I really enjoyed the fourth season of Veronica Mars

[frelling_tralk]

Comments

[geekslave]

I haven't watched VM yet, and after reading some of the interviews I don't know if I want to start, but I get why people are upset. Sometimes it doesn't matter how good something is as a whole - a crappy ending can really ruin everything that preceded it. I've had that happen a number of times. Like I said, never watched the show but I've read about it and from what I read I don't know if I would have been a big LoVe fan. It sounds like one of those toxic relationships that CW-Esque writers love to show as being epic true love that I just never get into. I didn't think I'd be upset to hear they killed him off, but like I said, it's the interviews Thomas has given that anger me

[frelling_tralk]

Oh absolutely I get why fans are so devastated, I was also sad that it ended in that way for Veronica and Logan after they had some really lovely scenes together before that, and I do agree with fans protesting that the death was pretty much brushed over and not really dealt with correctly. Still some of the reactions I’m coming across are crossing a line imo. It is unfortunate that Rob and Kristen decided to take a hiatus, because it means that other actors are having to deal with a lot of crap when the decision was nothing to do with them. Francis who plays Weevil for example was getting frustrated at fans throwing boycott etc comments into his twitter when he was just wanting to discuss a season of tv that he was really excited and proud of, some fans are being quite disrespectful right now, and I wish they would at least wait to aim it at the right people

[eiffels]

I completely agree with what you said about people on Twitter freaking out about the twist. It's been driving me mental! Luckily I wasn't spoiled but I knew something bad was going to happen. And the people complaining haven't even watched any of the season! It was a good one. Sure it had flaws but overall there were a lot of good things as you pointed out. I just wish it was given more of a chance instead of everyone just focusing on the part at the end.

[frelling_tralk]

I was attempting to avoid spoilers, but absolutely it really wasn’t hard to put it all together when you keep coming across articles with ‘Let’s talk about the big death spoiler on VM’, or ‘What does it mean for Logan going forward’. None of the articles spoiled it directly in the headline, but it was very easy to put together that the big twist was actually a death, and that it almost certainly involved Logan. So I was already suspecting that was the case, and then I got it confirmed for me on reddit only the day after the episodes were released when someone had spoilers all over the title of their post

[tasabian]

I was only really interested in S1 of "VM" so, not a devoted fan, but the behind the scenes aspects here are intriguing. As I understand it:

- Veronica & Logan become the huge pairing in S1, because the network pushed it? Rob Thomas preferred Duncan?
- KBell didn't become friends with Dohring the way she did with Ryan Hansen, never seemed especially comfortable with him?
- The LoVe shippers provided the majority of funding for the movie, making RT indebted to them and resentful at once
- Now those shippers feel like faith has been broken and are unlikely to watch subsequent seasons, a Pyrrhic victory for Thomas.

*I disliked Logan's character, although JD is a good actor. But I think a break-up was the way to go. More realistic.

[frelling_tralk]

KBell didn't become friends with Dohring the way she did with Ryan Hansen, never seemed especially comfortable with himI sense that he can be quite an intense method actor, I read one interview where he was talking about how he felt that he was really in love with Kristen for the three years that the show was on, whereas Kristen always strikes me as someone who jokes around between takes and doesn’t get as heavily invested. There are some fun conspiracy theories going round now though about her being jealous of Logan’s popularity, and driving Jason out because of it! *g* And yes, judging by iZombie and Liv/Major as well, I would say that characters like Duncan and Piz are the characters that Rob Thomas is more drawn too as the love interest, Logan/Veronica always felt like they were driven more by fan demand. Honestly I’ve never seen his writing of romances as his strong suit anyway, he’s one of these writers who breaks the couple up all the time because keeping them apart is the only way he knows how to write them

[molly_may]

I've only watched the first four episodes so far (I'll probably finish the season this weekend), but I'm basically as spoiled as you can get at this point. My first inkling that Logan was toast came several weeks ago, when a critic I follow on Twitter posted that the new season was very good, but that something in the last episode was going to make a lot of fans "very, very, very, very mad." She used a lot of "very"s, and my immediate thought was "uh oh, Logan's gonna die," because nothing else could upset VM fandom more.

I do think that it was very ill-advised of Rob Thomas to go there and not understand just how great the backlash would be, I especially worry about what it means for the show going forward, but I must admit that I’m more frustrated at the moment that the twist seems to be all that most people want to talk about. Yeah. If they wanted the conversation to be about a successful reboot (and I think it is successful!), they shouldn't have ended it this way, because now all the fandom is talking (raging) about is Logan.

[frelling_tralk]

I saw a lot of early reviews similarly warning that there was something that fans wouldn’t be happy about, and Kristen also mentioned the same thing, but at the time I thought there was no way that Rob would kill off Logan when he is such a fan favourite. I was almost sure that it was going to be Keith, especially with all the talk of his health issues and considering early retirement, so I was predicting that he would be killed off right at the end leaving Veronica as the sole person in charge of Mars Investigations going forward

[molly_may]

In the run-up to the season, I considered that it might be Keith who would die, especially knowing that his health was going to be an issue for him, but the idea of very angry fans just kept bringing me back to Logan.

And yeah I’ve never been that passionate about the relationships in Veronica Mars for some reason, similar to iZombie actually, I just don’t think it’s Rob Thomas’s strong point

Agreed. I care a lot more about Liv, Ravi, and Clive's friendships than I do about Liv/Major. And honestly, I feel like Rob Thomas has been over Logan/Veronica since S2.

I think there will be a fifth season. Hulu has gotten a ton of publicity from this, and the critical reviews have been positive. Now, if the ratings (or whatever metric they use) tank for S5, there may not be anymore, but I bet they're willing to take a chance on one more season. The shippers are loud, but in the end they're just one part of the audience.

[frelling_tralk]

I’m hoping you’re right, presumedly Hulu were already prepared for a backlash when they agreed to the season that Rob had mapped out, so that must mean that they have confidence in Rob and Kristen’s plans? The only thing that gives me slight pause there is that it sounds like there was some miscommunication going on with how much swearing Rob was originally planning to include, he said that Hulu were caught off guard by the swearing/they wanted season 4 to still be accessible to seasons 1-3 viewers, so I wonder if that’s a bad sign on Hulu actually being on board for a grittier reboot?