That Meddling Girl Is Back!

Oh, to be young and in college and solving mysteries. Those were the days, I tell you. And what better way to vicariously relive that magical time in our lives, when the day began at 11 and ended when we ran out of Mountain Dew, when we were unfettered by such piddling matters as paying bills or ironing, than by watching our very favorite detective start her university career?

Yes, at long last, tomorrow night Veronica Mars enters college on the awesome new CW, the genius merger between the WB and UPN that we were, like, totally hoping would happen because we couldn't imagine a world where 7th Heaven and Girlfriends were prevented from doing crossover episodes.

Anyway, 9 PM on the CW. Check your local listings! Which, you know, is what they used to say before you could just pick up your cute peanut-shaped TiVo remote and punch in the name and hear that pleasant little "ding."

But wait, there's more! Last week Eti and I had the honor of being invited to participate with other Pulitzer-winning bloggers on a conference call with Rob Thomas and Tina Majorino. (Rob Thomas created the freaking show and Tina Majorino plays Mac. Which is cool, because Mac is kind of awesome, but Rob Thomas!)

So here are the highlights. These aren't Rob's words verbatim but rather my attempt at summarizing what he said (thanks to Eti's extensive notes) in a reasonably snappy way.

Is Butters going to college with Veronica and co.? Nope, he's still in high school.

What about Dick? Of course he'll be back. Could we live a single day without his entitled rich kid stoner humor? I think not. Then again, he'll have to deal with, you know, that small matter of his little brother turning out to be a mass-murdering rapist and killing himself.

It's college. It's Southern California. We'll see some gay people, right? Yes, but they won't be in any after-school-special type storylines. They'll just be around.

(This was my question) A lot of high-school based shows tend to suck when they move into college. Any plans for avoiding the suck? The show's never been specifically about high school; it's been about a wise-beyond-her-years girl solving mysteries in a wacky corrupt world. She can do that just as easily in college, and the less-kiddy atmosphere will allow for some more adult, noir-ish storylines [to which I say, hell yeah].

Will we see more bands performing on the show now that we're in college? Hopefully.

More Karaoke? Probably not.

What's the story structure for this year? Another big mystery? No, it'll be 3 smaller ones. The first one involves the college rapist (which was already set up when Veronica visited the college last season). It'll go for 8-9 episodes, after which a new mystery will begin. This one will be a completely different kind than Veronica has dealt with before, and we'll also see the crime unfold gradually instead of just starting with the aftermath like we did with Lilly and the bus crash.

Keeping the same opening titles? Nope, they're totally different now.

What's ahead for Logan? He'll mature, but not too much. He's got to stay kind of messed up to be interesting, after all.

Generally speaking, are the first couple episodes going to rock, or what? The first one will be a little slower and low-key because they need to introduce the characters and format to new viewers and the new setting to the rest of us. However, the second episode is one of the best they've ever done [and it's written by Diane Ruggiero, who's responsible for some of the most awesomely fucked-up episodes in the first two seasons, like, say, A Trip to the Dentist].

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So, that's that. I skipped over some of the more boring questions, but I think you get the idea that it's going to be a fairly interesting season. And even if it's not, then... well, we'll probably have to retreat into a dirt hole and rock ourselves back and forth until the black spots vanish from behind our eyes because this is the best freaking show on TV and anything less than another stellar year will pretty much cause us to lose all faith in humankind.

But hey, no pressure, show! Just go out there and do your best!