THE NOIR SIDE

I have recruited new members into the VERONICA MARS fan club. Yesterday while spending quality time baking cookies with my brother, his fiancée and my two cousins, I coerced everyone into watching the first season of Veronica Mars.

By episode two, they were hooked.

As a filmmaker and a writer I love this series. The writing is clever and powerful. The characters have such depth and complexity, such human strengths and weaknesses. I admire how the character arc (for all characters) reveals itself episode by episode, allowing the characters believability in their development. The neo-noir style is perfect for the teen detective genre. The actors are marvelous at their craft (less one, but I will not point fingers. You can judge for yourself - reference to actor only applicable to season 1&2).

As a regular TV watcher, I love the plotlines. It combines the greatest of TV narratives: the trendy serial story arc and the TV touchstone of stand alone episodes. It makes for great syndication possibilities and great "choice" episode rewatching. It's not just one of those teen dramas that quickly become dated *sneeze-90210-sneeze*. It's more like Colombo (cult classic) or Seinfeld, a good "any era" type of TV watching.

I endeavour to share good filmmaking/television making with others. I love great story telling, and I must admit VM is by far one of the best TV story telling of the past three decades. I can say this with immense conviction because I am a TV whore. I've watched a lot of TV in my lifetime; my show knowledge is vast... I even regularly watch shows that are prior to my TV viewing era, and beyond my target demographic. I am the TV trivia champion (David would be the only other person who would come close to taking my title, but it would be a hard fought battle), so trust me on this one.

I hope I have enticed you to give this show a chance.

Tuesday 9pm SunTv - in the GTA only, check you local listing elsewhere.

See you on the Noir side.