The bitch is back!

Veronica Mars has 5 episodes left. It airs every Tuesday, at 9PM on the CW. Veronica Mars has always focused on a season long mystery so it was really hard for folks who've never watched the show understand what was going on, if you didn't watch it from the beginning.

Season 3 is different. They have purposely changed the format of the show so that new fans can tune it. Veronica Mars comes back from it's long hiatus tonight, and if you've never watched an episode before, now is the time. Sanjaya is gone from American Idol, so what else is there to watch on TV on a Tuesday night?

How much you want to bet you'll be hooked?


Below is an article I found today on a San Diego website. Couldn't have described the show better myself:

What if someone told you of a magical television show, one that was smart, but wickedly funny; warm-hearted, but tartly cynical; morally upright, but fizzy and fun? What if that show also featured a savvy rock soundtrack, attractive people acting up a storm, and scenes shot in many funky and/or fabulous San Diego locations?

You'd watch it, right?

Sure you would. So when the 3-year-old “Veronica Mars” returns from its spring break tonight, do yourself the favor of your TV life and tune in. Always cursed by low ratings, the CW network's teen-detective drama may be calling it quits at the end of this season. If you already know and love “Veronica,” tonight's wish-fulfillment episode will give you something to treasure. And if you have never seen the show, your only regret will be that you didn't start watching it sooner.

For the uninitiated, here are your catch-up paragraphs.

Shot in San Diego, “Veronica Mars” stars Kristen Bell as Veronica, a brainy spitfire who became an outsider at wealthy Neptune High when her best friend was murdered and her sheriff father lost his job after wrongly identifying the town's zillionaire as the prime suspect.

Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni, “Just Shoot Me”) rebounded by opening his own detective agency. Veronica coped by using her spy-girl intelligence to solve cases on her own. Three years later, she's still at it.

Now a freshman at the fictional Neptune's fictional Hearst College, Veronica spent the first part of this season pursuing a campus rapist and tracking down the killer of Hearst's dean of students. Needless to say, both cases were solved.

TV REVIEW
"Veronica Mars"
In an attempt to make the show more neophyte-friendly, the remaining episodes of this season will be devoted to stand-alone mysteries that are wrapped-up by the end of the hour. Tonight, Veronica goes after a vandal who is targeting a restaurant owned by an Arab-American family. Next week finds our golden-haired detective tracking down a backpack belonging to one Desmond Fellows, a slacker musician played with sleazy enthusiasm by the excellent Paul Rudd (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”).

The more modest mysteries-of-the-week don't have the emotional resonance of Season One's “Who Killed Lilly Kane?” case, or Season Two's search for the saboteur who sent a Neptune High bus careening into the ocean, but newcomers and nervous fans alike can relax. “Veronica Mars” is still in a universe by itself.

No longer obligated to keep the Big Mystery torch burning, creator Rob Thomas and his clever staff are free to concentrate on the relationships between the show's close-knit set of characters, and what “Veronica” now lacks in cliffhangers it makes up for in wit, dramatic depth and pure viewing enjoyment.

In these next two episodes, friendships deepen, new love blossoms and a few formerly AWOL supporting characters make welcome returns. As usual, the acting is stellar. The chemistry between the vibrant Bell and the vulnerable bad boy played by Jason Dohring has gone from combustible to complex, and the companionable warmth she shares with Tina Majorino (as the brainy Mac), Percy Daggs III (as the loyal Wallace), and the wonderful Colantoni as Papa Mars feels sweet and real.

Critics are always shoving viewers in the direction of dense shows designed to bring more fiber into their TV diet. “Veronica Mars” is not one of those shows. Like a perfect cappuccino, “Veronica” is frothy and rich, and it packs a kick that will send you flying. Let's hope there will be gallons more to come.

*****