She's got spunk. She's got moxie. She's got a Taser! Veronica Mars.

A few years ago, back before the WB network became the CW, and we lived between Toronto and New York and thus got 30+ channels on our bunny ears, I caught the third and final season of a teen drama called Veronica Mars. Yes, a teen drama. The big surprise was that, generally speaking, it was welll-done and not too over the top. I found the first two seasons at the local library, and thought that I might as well find out how the show reached its conclusion.

Veronica Mars, also the name of the heroine, is set in mid-sized-town California and revolves around the life and misadventures of a high school senior who was rich and popular until her dad, the local sheriff, accused the town's most rich and famous citizen of his daughter Lily's murder. Lily also happened to be Veronica's best friend. You can see where this is headed. After losing both the next election and Veronica's mother (to abandonment, not death), Keith Mars goes into business as a private eye, which suits Veronica's nosy and arrogant nature quite well. In the space of two short seasons, the series tackled long story arcs of class divide, the mystery of who killed Lily, child abuse, and sexual abuse, to name a few, and for the most part did it with a degree of maturity not typically seen on the average WB program (this does not necessarily mean it was mature by higher standards). Snappy writing, classy acting, and the presence of everyone's favourite Enrico Colantoni (Flashpoint, Just Shoot Me, The Wrong Guy) as Keith Mars - as well as a recurring character for Angel's Charisma Carpenter, a.k.a. Cordelia - also help this program stand out from the pack. Perhaps the show's strongest aspect is Veronica and Keith's relationship. Keith is a good father, a cool cat too, and gives no sympathetic reasons for Veronica to rebel or misbehave...but she does, constantly. While the show is hardly conservative in its social commentary, unintentionally or not it doesn't gloss over its heroine's poor treatment of a parent who really doesn't provoke such behaviour, whose character is and of of itself a not-so-common twist for this genre.

Of course, it's not an ideal show. Its portrayals of teen relationships and sex are immature and messed up, it stooped very low in its attempts to champion gay rights by demonizing Christians instead of making arguments, and what was shaping out to be a bold and powerful study of psychological sexual abuse took a sudden turn for the cliched in the last two episodes of season 2, becoming flat and somewhat meaningless. The writers really had something interesting here, spending almost two seasons on a boy who had lots of trouble and discomfort with romantic relationships, making it look like this was due to the abuse by his older brother. The older brother's abuse wasn't physical (for the most part), but rather took form in constant verbal humiliation and degradation, often in front of others and in regards to the younger brother's sexual capabilities. I was shocked and (this is strange to say) pleasantly surprised that a show was actually bringing up this kind of abuse and its consequences, because it's plentiful in this age group. Unfortunately - spoiler! - at the very end, the writers attributed the younger brother's behaviour to physical abuse at the hands of an adult, and completely threw out, ignored, and (pardon the pun, but it's apt) neutered the whole storyline of psychological abuse, basically saying that it was inconsequential ("boys will be boys", perhaps?). So, humongous minus points for that.

On a completely different note, the cliche gloves are completely off once the series hits the third season, and college. I'm not suggesting there's no bad behaviour ever in frat houses, but the unbridled animosity towards fraternities on Veronica Mars suggests that no one on the writing staff was sufficiently academically strong, athletically inclined, or involved in campus/community life (as these tend to be membership conditions in the average real-life frat) to ever join or know anyone who joined a real fraternity (disclaimer: I've never joined a real fraternity). Whatever the presumptuous case may be, all fraternities on Veronica Mars are either bastions of bad and criminal behaviour, or so square and goody-two-shoes that they're supposed to come across as scary. It's pretty ridiculous, and emphasizes just how snobby the "laid-back" emo crowd can be.

As well, Veronica herself can get quite frustrating to watch on a regular basis. She's a House-type genius who's also incredibly narcissisctic and mean-sprited, and who is every so often reminded of that by either one of her few friends or a situation gone horribly wrong, but who never responds to such reminders with anything so bourgeois as growth, progress, or self-reflection. If you don't worship the ground smart and cunning people walk on, this behaviour can get very tiresome.

All that being said, if you're going to watch a teen drama, or show one to your kids so you can talk about issues, Veronica Mars is one of the very few that won't try too hard to make you, the adult, wish you were doing something fun like eating thumbtacks instead.