Is she seriously writing about Veronica Mars again?

Yes, yes I am. It was a year ago when I wrote here about my love for the Veronica Mars TV series, which ran from 2004-2007, and the Kickstarter campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie.

You probably heard that the Kickstarter campaign was wildly successful, raising $5.7 million ($3.7 million in excess of its goal). Veronica Mars fans––who call themselves Marshmallows––have been anxiously awaiting the movie since the campaign ended. Producer/director/writer Rob Thomas and team posted twice-weekly progress updates to Kickstarter backers and sent out tchotchkes like stickers and teeshirts.

After the world premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, on March 8, 2014, the big release day arrived; March 14, 2014. Warner Brothers had agreed to produce the movie if Rob Thomas could raise at least $2 million on Kickstarter, which put the movie in the unusual position of being financed by both the general public and a major studio. As a result, the movie opened in movie theaters and, on the same day, became available for on-demand streaming; a first for a major studio production.

I'll bet the green-eyeshade types at WB were biting their nails about the returns at the theaters, but they needn't have worried. The movie did very well and was an event almost like a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening. Marshmallows thronged the theaters in their Veronica Mars tees, talked back to the screen and sang along to the theme song, the Dandy Warhols' We Used To Be Friends.

The movie picks up nine years after the TV series ended, when Veronica was in college in that Raymond Chandler-esque sun-drenched Southern California Babylon called Neptune. Now she's in New York, a new graduate of Columbia Law School interviewing with a high-powered Manhattan law firm. (Look, it's Jamie Lee Curtis playing the firm's managing partner!) She lives with a nice-guy boyfriend who is a radio DJ. (Look, there he is at the radio studio talking with Ira Glass from This American Life!)

We're in New York for the approximately five minutes it takes for Veronica to give us a voiceover précis of her life and get a call from her bad-boy ex, Logan Echolls, who asks for her help. He's in a spot of bother, being suspected of killing his self-destructive pop star girlfriend Bonnie DeVille, who also happens to have been a high school classmate of Veronica and Logan. Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather III, just when Veronica thought she was out, they pull her back in.

So, not only does Veronica drop everything to jet back to Neptune and help out Logan, it also happens to be the weekend of her 10-year high school reunion. She is absolutely, positively, no way going to go to that horror show, but her best friends, Wallace and Mac, virtually abduct her to get her there. The reunion scenes are a gift to Marshmallows, since they get to see so many of the characters from the series, but fun for others too. After all, who wouldn't get vicarious enjoyment out of seeing somebody like Veronica cold-cock the high school mean-girl-in-chief?

Though the original plan was for Veronica to just help Logan hire a criminal lawyer, you know this Philip Marlowe in a petite blonde body can't just leave it there. Soon, she's deep into an investigation of Bonnie DeVille's murder, uncovering tantalizing facts from a long-ago disappearance, dealing with the present-day intrusions of the 24-hour celebrity "news" cycle (look, there are those creeps from TMZ, and there's a very odd cameo of James Franco!), and tangling with Neptune's venal new sheriff (look, there's Jerry O'Connell!).

The murder mystery is satisfying, with a yelp-inducing climax and a couple of other rapid-fire surprises that had me levitating from my chair. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Veronica decides her real mission in life is to stick around, renew her PI license and work on cleaning up Neptune, rather than be just another suit in New York. As a scarred veteran of law firm life, it was easy for me to applaud that part of the plot, even if it made Veronica's father, Keith Mars, want to bang his head with frustration.

Even if you're not a Veronica Mars series veteran, you might enjoy the film. I know some people who said they did, and it made them seek out the old series. The film review site, Rotten Tomatoes, says: "It might be a more entertaining watch for diehard fans of the show, but Veronica Mars offers enough sharp writing and solid performances to entertain viewers in the mood for a character-driven thriller."

If you'd like to see the film, it's possible that it's still at an AMC theater near you––as long as you live in a major metropolitan area. But you can watch it from the comfort of your couch, which seems like the right place to watch Veronica Mars, by streaming it from iTunes, Flixster, Amazon Instant Video, Xbox Video, Vudu and more. The DVD goes on sale on May 6.

The movie only made me want more Veronica Mars, and that clever Rob Thomas knew that would be the result for Marshmallows. So he launched a Veronica Mars book series on March 25, 2014, with the first book, The Thousand Dollar Tan Line (Random House), picking up a couple of months from where the movie left off.

There are nothing but crickets for Veronica at Mars Investigations, and the chances of her ever paying off her school loans look slim, until the Chamber of Commerce hires her to investigate the spring break disappearance of a college girl. The disappearance has become a national cause celèbre, bad for Neptune's businesses, and Sheriff Lamb is clearly not competent to do the job.

Just as in the series and the movie, Veronica dives in, calling on her cadre of friends, like Mac and Wallace, to help out with legwork and the high-level technical stuff. The mystery is on a par with what Marshmallows are used to from the TV series, with the added benefit of a major plot twist that Veronica runs into during the investigation and that rocks her back on her heels.

As a book, of course this was somewhat less heavy on the dialog than a film/TV script. That makes sense, but it did mean there wasn't quite as much of that snarky patter that typifies the onscreen versions. What made up for that for me was to listen to the audiobook version, read by Kristen Bell, who plays Veronica Mars on the screen. Naturally, she's excellent reading Veronica, but she's surprisingly good at giving voices to all the other characters.

I don't think the book would be of much interest to anyone who hasn't seen the series or the movie, but if you have, it's well worth reading and will pass the time while we're waiting to see if there will be a movie sequel.

Veronica Mars: Not Just for Teens

If you keep up with popular culture––or even if you don't––then you probably heard recently about the website Kickstarter's impressive fundraising to make a movie followup to the Veronica Mars TV show. The show appeared for three seasons, from 2004-2007, starred Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars, Enrico Colantoni as her father, Keith, and featured a raft of young actors, like Tina Majorino, Jason Dohring, Percy Daggs III, Amanda Seyfried and Max Greenfield. Veronica Mars was set in the sun-drenched southern California beachside town of Neptune, where you were either extremely wealthy or worked for the rich folks.

I remember one evening in 2004 when I was channel surfing and caught the beginning of the show. I was definitely not part of its target demographic, but who could resist the smartest, most badass 17-year-old blonde PI ever?

When Keith Mars was the county sheriff and Veronica was dating Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn), son of billionaire software developer Jake Kane (Kyle Secor), she was part of the in crowd. All that changed after the murder of Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried), Duncan's sister and Veronica's best friend. Certain anomalies on the scene and in alibis made Keith suspect Jake. All hell broke loose after that.

When Jake Kane's company went public several years earlier, he'd made millionaires of dozens of people in town; pretty much every single employee at the company. Needless to say, he became extremely popular, and fingering him for the murder of his own daughter was politically unwise. Keith was booted out of the sheriff's job and started his PI firm (Mars Investigations), Veronica's mother (Corinne Bohrer) left the family and Veronica was forced by her so-called friends to choose between loyalty to her father and her membership in the "09er" social group.

Veronica chose Keith. Working at Mars Investigations and being cast out by the 09ers opened Veronica's eyes to the dark underside of Neptune and Neptune High. She lost every bit of sunny naïveté she'd ever had and became a tough-talking teenage Philip Marlowe. She even packed heat and wasn't afraid to use it––in this case a taser, though, not a revolver.

Here's the basic plot of Season One of the series. Like many crime series, there is a season-long mystery to be solved; in this case, it's the murder of Lilly Kane. This part of the story is a bit reminiscent of Twin Peaks, only without the incomprehensible and supernatural plot twists. Every episode of Veronica Mars also includes a single-episode mystery to be solved; either a case that walks through the door at Mars Investigations or something that comes up at Neptune High School.

In the pilot episode, Veronica rescues the new kid in school, Wallace, when he's found duct-taped to the school's flagpole. It seems Wallace made a big mistake in his job at a convenience store. He pressed the silent alarm button when local Mexican-American biker gang members shoplifted beer, but when the sheriff showed up and confronted the gangbangers and Wallace, Wallace decided his skin would be more likely to stay intact if he didn't rat on them. Too late, though. New Sheriff Don Lamb may be a smarmy jerk, but he's not an idiot. He calls Wallace a wimp and takes the store's security tape. Of course, that means the bikers are going to be charged. In one evening, Wallace has managed to alienate both the new sheriff and the biker gang members, who are classmates at Neptune High.

Now that Veronica has made friends with Wallace, that means she's got problems with the gang, including its head, Weevil. After exchanging some witty threats with Weevil, Veronica offers to fix the criminal case if the gang agrees to leave Wallace alone. She manages this in a clever caper that shows her ingenuity and the fact that in spite of everything, she still has some people in her corner. Her scheme gives Wallace protection and has the welcome side benefit of causing acute embarrassment for both Sheriff Don Lamb and one of her 09er tormenters.

In another episode, "Credit Where Credit's Due," Veronica has established an almost friendship with Weevil. (As the Shangri-Las used to sing, "He's good-bad, but he's not evil.") Weevil's grandmother is fired from her longtime domestic job with the family of movie star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin) and is charged with having fraudulently used a credit card she obtained under the Echolls name. Veronica investigates, and in the process of clearing Weevil's abuela, she finds out a lot more about the secret lives of the 09ers––and Weevil's gang.

Subjects of other episodes' mysteries include missing family members, a dognapping ring, a school mascot-napping, a con game perpetrated against young 09er women, steroid smuggling, blackmail, extortion, a cult, money stolen in a high-stakes poker game, a fake ID ring, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, and bomb threats at Neptune High. And all the while, Veronica continues her investigation into Lilly Kane's murder, her missing mother, and her own rape at a party where she was roofied by a person or persons unknown. The final two episodes of Season One resolve all these mysteries, and they're thrill bombs, filled with action and motion.

Despite the fact that this show's protagonist is a teenager, this is no juvenile effort.  The mysteries' construction and solution are a cut above most TV crime drama. True, there's still time for teen romance, Veronica's cat-and-mouse battle against Sheriff Lamb, frequent clashes with the half-admiring Vice Principal Clemens, and high school hijinks; not that that's such a bad thing. This is also one of those shows filled with music that sends you to iTunes to check out that song with the catchy hook.

Here and here are some amusing moments from the show. Several bits feature teacher Mrs. Hauser, and I should note that the episode involving her (2.13: "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough") may be a psychological catharsis for you if you've had lingering emotional scars from a nemesis teacher.

For somebody AARP-eligible to enjoy a show about a teenage PI should be embarrassing, but can I call this a guilty pleasure if I frequently recommend it to my contemporaries––and the ones who've watched it have given it rave reviews?

Today is the final day of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign. If you want to be part of it, you can make a pledge anytime before 11pm EDT, here.

Even if you don't want to be part of the Kickstarter campaign, check out the show; no matter if you're well past your own high school years. You can easily find the DVDs for purchase or rental, or watch episodes online here. And, you're in luck, because reruns of the series have been showing on weekdays at 5pm EDT (and repeated on the weekends) for some months on SOAPnet (argh, I know), and they are back to the beginning starting today.