell) heads off to Heart College, continues her on-and-off combustible relationship with Logan (Jason Dohring), proves she didn’t plagiarize her own paper, copes with her father’s (Enrico Colantoni) dalliances with a married woman (Laura San Giacomo), brings the campus rapist to justice, makes enemies of both the feminists and the Greeks (that’s my girl), helps out her friends, finds a missing hookers and monkeys, deals with an uncomfortable and unplanned Internet celebrity, takes down the super-secret organization known as the Castle, gets her own P.I. license, earns an internship with the FBI, and solves the murder of Dean O’Dell (Ed Begley Jr.).
Because of the wishes of the new network (the CW) the big mystery season long arc has been replaced with two different mysteries. The first half of the season deals with Veronica searching for the serial rapist on the grounds of Hearst. The second half of the season Veronica tries to solve the murder of the Dean. Of course we get weekly fun, wackiness, and smaller mysteries throughout the season.
Some of the best episodes of the season include: In “Wichita Linebacker” Veronica tries to find a stolen playbook, is threatened with expulsion unless she gives up a source, gets Weevil (Francis Capra) a job, finds a solution for the argument between the feminisits and the campus’ lampoon paper, and discovers who vandalized the Dean’s car. In “Hi, Infidelity” Veronica is on the case to prove she wrote a paper her TA (James Jordan) accuses her of plagiarizing; the search leads to some startling surprises as she uncovers the infidelity of her favorite professor (Patrick Fabian) with the Dean’s wife (Jaime Ray Newman), and that of her father with a married woman. In “Spit & Eggs” the Hearst serial killer case comes to a violent conclusion. Also of interest: Paul Rudd guest-stars as a once-great musician on the slide in “Debasement Tapes,” Veronica gets thrown in jail in “Mars, Bars,” and Veronica goes into war mode in the final episode of the series “The Bitch is Back.”
The series never gets quite to the same level as Season One, and I’m still mixed on the addition of the Piz (Lowell) and Parker (Julie Gonzalo) characters and love interests. Still, it is Veronica Mars and there is plenty to enjoy on this set including a very nice bundle of special features. It’s because of these extras I’m giving this season set a little extra bump in rating up from a 3.5 to a 4. Okay, that’s my spiel, so go out and buy it already!