Veronica Mars – The Complete Third Season (Warner DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C
In what
has to be the poorest and most commercially successful rip-off of Nancy Drew to
date, Kristen Bell is the obnoxious, know-it-all title character in Veronica Mars – The Complete Third Season,
a Nancy Drew variant with little mystery (except as to why it is a hit) and
little to offer beyond its teeny bopper audience. Going on this long, it actually has outdone
the run of the Pamela Sue Martin show, though she left in the middle of her
second season for script reasons, so that analogy has limits. Still, not as many as this show.
Like
Drew, her father is a detective (no lawsuit?) and she goes to college (after
leaving high school the previous season) with a case of serial rape among other
goofy happenings. It is one thing for
her to seem like a semi-airhead who is observant, but throw in this poorly
handed rape storyline, and it is a wreck.
It actually trivializes the subject, a very bad thing for its
demographic. However, without that, this
show is awful and is a mess from beginning to end. Joel Silver co-produces, bringing his R-rated
rawness to a show that should not need it.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image of all 20 hour-long shows is poor and
problematic throughout, looking like either bad film transfers or very bad HD
shooting. If it were any worse, this
would be among the worst new shows on DVD for picture. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes have limited
surrounds and are not the best mixed episodes we have encountered. The combination can be trying. Extras include webisodes, additional scenes,
gag reel and two behind the scenes features that do not add up to much. Get the Pamela Sue Martin/Nancy Drew shows (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) on DVD instead.
- Nicholas Sheffo
