Veronica Mars (TV series)

Veronica Mars is a TV series (aired 2004-present), featuring a young woman who solves mysteries in a noir take on small-town sunny southern California. The show's fanbase is significantly Buffy-oriented and includes Joss Whedon, who had a guest-star role on one of the episodes.

Commentary (and spoilers)

While the show garnered critical and fan acclaim in its first season, its second season was less well-received.

While Veronica Mars was never an explicitly feminist show, its premise — a young woman protagonist, solving crimes and stepping outside the bounds of her society (high school) to do so — was inherently feminist, and a large number of women were able to respond to its vision of a self-empowered young woman. The show particularly featured a lot of class issues, a rarity on US TV. Some episodes and the larger story-arc specifically focused on issues of feminist concern. The first story arc of the third season featured an ongoing mystery of a series of campus rapes using a rohypnol, a rape drug. The story featured a campus feminist organization based largely on the stereotype of the angry feminist.

• Annalee Newitz liking Veronica Mars (2006/1/25)
• Annalee Newitz lamenting Veronica Mars (2007/2/2)