Debbie Chang ranked Veronica Mars 3rd.? She says…

Veronica Mars is smarter than me. It’s true. She is. And that is why I must place Veronica Mars near the top of my list of best shows of 2007.

The year 2007 brought us the second of the third-season mini-mystery arcs on Veronica Mars,
this one involving the murder of Dean Cyrus O’Dell (guest star Ed
Begley, Jr.). Though not as meticulous or satisfying as the amazing
22-episode long mystery of who killed Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried) in
the first season, Dean O’Dell was still a sympathetic enough character
to make the mystery of his death compelling.

And while Veronica Mars
took a turn towards the bubble gum in its final season, shedding much
of the dark, ethically ambiguous noir landscape of seasons past, it
still had the quintessential snarkiness and one-liners that I so love.

The series ended with a bang with the last standalone three episodes.
Veronica passes her exam to be an official private
investigator�although she didn’t quite beat her dad Keith’s (Enrico Colantoni) score�and found herself at odds with her current boyfriend Stosh “Piz” Piznarski (Chris Lowell)
because of her inability to commit to him completely. She distracts him
from their relationship drama with a cheerleader-themed session of
hanky-panky, which unfortunately gets leaked onto the Internet. Now
things are personal, and Veronica Mars is always at her best when
things are person. Reminiscent of “A Trip to the Dentist” in the first
season, in which she discovers who raped her at Shelly Pomroy’s party
before the start of the series, Veronica investigates the Hearst
College campus with a vengeance, eventually finding and sticking it to
the culprits.

Although it was a disappointment to all when Veronica Mars
wasn’t renewed for a fourth season, it went out on a perfect, dark note
in the series finale, “The Bitch is Back.” The finale brought the show
back to its noir roots, with the two Mars protagonists perpetrating
shady acts and once again becoming Neptune, California’s least favorite
duo.

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