Post by Forever Xena on Jul 26, 2005 11:16:49 GMT -6
'Veronica Mars' Had a Backup Killer
(Monday, July 25 02:58 PM)
By Daniel Fienberg
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) [Warning: The following article discusses the first season finale of UPN's "Veronica Mars." If you're still making your way through the episodes, stop reading now. If you haven't started watching this teenage private eye gem, shouldn't you be ashamed of yourself?]
After a season of teases, wrong turns and herrings both pickled and red, "Veronica Mars" tied up 22 episodes worth of continuing mystery on May 10. Just a month after UPN committed to a second season of the critically adored, but ratings challenged drama, faithful viewers and high school sleuth Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell, meet clueless Emmy voters, clueless Emmy voters, meet Kristen Bell) discovered that her best friend Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried) had been killed by Hollywood star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin).
Although the show has a passionate fanbase on the Internet, a contingency actively courted by "Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas, those devotees became a threat as the finale approached. With so many rumors and so much rash speculation, Thomas admits now that he was forced to think of alternative twist endings just in case message boards caught wind of Echolls' guilt and his motivations.
"If I had to evolve it one more level, if there had to be one more twist -- and I think it would have been one twist too many -- it was that Duncan really did it and that he hadn't blacked out and that he was very aware of what he did and that he played his parents," Thomas says now. "That was, had it leaked and I wanted to say, 'OK, new script pages,' which I think would have really bummed Teddy Dunn out."
Indeed.
"Really?" says Dunn, wildly searching the party for Thomas. "He never told me that. Thanks, Rob. That shows me how expendable I am on this show. Everybody can come and go. Nobody's above anything, except for Kristen."
Dunn had a tough season, playing Duncan Kane. The character had to cope with his sister's death, the possibility that he'd slept with his half-sister and a medical condition that occasionally brought on violent fugue states. Several episodes implied that Duncan may have accidentally killed Lilly and the character was part of several of the season's most ambiguous clues. As a result, Dunn often had inside information.
"There was certainly stuff that wasn't common knowledge," he says, somewhat over the shock of his status as a near-killer. "It was fun to know some things that the other cast members didn't. I had Kristen going for a while that Rob had confided to me and only me who the murderer actually was and she was really pissed off."
He continues, "Obviously, as Rob has shown here tonight, he doesn't tell everybody everything anyway."
(Monday, July 25 02:58 PM)
By Daniel Fienberg
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) [Warning: The following article discusses the first season finale of UPN's "Veronica Mars." If you're still making your way through the episodes, stop reading now. If you haven't started watching this teenage private eye gem, shouldn't you be ashamed of yourself?]
After a season of teases, wrong turns and herrings both pickled and red, "Veronica Mars" tied up 22 episodes worth of continuing mystery on May 10. Just a month after UPN committed to a second season of the critically adored, but ratings challenged drama, faithful viewers and high school sleuth Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell, meet clueless Emmy voters, clueless Emmy voters, meet Kristen Bell) discovered that her best friend Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried) had been killed by Hollywood star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin).
Although the show has a passionate fanbase on the Internet, a contingency actively courted by "Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas, those devotees became a threat as the finale approached. With so many rumors and so much rash speculation, Thomas admits now that he was forced to think of alternative twist endings just in case message boards caught wind of Echolls' guilt and his motivations.
"If I had to evolve it one more level, if there had to be one more twist -- and I think it would have been one twist too many -- it was that Duncan really did it and that he hadn't blacked out and that he was very aware of what he did and that he played his parents," Thomas says now. "That was, had it leaked and I wanted to say, 'OK, new script pages,' which I think would have really bummed Teddy Dunn out."
Indeed.
"Really?" says Dunn, wildly searching the party for Thomas. "He never told me that. Thanks, Rob. That shows me how expendable I am on this show. Everybody can come and go. Nobody's above anything, except for Kristen."
Dunn had a tough season, playing Duncan Kane. The character had to cope with his sister's death, the possibility that he'd slept with his half-sister and a medical condition that occasionally brought on violent fugue states. Several episodes implied that Duncan may have accidentally killed Lilly and the character was part of several of the season's most ambiguous clues. As a result, Dunn often had inside information.
"There was certainly stuff that wasn't common knowledge," he says, somewhat over the shock of his status as a near-killer. "It was fun to know some things that the other cast members didn't. I had Kristen going for a while that Rob had confided to me and only me who the murderer actually was and she was really pissed off."
He continues, "Obviously, as Rob has shown here tonight, he doesn't tell everybody everything anyway."