Post by Forever Xena on Dec 7, 2005 13:00:35 GMT -6
Art Imitates Jury Duty on 'Veronica Mars'
By Rick Porter
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
03:52 PM PT
Over the summer, "Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas served as an alternate juror on a sexual-assault case in Los Angeles.
Which goes a long, art-imitating-life way toward explaining why, Wednesday night (Dec. 7), Veronica Mars will be logging some courtroom time of her own.
"When I went down there for jury duty, I saw all these kids [in the pool of jurors]," Thomas says. "I knew Veronica was turning 18 this year, so it seemed to make sense that she could land on one."
The episode, titled "One Angry Veronica" (a play on "12 Angry Men"), finds Veronica (Kristen Bell) impaneled to decide a case in which two wealthy Neptune "09ers" are accused of assaulting a Hispanic woman. The case puts Veronica yet again in the middle of the simmering class divisions that are driving part of the show's season-long story.
The defendants aren't classmates of Veronica's at Neptune High, but "it's a case the kids in school are eyeing closely, especially with Neptune being such a tinderbox right now," Thomas says. "She sort of gets it from both sides, Veronica does, when they learn she's on this jury."
Class conflict has always been an underlying part of "Veronica Mars," right from one of the opening lines of the show's pilot ("This is my school. If you go here, your parents are either millionaires, or your parents work for millionaires"). And after last season's very personal season-long story, in which Veronica solved the murder of her best friend, Thomas wanted to bring the town's divisions to the forefront more this season.
"Some of that is going to be plot-driven. In other words, it behooves us to have a real class struggle in this town," he says. "As the season evolves you'll really see it come into play as a plot point. ... And then you just want that conflict, you want her torn between the kids she hung out with last year and who she's hanging out with this year. It makes this external struggle very internal for Veronica."
Although the show's ratings have improved some this season, there has been some (perhaps inevitable) grumbling from fans that the season-long mystery of who caused a school-bus crash that killed several students -- but not Veronica, who was the setup's target -- isn't as involving as the Lilly Kane case last year. Thomas concedes that "I miss having that direct, personal connection. I miss [the idea of], This was my best friend, and we get to see [Lilly] on screen and she really comes alive and hooks people emotionally."
That said, though, he's enjoying the "freshness" of this season and the more "labyrinthine" nature of the plot. In addition to the bus crash, a separate continuing thread involves whether Veronica's ex, Logan (Jason Dohring), killed a biker-gang member during a fight; Logan insists he was knocked unconscious and woke up to find the guy dead.
"It stretches out. It involves a large group of people, and I've sort of enjoyed the characters we've brought in," Thomas says. "They're fun chess pieces to move around."
The flip side to that, though, is that not all the characters get as much screen time as they have in the past. Notably absent in recent weeks has been Percy Daggs III, who plays Veronica's go-to guy, Wallace. Thomas won't say for the record when we might see Wallace again -- "I want people wondering when and if he's coming back" -- but whenever that may happen, he'll be glad to have Daggs back.
"This I will tell you: As writers in the room, we've really missed having him in the show," Thomas says. "People should understand that we're very happy with Percy Daggs and Wallace Fennel. In a perfect world where we had 'Lost's' budget, you'd see him in every episode."
By Rick Porter
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
03:52 PM PT
Over the summer, "Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas served as an alternate juror on a sexual-assault case in Los Angeles.
Which goes a long, art-imitating-life way toward explaining why, Wednesday night (Dec. 7), Veronica Mars will be logging some courtroom time of her own.
"When I went down there for jury duty, I saw all these kids [in the pool of jurors]," Thomas says. "I knew Veronica was turning 18 this year, so it seemed to make sense that she could land on one."
The episode, titled "One Angry Veronica" (a play on "12 Angry Men"), finds Veronica (Kristen Bell) impaneled to decide a case in which two wealthy Neptune "09ers" are accused of assaulting a Hispanic woman. The case puts Veronica yet again in the middle of the simmering class divisions that are driving part of the show's season-long story.
The defendants aren't classmates of Veronica's at Neptune High, but "it's a case the kids in school are eyeing closely, especially with Neptune being such a tinderbox right now," Thomas says. "She sort of gets it from both sides, Veronica does, when they learn she's on this jury."
Class conflict has always been an underlying part of "Veronica Mars," right from one of the opening lines of the show's pilot ("This is my school. If you go here, your parents are either millionaires, or your parents work for millionaires"). And after last season's very personal season-long story, in which Veronica solved the murder of her best friend, Thomas wanted to bring the town's divisions to the forefront more this season.
"Some of that is going to be plot-driven. In other words, it behooves us to have a real class struggle in this town," he says. "As the season evolves you'll really see it come into play as a plot point. ... And then you just want that conflict, you want her torn between the kids she hung out with last year and who she's hanging out with this year. It makes this external struggle very internal for Veronica."
Although the show's ratings have improved some this season, there has been some (perhaps inevitable) grumbling from fans that the season-long mystery of who caused a school-bus crash that killed several students -- but not Veronica, who was the setup's target -- isn't as involving as the Lilly Kane case last year. Thomas concedes that "I miss having that direct, personal connection. I miss [the idea of], This was my best friend, and we get to see [Lilly] on screen and she really comes alive and hooks people emotionally."
That said, though, he's enjoying the "freshness" of this season and the more "labyrinthine" nature of the plot. In addition to the bus crash, a separate continuing thread involves whether Veronica's ex, Logan (Jason Dohring), killed a biker-gang member during a fight; Logan insists he was knocked unconscious and woke up to find the guy dead.
"It stretches out. It involves a large group of people, and I've sort of enjoyed the characters we've brought in," Thomas says. "They're fun chess pieces to move around."
The flip side to that, though, is that not all the characters get as much screen time as they have in the past. Notably absent in recent weeks has been Percy Daggs III, who plays Veronica's go-to guy, Wallace. Thomas won't say for the record when we might see Wallace again -- "I want people wondering when and if he's coming back" -- but whenever that may happen, he'll be glad to have Daggs back.
"This I will tell you: As writers in the room, we've really missed having him in the show," Thomas says. "People should understand that we're very happy with Percy Daggs and Wallace Fennel. In a perfect world where we had 'Lost's' budget, you'd see him in every episode."