Can't brain today. I have the dumb.
May. 23rd, 2007 04:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosSo I've been thinking for the past few hours about a coherent explanation of why I was so bothered by the Veronica Mars finale.
I think a lot of the reason why the finale falls apart for me has a lot to do with the change from the season-long arc to the smaller five- or six- episode arcs.
It has nothing to do with the tone of the episode, for the record, and the fact that it really was such a downer. Certain shows I expect to leave me on a high note at the end of a season -- Arrested Development did that all three seasons, but I think that might mostly be because the best part of watching AD was laughing at the Bluths. As long as one or more them was getting screwed over in the final episode it was a good finale. (And they always were. Heh.)
But Veronica Mars is noir, and dark and twisty, and even the happy endings are still downers. If it had ended happily I would probably expect that the entire crew was on heavy doses of hardcore crack.
And it has nothing to do with the show ending "mid-story," the way it started out, as I saw pointed out multiple times on the TWoP forums. We fell in to Neptune and we were supposed to fall right back out again. I agree with that point, at least. Veronica's story is an ongoing thing and we're most definitely not going to be there for all of it.
The problem for me lies in the framing of the first two seasons versus the framing of this one, the differences lying in that shift between season-long arcs and smaller arcs broken up over the course of the season. Say what you will of the quality of the solutions of the previous two mysteries, but at the very least they tried to solve them by that last episode. And you expected as much, that in the season finale you would at the very least be finding out who the killer was. This provides a sense of anticipation for the finale, not to mention the understanding that you WILL get an answer. You WILL know who killed Lilly, who blew up the bus, and maybe the answers to a few more questions as well. And not only that but you also get set up for the next mystery. Heroes is behaving quite like Veronica Mars in that regard. We knew the bomb would happen in the finale, and it was in the details where they suckered us in.
That kind of framing does a great deal to set up boundaries for what the writers have to present to you in that season finale when they set it up as a series of season-long arcs in a longer show-long arc. You have to tie up your main plotline while setting up the thread for next season. It simplifies things in a way where you can focus on the little details. (In contrast to a soapy show like Ugly Betty, where they can have these plotlines where everybody's pretty much manipulating everybody else and at the end of the season they don't have to answer anything -- they can just have fun throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you. :))
Personally the switch to smaller mystery arcs didn't bother me at first, mostly because I really wasn't thinking of the far-reaching consequences to the storylines come season's end. Veronica Mars has been threatened with cancellation all damn year and since we didn't know what crap the CW would try to pull in the middle of the season we at least had the reassurance that if they up and canceled it all of a sudden we either wouldn't miss much or would be able to at least see the few remaining episodes left in the current arc.
But that's where the set-up of the arcs shifted in a way that bothered me. The first two seasons were set up like books in a series. You go to a bookstore to pick up "Veronica Mars" #1 and read it to find out who killed Lilly. You read all twenty-odd chapters, find out who the murderer is in the final chapter, and have the next mystery set up for you. Then you go back to the bookstore and pick up the second book in the series, "Veronica Mars" #2, in which you find out who made the bus crash. Another twenty-odd chapters, another full mystery. Like books in the Nancy Drew series, except no Ned. (We get Duncan. Insert your own joke here.)
Each season is one set story. Like the endings or not, they did their best to have closure on those particular storylines and answer the question, "Who did it?".
"Veronica Mars" #3 is a collection of short stories, the last four or five way shorter than the others.
This is where the whole scenario gets thrown off for me -- because as this finale clearly showed, you cannot have real closure for Veronica Mars in a season finale that is an episode separate from any substantial story arcs.
The first two seasons of this show have been set up like mystery novels, like noirish old movies. The fans brag about that particular choice of style all the time. The attempts to tie everything together, the concentration on continuity ... all of this is in display in those first two seasons, and at points during this season.
What doesn't work for me is that in the first two seasons I felt like I was a part of something big. The story arcs were huge, the mysteries were season-long, and if I wanted to know what the hell was going on I had to watch every damn week. Miss one week and there'd be clues I hadn't seen, things I missed.
This season I didn't have that, particularly in the last few episodes. The last few episodes -- while still carrying on threads like romantic entanglements and the election -- weren't attached to an overreaching story arc. We had no expectation that the finale would give us any big answers, would solve any huge mysteries we were given in the first episode of the season. We got those out of the way already -- the rapes, the murders.
So we were left with two major plot points to tie up during the finale:
1. Who would Veronica end up with?
2. Who would win the election?
A far cry from "Who killed Lilly?" and "Who blew up the school bus?", yes?
I keep going back to the list of dropped plot threads from the show that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fox1013 collected from her commenters here. For a show that prides itself on the details and its continuity, that's a HUGE list of questions it's completely forgotten to answer.
What I was hoping for (I know, I know, I'm an optimist) is that the show was going to use these last few episodes not attached to a story arc to tie off some if not all of those plot threads. (I would have started up a collection myself to get Rob Thomas to tell us how the hell Parker grew her hair back so fast. Rogaine in her morning yogurt, you think?) Obviously it probably wasn't going to happen. Rob Thomas and crew were not about to suddenly haul back so many faces from the past just to tie up loose ends. The problem is that he gave himself a unique opportunity to do exactly that by proposing the four-year-jump to Veronica in the FBI. Here was an option for him to close off this phase of Veronica's life -- the problems she grew up with and suffered through for the last three years in Neptune -- and move on to an entirely new set of problems in the FBI.
But he didn't.
Instead we get Veronica walking home from the voting office in the rain.
I know I'm not the only one who's said that this felt like it was two or three episodes away from the REAL finale. We have a bleak outlook of the election but no answer as to who wins. Probably Vinnie, given the circumstances, but do you really think Veronica wouldn't find something to get him kicked out of office? Wouldn't you have LOVED to see that? That list of students who belonged to the Castle was huge. There was SO MUCH that could have been done with a plot like that -- Veronica having blackmail material on so many people, their desire for revenge against her, a target on her back -- but because it was introduced in the last episode of this particular season ... nothing.
And Veronica ends the season with Piz but seeing Logan in a better light. Or something. This season managed to wring the excitement out of one of my favorite het pairings ever, so ... whatever.
My point is that to me the finale felt like it cut out at a completely random moment in time before what few small mysteries we had as a fandom got solved and that's why it bothers me as much as it does.
I think a lot of the reason why the finale falls apart for me has a lot to do with the change from the season-long arc to the smaller five- or six- episode arcs.
It has nothing to do with the tone of the episode, for the record, and the fact that it really was such a downer. Certain shows I expect to leave me on a high note at the end of a season -- Arrested Development did that all three seasons, but I think that might mostly be because the best part of watching AD was laughing at the Bluths. As long as one or more them was getting screwed over in the final episode it was a good finale. (And they always were. Heh.)
But Veronica Mars is noir, and dark and twisty, and even the happy endings are still downers. If it had ended happily I would probably expect that the entire crew was on heavy doses of hardcore crack.
And it has nothing to do with the show ending "mid-story," the way it started out, as I saw pointed out multiple times on the TWoP forums. We fell in to Neptune and we were supposed to fall right back out again. I agree with that point, at least. Veronica's story is an ongoing thing and we're most definitely not going to be there for all of it.
The problem for me lies in the framing of the first two seasons versus the framing of this one, the differences lying in that shift between season-long arcs and smaller arcs broken up over the course of the season. Say what you will of the quality of the solutions of the previous two mysteries, but at the very least they tried to solve them by that last episode. And you expected as much, that in the season finale you would at the very least be finding out who the killer was. This provides a sense of anticipation for the finale, not to mention the understanding that you WILL get an answer. You WILL know who killed Lilly, who blew up the bus, and maybe the answers to a few more questions as well. And not only that but you also get set up for the next mystery. Heroes is behaving quite like Veronica Mars in that regard. We knew the bomb would happen in the finale, and it was in the details where they suckered us in.
That kind of framing does a great deal to set up boundaries for what the writers have to present to you in that season finale when they set it up as a series of season-long arcs in a longer show-long arc. You have to tie up your main plotline while setting up the thread for next season. It simplifies things in a way where you can focus on the little details. (In contrast to a soapy show like Ugly Betty, where they can have these plotlines where everybody's pretty much manipulating everybody else and at the end of the season they don't have to answer anything -- they can just have fun throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you. :))
Personally the switch to smaller mystery arcs didn't bother me at first, mostly because I really wasn't thinking of the far-reaching consequences to the storylines come season's end. Veronica Mars has been threatened with cancellation all damn year and since we didn't know what crap the CW would try to pull in the middle of the season we at least had the reassurance that if they up and canceled it all of a sudden we either wouldn't miss much or would be able to at least see the few remaining episodes left in the current arc.
But that's where the set-up of the arcs shifted in a way that bothered me. The first two seasons were set up like books in a series. You go to a bookstore to pick up "Veronica Mars" #1 and read it to find out who killed Lilly. You read all twenty-odd chapters, find out who the murderer is in the final chapter, and have the next mystery set up for you. Then you go back to the bookstore and pick up the second book in the series, "Veronica Mars" #2, in which you find out who made the bus crash. Another twenty-odd chapters, another full mystery. Like books in the Nancy Drew series, except no Ned. (We get Duncan. Insert your own joke here.)
Each season is one set story. Like the endings or not, they did their best to have closure on those particular storylines and answer the question, "Who did it?".
"Veronica Mars" #3 is a collection of short stories, the last four or five way shorter than the others.
This is where the whole scenario gets thrown off for me -- because as this finale clearly showed, you cannot have real closure for Veronica Mars in a season finale that is an episode separate from any substantial story arcs.
The first two seasons of this show have been set up like mystery novels, like noirish old movies. The fans brag about that particular choice of style all the time. The attempts to tie everything together, the concentration on continuity ... all of this is in display in those first two seasons, and at points during this season.
What doesn't work for me is that in the first two seasons I felt like I was a part of something big. The story arcs were huge, the mysteries were season-long, and if I wanted to know what the hell was going on I had to watch every damn week. Miss one week and there'd be clues I hadn't seen, things I missed.
This season I didn't have that, particularly in the last few episodes. The last few episodes -- while still carrying on threads like romantic entanglements and the election -- weren't attached to an overreaching story arc. We had no expectation that the finale would give us any big answers, would solve any huge mysteries we were given in the first episode of the season. We got those out of the way already -- the rapes, the murders.
So we were left with two major plot points to tie up during the finale:
1. Who would Veronica end up with?
2. Who would win the election?
A far cry from "Who killed Lilly?" and "Who blew up the school bus?", yes?
I keep going back to the list of dropped plot threads from the show that
fox1013 collected from her commenters here. For a show that prides itself on the details and its continuity, that's a HUGE list of questions it's completely forgotten to answer. What I was hoping for (I know, I know, I'm an optimist) is that the show was going to use these last few episodes not attached to a story arc to tie off some if not all of those plot threads. (I would have started up a collection myself to get Rob Thomas to tell us how the hell Parker grew her hair back so fast. Rogaine in her morning yogurt, you think?) Obviously it probably wasn't going to happen. Rob Thomas and crew were not about to suddenly haul back so many faces from the past just to tie up loose ends. The problem is that he gave himself a unique opportunity to do exactly that by proposing the four-year-jump to Veronica in the FBI. Here was an option for him to close off this phase of Veronica's life -- the problems she grew up with and suffered through for the last three years in Neptune -- and move on to an entirely new set of problems in the FBI.
But he didn't.
Instead we get Veronica walking home from the voting office in the rain.
I know I'm not the only one who's said that this felt like it was two or three episodes away from the REAL finale. We have a bleak outlook of the election but no answer as to who wins. Probably Vinnie, given the circumstances, but do you really think Veronica wouldn't find something to get him kicked out of office? Wouldn't you have LOVED to see that? That list of students who belonged to the Castle was huge. There was SO MUCH that could have been done with a plot like that -- Veronica having blackmail material on so many people, their desire for revenge against her, a target on her back -- but because it was introduced in the last episode of this particular season ... nothing.
And Veronica ends the season with Piz but seeing Logan in a better light. Or something. This season managed to wring the excitement out of one of my favorite het pairings ever, so ... whatever.
My point is that to me the finale felt like it cut out at a completely random moment in time before what few small mysteries we had as a fandom got solved and that's why it bothers me as much as it does.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 12:06 pm (UTC)The second season is ... well, touch-and-go. I recommend watching it if only because it retains enough of the best elements of the first season to make it worth your while -- even at its worst VM was still better than most other shows on TV -- but the end of the mystery ultimately comes out of left field in the worst way and is really unsatisfying.
And I'd skip season three and watch the first season of Friday Night Lights instead if you haven't already.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 02:19 pm (UTC)It lost me about three episodes in, while I'd been fascinated by the first two seasons. Very sad.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 10:22 pm (UTC)