Veronica Mars

The show is set in an upscale Southern California beach community. Veronica is in high school with lots of rich snobs. Actually, she used to be part of that crowd. All that changed when her best friend (her boyfriend’s sister) was killed. Veronica’s father, the sheriff, botched the investigation, made enemies, and was removed from office. He now works as a private investigator and Veronica helps out along the way.

Veronica is now an outcast. Her former friends have dumped her; her mother has abandoned her family. Veronica is very much alone, but also very capable at getting to the bottom of things and solving mysteries. However, the mysteries that really matter to her, what happened to her friend and where her mother is, are beyond her.

We keep seeing hints that imply the circumstances of the killing are not as they seemed to be. There are secrets in this town of tony houses and fancy cars. Will Veronica be able to uncover them?

Of course, Veronica is not Buffy (who could be?), but there are some similarities. Like Buffy, she is an outsider, very gifted, and tough (but tender). She is beginning to acquire her own little “Scooby Gang” to help her. But the real similarity is the battle between good and evil.

In Buffy, that battle took place in a supernatural realm. The good and evil were cosmic. For Veronica, the evil is not from some cosmic evil, it grows from within people (which is far more sinister.) Buffy was always saving the world (literally); Veronica saves people that no one else really cares about.

So far, the episodes are a bit uneven. Relationships still need to be developed. Occasionally, there is an episode that does very little to move the meta-plot along, instead focusing only on a little minor mystery. Buffy relied on having a meta-plot that moved through the season, while Nancy Drew could get by with solving a mystery every week. In that sense, this is a bit of a combination of the two. It needs, however, to concentrate more on being Buffy in this way, and less on being Nancy.