We watch... so you don't have to.
Disappointed
After the first season of Veronica Mars received rave reviews, I managed to watch all the episodes through the magic of the Internet. And I liked it a lot, so now I'm watching the second season.
And... I think they've really lost momentum. Last season, there was a single driving force for the story arc: Lilly Kane's murder. Everything that wasn't episode-specific came from that: Veronica wanted to solve the mystery; the audience wanted to know what happened.
This year, it's all over the place: the bus plunge, Logan's possible-murder (which would have been obvious self defense anyway, so I don't know why I'm supposed to care), the Casablancas boys and their stepmother, Steve Guttenberg and his vague plans for Neptune. Even Veronica doesn't seem that interested in any of it, because she only spends like five minutes a week on anything before getting distracted by whatever's new. And aside from Logan, none of it has the connection to the main character the way "Veronica's Best Friend Was Murdered" did. I'm starting to think the season arc this year really is "Does Veronica like Duncan or Logan more?" and that's a huge comedown from the film noir they were trying to pull off last year.
The first season's big selling point for me was the flashbacks. They were telling two stories at once: the current-day story of Veronica investigating the murder and last year's story of how Veronica got ostracized. It was elegant. This year, that's not happening. There are a surprising number of scenes without Veronica even in them, considering that all of the first season was Veronica's POV. And there's a lot more stuntcasting this year, with Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon and two people from America's Next Top Model.
I enjoyed the first season, but I'm finding it hard to keep watching this year. It just seems to meander all over the place. It seems like they want to make "Wallace left!" another arc, but not provide any traction on it at all. If the actor's gone, we need to just move on with what we have.
Oh, also, I have a cynical prediction. I don't understand what Steve Guttenberg is doing on the show. Seriously, all of his scenes have been essentially irrelevant. And he's a washed-up actor. Which is exactly what I thought about Harry Hamlin last season! So I predict that Guttenberg caused the bus plunge. I have no prediction on whether I'll still be watching at the end of the season to see whether I'm right.
