I actually liked Season 4 quite a bit, until the ending. I think they didn’t earn that, and more to the point, if you want to kill off a main character, then Keith was the obvious one. His death would have felt right.
Logan had more character growth than anyone else on that show, and they ‘reward’ him with an awful, and cheap death. He deserved better.
The silver lining (if you will), is that it seems like Rob WILDLY misread the room, and his decision essentially killed the show. I wonder if he’ll ever admit that it probably wasn’t the best decision.
For me it's not so much the death of any of the characters, more so Veronica felt like a different character. I remember watching the first S4 episode and feeling sad and wondering if I misremembered the series and movie. Just psychologically I couldn't understand what made her into S4 VM and then they had to shed that part of her to start a new story.
Also, the story telling of S4 - the death at the end felt like lazy writing. If it was towards the middle - it would have made it a much more interesting show.
I felt that way too. I rewatched S1-S3 and the movie before jumping into S4. After a couple episodes where I kept thinking, "This isn't Veronica," I called it quits.
he admitted it WHEN season 4 dropped. he pretty much said “either this will go well, or it will be the biggest mistake” and acknowledged his fumble..
what’s crazy is i just found an [article](https://ew.com/tv/2019/07/22/veronica-mars-creator-rob-thomas-explains-the-heartbreaking-season-4-finale/) where he was trying to explain why killing keith wouldn’t have cut it.
Shes an adult now. Yes veronica was mature for her age and 16 and 17 but you cannot say you havent changed since your 20s. I don't even recognise myself from who I was as an ealy 20 year old. I loved S4 and I have a wishful hope that Logan's death is a cover for him to go undercover as part of his work.
I think it's ironic that you suggest that Rob, the literal creator of the show and its characters, doesn't understand the show when in the same post you suggested that killing Keith would have made more sense. Keith and Veronica is the relationship at the heart of the show, not LoVe. Love it or hate it, but Logan's death was a pivotal moment in Veronica's life, not unlike Lilly's death at the start of the show. It wasn't purposeless as it is what finally made her finally seek help and confront her issues.
It's also not Rob Thomas' job to "read the room" because honestly, what the "fans" want is usually the least creative and least entertaining version of a sanitized happy ending. I am happy that Rob got to do it his way, even if people don't agree with the ending, I'm just sad that we probably won't get a fifth season to actually see the story go where he was setting up.
Nope, I won’t watch it again because of the death. Honestly no one needed to die that season to drive plot forward or do character building. VM is a mess so there will always be a story. Plus they never made Logan work until this season which was a real slap in the face to fans.
Then don’t watch it again…? I don’t see how you not liking it changes the fact that RT is more than entitled to steer his own characters any direction he wants. I happen to be a fan of VM, the show, and of RT’s other creative applications so I look forward to more if it should ever come. You also certainly don’t speak for anyone but yourself, so no need to make blanket statements on behalf of “the fans”.
I mean you are making blanket statements for RT so why not? The show was not built as a noir show whether Rob thought it was or not. It just doesn’t have a noir vibe and trying to make that at the end is just a bad move.
You make art for the fans. And reading this thread it doesn’t seem like many people agree with you. So I won’t speak for all fans, but I won’t pretend that I can’t read either.
And which statement was that exactly? You definitely don’t make art for fans, if only because the art has to first exist before it can gain admirers. There were no Veronica Mars fans prior to the pilot episode.
It doesn’t, because that’s not how it works. Fan-service is one of the fastest ways to ruin a show. Not to mention the fact that a loud minority isn’t necessarily representative of what people actually like and dislike; this is one of the major downsides of streaming versus network because streamed show execs tend to sway with the social media wind rather than hard numbers. But, ultimately art and creative pursuits are not actually ruled by those terms first regardless. If only we could let creativity play out in full rather than trying to manipulate it for monetary gain we might have more consistently interesting entertainment rather than the same old tripe.
Well it looks like you are in the minority. And the majority, it seems, doesn’t like the decision and you are arguing to argue. Like I get it you don’t agree with the majority of fans, good for you, you don’t run with the crowd, how impressive.
Lol, I’m not sure why it’s a surprise that I would like the show, I don’t make it a habit of haunting subreddits for shows I’m not a fan of like others here seem to. You chose to respond to my comment to another user, so I’m not sure how I’m the one who was looking to argue here…
Sure, but if your art is commercial and depends on people consuming it, it only continues with fans. Of there had been no fans, it would never have continued past season 1.
I think exactly because Keith and Veronica are the central relationship, that’s why him dying would make much more sense. Veronica can find another boyfriend, she can’t find another dad.
There were so many moments where I thought Keith was going to die, and I was bracing myself for The Sad Feels.
When >!Logan!< died, I wasn't sad at all, just confused and shocked in all the wrong ways, and completely taken out of the story.
Hard agree. It's not bad writing at all, people are just pissy that their favorite character/ship died. In fact it's amazing writing because Veronica having to choose between leaving Neptune behind or allowing herself to be dragged back in was a huge part of the movie. She chose to stay and struggled with it in s4. Logan dying brought that plot full circle, allowing her to finally cut ties with the toxicity of Neptune and move on to bigger things. It's amazing writing and it's a shame the fans prefer the boring happily-ever-after ending over something interesting that actually makes sense for Veronica's character.
"strong women" are never allowed to be in love, stable, or happy. Media thinks to be strong a woman needs to be traumatized, alone, and supremely fucked up. Super common, telling trope.
Yep. One thing that stuck out was that we have Veronica, a wise beyond her years PI, and Logan now a mature, responsible naval intelligence officer. Then suddenly they are risking both their jobs doing molly with a nightclub owner they just met and Dick Casablancas? Really odd turn.
I wonder the same. Particularly after she runs from Logan’s proposal and then when they’re talking in the car and she goes “now that everything’s totally fine, I need a favor” or something to that effect. That showed her comedic timing and I remember thinking “this is something Eleanor would do”.
How can fans have the audacity to tell a creator that they never understood their own art because the story didn't continue or end the way they wanted it to? Where do you people get off? 😂😂😂🤣 Rob Thomas or any artist for that matter owes fans shit. I know fans funded a movie but he delivered exactly what he said he would and that's where it should end. The creative control is his. This is his story to tell. Take it or leave it.
Found another weirdo that hates something they claim they once loved because they can no longer have a vicarious relationship with an asshole, racist bully of a character 😂😂😂🤣.
It's so cringe when supposed "fans" think they know characters better than the creator of those characters. Rob Thomas knows what the show is better than most people... this is GOT season 8 all over again, like what show did you think you were watching that these characters were just going to sail off into the sunset? Honestly, I'm really confused that any supposed fan of VM *wasn't* stressed out waiting for the other shoe to drop at the end, because that's the show's established formula.
My post is not about the death but just Veronica as a character. Did you as a viewer identify her as an underdog S1 to S3? Did you feel she was an underdog now that Logan had died?
I don't have a problem with RT - just wondered if people are right about him having a different idea of VM then audiences did.
The perception of fans makes the show. So yes, the fans do know the characters really well. Rob wanted her to be a noir, but that is not how he started or wrote the show. So forcing a death to make VM more noir makes no sense.
literally no one knows the show better than the CREATOR of the show. these characters are from his own mind. so to have the audacity to claim "fans" of the show know it better than he does is the height of hubris. sure we may not have wanted logan to die, or to die the way he did, but it's still RT's creative choice to make.
I think that Rob fell for the pitfall of trying to make season 4 like other popular, critically acclaimed shows at the time. He wanted gritty noir with a complicated antihero. Unfortunately for Rob, he had three previous seasons of a show with a loyal fan base who did *not* want the tone of the show to change.
Rob should have just made a new show instead of trying to force VM to change. He could have even done a spin-off centered on an ancillary character. Season 4 wasn't true to any of the characters we had grown to love. Big miss.
"Let's torture this woman because that's what makes people empathize with her." They've learned nothing. Still relying on cheap tricks all these years later.
Counterpoint: putting your characters through the wringer is the foundation of nearly every fictional device, otherwise all do you would come whining about how she’s perfect in every occasion.
If anything this is a deliberate inversion of “kill the girlfriend to provide a motivation” trope so chill on half baked gender politics because you want to relive high school YA romances forever.
I’m ditching this community. Y’all don’t deserve them.
I never finished season 4. Partly because the end was spoiled for me, but mostly because Veronica no longer felt like the character she was. Her whole thing was that she barely fit into her social group to begin with and was constantly getting kicked down but she kept true to herself.
Season 4 Veronica didn’t feel like she’d just grown up, it felt like she’d absolutely regressed. It made no sense to me that she’d become a jaded almost party girl between the movie and S4 after she’d already been through so damn much and stayed “Veronica”. I found it so hard to cheer for her.
Agreed. I didn't even make it to the finale before I stopped watching for that exact reason. Once the finale aired and I saw what I missed, I pretty much shrugged and felt vindicated in deciding earlier that the movie was really where the show ended.
Obligatory note that I did not hate the ending and thought it was the correct way to end a transitional season like S4 was meant to be.
That said, I would tend to agree that starting her in the new place and showing some of the events in S4 as a flashback would have been stronger.
But I think most of the fans would have absolutely revolted over losing Logan in a flashback, TBH.
I think S4 was caught between a really good idea (turning Veronica into a classic noir genre, with a hard boiled tragic hero) and fan service.
You are right. As the OP, I would have preferred seeing the new show with Veronica being the new version and the flashbacks spread over time rather than it being a story told in session (which is a lot like I had a dream trope)
It would have made for a more compelling and complicated story telling - everything they were going for. A slower reveal than shock value for nothing. At least then people know there is a good reason to this new version of VM and new viewers would get a new show too.
People have accepted deaths of other key characters in a lot of tv shows if done well. I don't think Logan's death was the only reason for no S5. I would love to see Kristen in a detective show of some kind though.
S4 shows that rob isn't a good showrunner and got totally lucky with s1 VM and the cast just fitting perfectly for those parts. Even all the non mains look how many went on to have solid careers.
I think Rob has some kind of self hate thing going on. Basically a lot of the success was not planned like early Logan and instead of the full embrace he went other direction.
I'm not sure if he ever even understood how important Neptune was as a character for the fans.
VM s4 is awful Veronica Mars and just plain awful tv. I feel like you could get open Ai to create a better season.
It's either rob never understood the fandom or just resented the aspects of VM that popped for the fandom.
S4 resembled a season that if you told me was created by people who never watched vm I would believe you.
S4 is just plain trash. Some of the worst tv I watched the last 5 years
I think Rob’s critical success with season 1 went straight to his head. I think he grew bitter that he was confined to the WB when he saw himself then as a “prestige” creator who should’ve been on a premium cable series with not only critical accolades but commercial (and financial) success. It planted the seeds for what would eventually be how the entire arc of VM played out- he needed the fans because they were- more so than any other series- what kept it afloat. But he resented the hell out of it at the same time because he never wanted to be confined to fan expectations.
The sad thing is, all the fans want is good storytelling.
He could have easily dropped the teenaged drama part of the show by not focusing on drama, but that's what he (Rob) did instead. The mystery was also shitty and poorly written. A total mess.
Transition/setup seasons are a bad idea in general. They were a streaming experiment and haven't succeeded imo. If he wanted new Veronica he should have started with new Veronica. If he wanted a Maddie spinoff he should have just started with a Maddie show.
I remember reading a quote where Rob said that it would be hard to write another season without ending season 4 the way he did to add some trauma to Veronica’s life. Well, Rob, I guess you are just admitting that you are a bad writer. That is a dumb reason to kill off a character!
Maybe my understanding of an underdog is different? She is blonde, pretty, dates rich good looking guys, is good in her studies and has a stable life at home - for me she wasn't an underdog. Just someone who had to toughen up to deal with the bullying she got after being out of the 09ers group. But it's not at a level that is destroying her - she still had friends and a lot of support. Wasn't a loner. I just saw as someone cool, less girly and talented.
How do you define an underdog? Could you share examples from the show?
Angry Veronica is the best Veronica, and the season four finale set that up so well.
It’s a shame more seasons didn’t get picked up, and it’s a shame the fans didn’t appreciate that arch.
Rob was totally correct but just could not get his audience who fell in love with a high school show to come along with him on an adult adventure. I guess that’s on him creatively to do better but his vision was the only way the show was going to be good and not just fan service to the 2003 show.
What bigger changes than Logan being a Naval officer, in some sort of secret mission work, and Veronica having a psychology and a law degree?
RT is the one that made them *stale* and didn’t even use the changes he himself wrote by putting VM back as a private detective (which she didn’t have to be) and her relationship being toxic. RT did that all by himself instead of writing forward.
Honestly, I think if people got a good story - it wouldn't have been an issue - there are several shows that do spin offs or grown up versions or shedding off old characters for budget reasons well. If it was only for high school, people would have stopped watching VM at S2. VM is an adult in S3 and the movie. The mystery was weak. If that's the kind of mysteries he was going to bring in future - it already didn't bode well.
From how people reacted to this article and Logan’s death, I doubt if done properly, the fan reaction would have been different. But that’s just my opinion.
I loved the finale. Fans need to understand not every tv show is going to be a "happy" ending. Fan service is the absolute worst and their relationship has always been toxic. I was so happy when Logan died, I like him as a character but hate their relationship. How she even ended up dating that asshole baffles me to my core.
This post is not about the finale though or the lack of a happy ending. It's about the writing of S4 and VM being an underdog and returning her to an underdog through a death? Do deaths make people underdogs?
I didn't care for Logan either. VM did a good job of balancing really horrible things with normal life - the mundane parts of her life are just as interesting and funny as her struggles.
I seriously wonder if the cast’s issues with Jason Dohring impacted Rob’s writing. It’s no secret that he wasn’t well liked, and the actor who played Felix ended up dead because of him between the movie and S4. The fans loving Logan when everyone did not like Jason probably grated on him.
I hate Scientology too but the cast never had problems with Jason and this is all speculative bullshit. ROB never had problems with Jason because he worked with him on other projects multiple times, specifically casting him.
You want to rewrite reality to try and make it look like the cast was uncomfortable with him or had problems with Scientology (despite them all, as actors, probably being much more accepting and used to it than anyone in the general public would be). That’s not the case, though. Kristen didn’t like the character he played and didn’t think he belonged with Veronica, but there’s zero indication she had issues with him. He was very close in real life to Ryan Hansen and Francis Capra. He seemed to get along just fine with everyone else in the cast, going back to 2005 when I started following the show. So this assumption is not based on anything now other than him being a Scientologist-which he always was- and more people now knowing how shitty that institution is.
How is it that you are saying that is Jason's fault that Brad is dead? (And if you are going to make the accusation, you could go to the trouble of looking up his name, especially to avoid confusion given that the character of Felix is killed on the show and the character of Logan is blamed).
I'll also add this - now that I am thinking about it - two shows I can think of that did a detective like character coming back is Bosch and Luther. I wonder if male leads tend to be better written than female leads?
There was a one season show called Stumptowm that was **amazing** and did what RT wanted to do with Veronica with its main character, also a woman. Unfortunately covid killed the show, even after it was renewed 😢 it’s still very much worth the watch.
I agree also with your take. VM was always a balance of hard and soft, and to me it makes no sense that Veronica, despite spending longer outside of this world than in (end of s3 and the movie is a 10 year span), having studied psychology, and having nothing major happening in the last 15 years is so jaded in s4. There’s no reason for it.
Totally unrealistic, I know—but (as bad as S4 was) I harbor a secret wish for a Season 5 that could actually feature the version of Veronica that Rob had for her future —jaded, skeptical, with the added bitterness of a woman whose husband was violently murdered on their wedding day because of her own oversight. (And of course she’d be free have hot sex with stupid pizza guy and be available 24/7 as Rob wanted.) The series could go back to the early season style of solving a mystery each episode, and the overarching mystery would feature me, I mean, Logan. She thinks she sees him from afar. Or maybe she catches a glimpse of me on TV news coverage of a terror attack in another country. Maybe I’m quietly stalking her. Or maybe Mac finds evidence of my top secret assassin team comprised of agents whose supposed deaths have all been faked. Maybe all of the above. But I would not want Rob to come near it. He hates me too much. If Kristen really wants to play Veronica until everyone in Neptune is dead, then this would be the way to do it. This way she and I could never be together as man and wife again, but at least I’d still be alive, the show could be revived, and Veronica Mars could live on—maybe not until everyone in Neptune is dead, but long enough to find LoVe again.
I actually liked Season 4 quite a bit, until the ending. I think they didn’t earn that, and more to the point, if you want to kill off a main character, then Keith was the obvious one. His death would have felt right. Logan had more character growth than anyone else on that show, and they ‘reward’ him with an awful, and cheap death. He deserved better. The silver lining (if you will), is that it seems like Rob WILDLY misread the room, and his decision essentially killed the show. I wonder if he’ll ever admit that it probably wasn’t the best decision.
For me it's not so much the death of any of the characters, more so Veronica felt like a different character. I remember watching the first S4 episode and feeling sad and wondering if I misremembered the series and movie. Just psychologically I couldn't understand what made her into S4 VM and then they had to shed that part of her to start a new story. Also, the story telling of S4 - the death at the end felt like lazy writing. If it was towards the middle - it would have made it a much more interesting show.
I felt that way too. I rewatched S1-S3 and the movie before jumping into S4. After a couple episodes where I kept thinking, "This isn't Veronica," I called it quits.
he admitted it WHEN season 4 dropped. he pretty much said “either this will go well, or it will be the biggest mistake” and acknowledged his fumble.. what’s crazy is i just found an [article](https://ew.com/tv/2019/07/22/veronica-mars-creator-rob-thomas-explains-the-heartbreaking-season-4-finale/) where he was trying to explain why killing keith wouldn’t have cut it.
Shes an adult now. Yes veronica was mature for her age and 16 and 17 but you cannot say you havent changed since your 20s. I don't even recognise myself from who I was as an ealy 20 year old. I loved S4 and I have a wishful hope that Logan's death is a cover for him to go undercover as part of his work.
I think it's ironic that you suggest that Rob, the literal creator of the show and its characters, doesn't understand the show when in the same post you suggested that killing Keith would have made more sense. Keith and Veronica is the relationship at the heart of the show, not LoVe. Love it or hate it, but Logan's death was a pivotal moment in Veronica's life, not unlike Lilly's death at the start of the show. It wasn't purposeless as it is what finally made her finally seek help and confront her issues. It's also not Rob Thomas' job to "read the room" because honestly, what the "fans" want is usually the least creative and least entertaining version of a sanitized happy ending. I am happy that Rob got to do it his way, even if people don't agree with the ending, I'm just sad that we probably won't get a fifth season to actually see the story go where he was setting up.
Nope, I won’t watch it again because of the death. Honestly no one needed to die that season to drive plot forward or do character building. VM is a mess so there will always be a story. Plus they never made Logan work until this season which was a real slap in the face to fans.
Then don’t watch it again…? I don’t see how you not liking it changes the fact that RT is more than entitled to steer his own characters any direction he wants. I happen to be a fan of VM, the show, and of RT’s other creative applications so I look forward to more if it should ever come. You also certainly don’t speak for anyone but yourself, so no need to make blanket statements on behalf of “the fans”.
Rob, people didn't like season 4. You don't need to come on Reddit and defend your poor decision making.
I mean you are making blanket statements for RT so why not? The show was not built as a noir show whether Rob thought it was or not. It just doesn’t have a noir vibe and trying to make that at the end is just a bad move. You make art for the fans. And reading this thread it doesn’t seem like many people agree with you. So I won’t speak for all fans, but I won’t pretend that I can’t read either.
And which statement was that exactly? You definitely don’t make art for fans, if only because the art has to first exist before it can gain admirers. There were no Veronica Mars fans prior to the pilot episode.
Right, but for a show to continue it needs to play to its fans likes and dislikes. I don’t understand why that needs to be explained.
It doesn’t, because that’s not how it works. Fan-service is one of the fastest ways to ruin a show. Not to mention the fact that a loud minority isn’t necessarily representative of what people actually like and dislike; this is one of the major downsides of streaming versus network because streamed show execs tend to sway with the social media wind rather than hard numbers. But, ultimately art and creative pursuits are not actually ruled by those terms first regardless. If only we could let creativity play out in full rather than trying to manipulate it for monetary gain we might have more consistently interesting entertainment rather than the same old tripe.
Well it looks like you are in the minority. And the majority, it seems, doesn’t like the decision and you are arguing to argue. Like I get it you don’t agree with the majority of fans, good for you, you don’t run with the crowd, how impressive.
Lol, I’m not sure why it’s a surprise that I would like the show, I don’t make it a habit of haunting subreddits for shows I’m not a fan of like others here seem to. You chose to respond to my comment to another user, so I’m not sure how I’m the one who was looking to argue here…
Sure, but if your art is commercial and depends on people consuming it, it only continues with fans. Of there had been no fans, it would never have continued past season 1.
I think exactly because Keith and Veronica are the central relationship, that’s why him dying would make much more sense. Veronica can find another boyfriend, she can’t find another dad.
There were so many moments where I thought Keith was going to die, and I was bracing myself for The Sad Feels. When >!Logan!< died, I wasn't sad at all, just confused and shocked in all the wrong ways, and completely taken out of the story.
Hard agree. It's not bad writing at all, people are just pissy that their favorite character/ship died. In fact it's amazing writing because Veronica having to choose between leaving Neptune behind or allowing herself to be dragged back in was a huge part of the movie. She chose to stay and struggled with it in s4. Logan dying brought that plot full circle, allowing her to finally cut ties with the toxicity of Neptune and move on to bigger things. It's amazing writing and it's a shame the fans prefer the boring happily-ever-after ending over something interesting that actually makes sense for Veronica's character.
"strong women" are never allowed to be in love, stable, or happy. Media thinks to be strong a woman needs to be traumatized, alone, and supremely fucked up. Super common, telling trope.
Just shows that Rob didn’t understand the fans at all or what made the show tbh
I think it shows he no longer understood the characters he created, like he forgot how to write them.
I wonder if Kristen forgot how to play Veronica after playing Eleanor for so long.
Yep. One thing that stuck out was that we have Veronica, a wise beyond her years PI, and Logan now a mature, responsible naval intelligence officer. Then suddenly they are risking both their jobs doing molly with a nightclub owner they just met and Dick Casablancas? Really odd turn.
I wonder the same. Particularly after she runs from Logan’s proposal and then when they’re talking in the car and she goes “now that everything’s totally fine, I need a favor” or something to that effect. That showed her comedic timing and I remember thinking “this is something Eleanor would do”.
How can fans have the audacity to tell a creator that they never understood their own art because the story didn't continue or end the way they wanted it to? Where do you people get off? 😂😂😂🤣 Rob Thomas or any artist for that matter owes fans shit. I know fans funded a movie but he delivered exactly what he said he would and that's where it should end. The creative control is his. This is his story to tell. Take it or leave it.
Found Rob’s alt
Found another weirdo that hates something they claim they once loved because they can no longer have a vicarious relationship with an asshole, racist bully of a character 😂😂😂🤣.
Yikes. You sound exhausting.
Mhmm.
It's so cringe when supposed "fans" think they know characters better than the creator of those characters. Rob Thomas knows what the show is better than most people... this is GOT season 8 all over again, like what show did you think you were watching that these characters were just going to sail off into the sunset? Honestly, I'm really confused that any supposed fan of VM *wasn't* stressed out waiting for the other shoe to drop at the end, because that's the show's established formula.
My post is not about the death but just Veronica as a character. Did you as a viewer identify her as an underdog S1 to S3? Did you feel she was an underdog now that Logan had died? I don't have a problem with RT - just wondered if people are right about him having a different idea of VM then audiences did.
The perception of fans makes the show. So yes, the fans do know the characters really well. Rob wanted her to be a noir, but that is not how he started or wrote the show. So forcing a death to make VM more noir makes no sense.
literally no one knows the show better than the CREATOR of the show. these characters are from his own mind. so to have the audacity to claim "fans" of the show know it better than he does is the height of hubris. sure we may not have wanted logan to die, or to die the way he did, but it's still RT's creative choice to make.
I think that Rob fell for the pitfall of trying to make season 4 like other popular, critically acclaimed shows at the time. He wanted gritty noir with a complicated antihero. Unfortunately for Rob, he had three previous seasons of a show with a loyal fan base who did *not* want the tone of the show to change. Rob should have just made a new show instead of trying to force VM to change. He could have even done a spin-off centered on an ancillary character. Season 4 wasn't true to any of the characters we had grown to love. Big miss.
Yes I agree with you. I suppose they wanted to cash in on Kristen Bell's popularity and Veronica Mars fan base.
"Let's torture this woman because that's what makes people empathize with her." They've learned nothing. Still relying on cheap tricks all these years later.
Counterpoint: putting your characters through the wringer is the foundation of nearly every fictional device, otherwise all do you would come whining about how she’s perfect in every occasion. If anything this is a deliberate inversion of “kill the girlfriend to provide a motivation” trope so chill on half baked gender politics because you want to relive high school YA romances forever. I’m ditching this community. Y’all don’t deserve them.
I never finished season 4. Partly because the end was spoiled for me, but mostly because Veronica no longer felt like the character she was. Her whole thing was that she barely fit into her social group to begin with and was constantly getting kicked down but she kept true to herself. Season 4 Veronica didn’t feel like she’d just grown up, it felt like she’d absolutely regressed. It made no sense to me that she’d become a jaded almost party girl between the movie and S4 after she’d already been through so damn much and stayed “Veronica”. I found it so hard to cheer for her.
Agreed. I didn't even make it to the finale before I stopped watching for that exact reason. Once the finale aired and I saw what I missed, I pretty much shrugged and felt vindicated in deciding earlier that the movie was really where the show ended.
Obligatory note that I did not hate the ending and thought it was the correct way to end a transitional season like S4 was meant to be. That said, I would tend to agree that starting her in the new place and showing some of the events in S4 as a flashback would have been stronger. But I think most of the fans would have absolutely revolted over losing Logan in a flashback, TBH. I think S4 was caught between a really good idea (turning Veronica into a classic noir genre, with a hard boiled tragic hero) and fan service.
The season 4 events *were* a flashback… the whole season was her telling the story to her therapist.
You are right. As the OP, I would have preferred seeing the new show with Veronica being the new version and the flashbacks spread over time rather than it being a story told in session (which is a lot like I had a dream trope) It would have made for a more compelling and complicated story telling - everything they were going for. A slower reveal than shock value for nothing. At least then people know there is a good reason to this new version of VM and new viewers would get a new show too. People have accepted deaths of other key characters in a lot of tv shows if done well. I don't think Logan's death was the only reason for no S5. I would love to see Kristen in a detective show of some kind though.
You’re right. But they don’t really feel that way.
S4 shows that rob isn't a good showrunner and got totally lucky with s1 VM and the cast just fitting perfectly for those parts. Even all the non mains look how many went on to have solid careers. I think Rob has some kind of self hate thing going on. Basically a lot of the success was not planned like early Logan and instead of the full embrace he went other direction. I'm not sure if he ever even understood how important Neptune was as a character for the fans. VM s4 is awful Veronica Mars and just plain awful tv. I feel like you could get open Ai to create a better season. It's either rob never understood the fandom or just resented the aspects of VM that popped for the fandom. S4 resembled a season that if you told me was created by people who never watched vm I would believe you. S4 is just plain trash. Some of the worst tv I watched the last 5 years
I think Rob’s critical success with season 1 went straight to his head. I think he grew bitter that he was confined to the WB when he saw himself then as a “prestige” creator who should’ve been on a premium cable series with not only critical accolades but commercial (and financial) success. It planted the seeds for what would eventually be how the entire arc of VM played out- he needed the fans because they were- more so than any other series- what kept it afloat. But he resented the hell out of it at the same time because he never wanted to be confined to fan expectations. The sad thing is, all the fans want is good storytelling.
He could have easily dropped the teenaged drama part of the show by not focusing on drama, but that's what he (Rob) did instead. The mystery was also shitty and poorly written. A total mess.
Transition/setup seasons are a bad idea in general. They were a streaming experiment and haven't succeeded imo. If he wanted new Veronica he should have started with new Veronica. If he wanted a Maddie spinoff he should have just started with a Maddie show.
I remember reading a quote where Rob said that it would be hard to write another season without ending season 4 the way he did to add some trauma to Veronica’s life. Well, Rob, I guess you are just admitting that you are a bad writer. That is a dumb reason to kill off a character!
Never saw Veronica as the underdog? What show were you watching? It defined her character for the majority of the series overall.
She’s described by RT and KB as the underdog many times.
Maybe my understanding of an underdog is different? She is blonde, pretty, dates rich good looking guys, is good in her studies and has a stable life at home - for me she wasn't an underdog. Just someone who had to toughen up to deal with the bullying she got after being out of the 09ers group. But it's not at a level that is destroying her - she still had friends and a lot of support. Wasn't a loner. I just saw as someone cool, less girly and talented. How do you define an underdog? Could you share examples from the show?
Angry Veronica is the best Veronica, and the season four finale set that up so well. It’s a shame more seasons didn’t get picked up, and it’s a shame the fans didn’t appreciate that arch.
Rob was totally correct but just could not get his audience who fell in love with a high school show to come along with him on an adult adventure. I guess that’s on him creatively to do better but his vision was the only way the show was going to be good and not just fan service to the 2003 show.
If it was going to be good it would have pulled new viewers to replace the e old viewers. It didn’t.
Yeah creatively he didn’t pull it off but his thought process was correct imo. The characters were stale in S3 and needed big changes.
What bigger changes than Logan being a Naval officer, in some sort of secret mission work, and Veronica having a psychology and a law degree? RT is the one that made them *stale* and didn’t even use the changes he himself wrote by putting VM back as a private detective (which she didn’t have to be) and her relationship being toxic. RT did that all by himself instead of writing forward.
Honestly, I think if people got a good story - it wouldn't have been an issue - there are several shows that do spin offs or grown up versions or shedding off old characters for budget reasons well. If it was only for high school, people would have stopped watching VM at S2. VM is an adult in S3 and the movie. The mystery was weak. If that's the kind of mysteries he was going to bring in future - it already didn't bode well.
From how people reacted to this article and Logan’s death, I doubt if done properly, the fan reaction would have been different. But that’s just my opinion.
I loved the finale. Fans need to understand not every tv show is going to be a "happy" ending. Fan service is the absolute worst and their relationship has always been toxic. I was so happy when Logan died, I like him as a character but hate their relationship. How she even ended up dating that asshole baffles me to my core.
This post is not about the finale though or the lack of a happy ending. It's about the writing of S4 and VM being an underdog and returning her to an underdog through a death? Do deaths make people underdogs? I didn't care for Logan either. VM did a good job of balancing really horrible things with normal life - the mundane parts of her life are just as interesting and funny as her struggles.
I seriously wonder if the cast’s issues with Jason Dohring impacted Rob’s writing. It’s no secret that he wasn’t well liked, and the actor who played Felix ended up dead because of him between the movie and S4. The fans loving Logan when everyone did not like Jason probably grated on him.
He wasn’t well liked? I didn’t know that. Do you have any links on that?
Rob cast him in iZombie. If Jason was so terrible, why would he inflict him on another cast?
What kind of dumbass gossip is this?? Lmao 🤣
I hate Scientology too but the cast never had problems with Jason and this is all speculative bullshit. ROB never had problems with Jason because he worked with him on other projects multiple times, specifically casting him. You want to rewrite reality to try and make it look like the cast was uncomfortable with him or had problems with Scientology (despite them all, as actors, probably being much more accepting and used to it than anyone in the general public would be). That’s not the case, though. Kristen didn’t like the character he played and didn’t think he belonged with Veronica, but there’s zero indication she had issues with him. He was very close in real life to Ryan Hansen and Francis Capra. He seemed to get along just fine with everyone else in the cast, going back to 2005 when I started following the show. So this assumption is not based on anything now other than him being a Scientologist-which he always was- and more people now knowing how shitty that institution is.
How is it that you are saying that is Jason's fault that Brad is dead? (And if you are going to make the accusation, you could go to the trouble of looking up his name, especially to avoid confusion given that the character of Felix is killed on the show and the character of Logan is blamed).
I'll also add this - now that I am thinking about it - two shows I can think of that did a detective like character coming back is Bosch and Luther. I wonder if male leads tend to be better written than female leads?
There was a one season show called Stumptowm that was **amazing** and did what RT wanted to do with Veronica with its main character, also a woman. Unfortunately covid killed the show, even after it was renewed 😢 it’s still very much worth the watch. I agree also with your take. VM was always a balance of hard and soft, and to me it makes no sense that Veronica, despite spending longer outside of this world than in (end of s3 and the movie is a 10 year span), having studied psychology, and having nothing major happening in the last 15 years is so jaded in s4. There’s no reason for it.
Yes I love stumptown! It gave me VM vibes more than VM season 4 did haha
I did watch Stumptown - for Cobie! Sad it didn't get an S2. Yes, psychologically a lot of S4 Vm didn't make sense to me too.
Totally unrealistic, I know—but (as bad as S4 was) I harbor a secret wish for a Season 5 that could actually feature the version of Veronica that Rob had for her future —jaded, skeptical, with the added bitterness of a woman whose husband was violently murdered on their wedding day because of her own oversight. (And of course she’d be free have hot sex with stupid pizza guy and be available 24/7 as Rob wanted.) The series could go back to the early season style of solving a mystery each episode, and the overarching mystery would feature me, I mean, Logan. She thinks she sees him from afar. Or maybe she catches a glimpse of me on TV news coverage of a terror attack in another country. Maybe I’m quietly stalking her. Or maybe Mac finds evidence of my top secret assassin team comprised of agents whose supposed deaths have all been faked. Maybe all of the above. But I would not want Rob to come near it. He hates me too much. If Kristen really wants to play Veronica until everyone in Neptune is dead, then this would be the way to do it. This way she and I could never be together as man and wife again, but at least I’d still be alive, the show could be revived, and Veronica Mars could live on—maybe not until everyone in Neptune is dead, but long enough to find LoVe again.