Teenage girls today are growing up faster — the window between child and adult is closing at a rapid pace. In my youth, a girl’s role model (um, favorite celebrity) was Madonna; now I’d reckon there are some who wishes their name were Paris, because, like, it sounds “hot.” Well, if you find yourself obsessing over a pair of Jimmy Choos, or wondering what purse matches what outfit, take solace in the fact that you aren’t a teenager during the alternative movement of the 1990’s or a spunky private investigator.
Two shows — My So-Called Life and Veronica Mars — have themes and idioms that could easily fit into one’s own catalog of pop culture. Both have unique followings and were ahead of the curve in content and originality. Though I am not, nor have ever been, a teenage girl, the opening lines of MSCL have a resonance that can still be felt in the halls of high schools.
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“I’m in love. His name is Jordan Catalano. He was left back. Twice. Once I almost touched his shoulder in the middle of a pop quiz.”
This is the inner monologue of one Angela Chase, the redheaded beauty at the center of a series that ran for 19 episodes on ABC in 1994. A casualty because studio executives thought 10 million was too low a Nielsen rating, in many ways it was the “redheaded” stepchild of teenage viewing. When creator Winnie Holzman couldn’t sell it to networks, she had to settle for what networks bought instead: Beverly Hills, 90210. And, according to the booklet included with the six-disc My So-Called Life: The Complete Series Collection (Shout! Factory, $70), to Holzman that show was “a realistic view of adolescent life in the way that Finding Nemo is a realistic view of a clownfish.”
A funny statement yes, but 90210 was a teenage soap. Holzman’s is as well, but with three-dimensional characters, both adolescents and parents, experiencing crises big and small. (Though, for a teenager, isn’t everything a huge crisis?) Working with executive producers Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, who together created thirtysomething, they present us a female protagonist who is attracted to the bad boy — hey who isn’t? Angela Chase, played by the beauty Claire Danes, has a starry gaze for Jordan Catalano (Fight Club‘s Jared Leto). Such desire is irksome for her parents (Bess Armstrong and Tom Irwin) who also must acclimate themselves to this and Angela’s new, albeit different and offbeat, friends (A.J. Langer and Wilson Cruz). Unlike family dramas that spoon-feed us new, if uninspiring “life lessons” with each new episode, MSCL exudes mood, not plot; Angela’s selfish demeanor allow for her parents to engage in their own struggles.
Thirteen years after its first airing, Holzman’s series is as engaging as ever, despite only lasting 19 episodes. Had the series continued, it would have been interesting to see if any of Holzman’s future plotlines (as discussed in the 36-page booklet) would have come to fruition.
Booklet set aside, Shout! Factory, the company that knows how to do TV series right (see Judd Apatow’s short-lived Freaks & Geeks), also gives us the mini-documentary “My So-Called Life Story,” six commentaries, highlights from a 1995 Museum of Television & Radio panel discussion, and a candid interview featuring the creator and star Claire Danes.
Grade: A
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Those not digging the different moods of Angela Chase may want a little diversion into the make-believe world of Neptune, California. It is the place that our titular heroine Veronica Mars calls home. For three years, Veronica Mars was a critical but a not-so commercial darling except for the small number that tuned in each week to see the blonde-haired high schooler/private investigator. That’s right, while other students were busy in their all-night cram-a-thons for an important test the next day, Veronica would be staking out adulterers at some motel establishment.
But the series isn’t all snapshots and tape recordings; our hero is a teenage girl whose razor-sharp personality cannot be bested in a battle of wits. Kristen Bell, now seen on NBC’s Heroes, has an effervescence about her that comes through with the way she carries herself. Also helpful is creator Rob Thomas’s hip prose. It was one of the few things that did not change over the course of three years. The most glaring change of season three, however, is that young Veronica is no longer a high school student; she has enrolled at Neptune’s Hearst College. This is a new direction for the series, which was on thin ice entering its third season.
And in many ways, the three-season run is fitting when looking at the characters of Veronica Mars and her on again/off again beau Logan Echolls. At the series’ onset they were on opposite sides. Veronica, once assimilated into the rich company of the 09ers (think of it has high school royalty) having dated Duncan Kane, would become an outsider when she defended her father, then a sheriff, who accused Duncan’s father of killing Lily Kane, Duncan’s sister and Veronica’s best friend. A playful, though scathing, rapport Veronica and Logan would engage in, and by season two a love would enfold.
It is in the third season where their love is tested. Logan’s contemptuousness towards Veronica’s P.I. antics, and the danger it could lead to, and his own peccadilloes would put strain on the relationship. Added to this are a few mysteries that need solving. With college coursework, failing relationships, notes from the honchos at the CW, oh what was a blonde-haired private investigator to do? Pound the pavement, hassle some co-eds.
This season she dabbles with a cheating scandal, then tries to identify a rapist that prowls around Hearst College only to open a whole new can of worms involving the Dean of the college. Veronica Mars: The Complete Third Season (Warner Bros., $60) may not be the best example of Veronica Mars at her best; but as one of the tag lines of the show attests, “Veronica Mars is smarter than you.” When matched against most of the characters in serialized dramas currently on air, she probably is the smartest. Maybe that is why Rob Thomas’s creation is a series admired by the likes of Stephen King, writer/director Kevin Smith and Joss Wheadon (TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly).
Going undercover with Veronica — the extras — Rob Thomas offers us a what-if scenario of the future of VM. Pitching it to the studio heads as “Veronica Mars in the FBI!” we get a 12-minute preview look of Veronica as a rookie agent. It is an interesting concept, and had Veronica Mars had been able to flourish for several more seasons — so she could finish college – maybe then she would be ready for prime-time FBI sleuthing.
Rob Thomas, along with VM‘s supervising producer Dan Etheridge, also reflects about the series. A pseudo-video commentary, for the nine-featurette mini-doc he discusses the change in theme music and graphics between season two and three; his directing; favorite guest stars, and favorite moments between characters. For years fans had been clamoring for a Rob Thomas commentary. Here, he and Etheridge give a nice precis of the third and final season.
Grade: B-
