Saturday, May 19, 2007

Veronica Mars Joins Gilmore Girls in Cancellation Land

What the hell does the cancellation of Veronica Mars have to do with anything about Miami? Well, it was something that brought the publisher Verticus Erectus and his daughter together. It, along with Gilmore Girls, was something they shared in Miami when she was home from college. She introduced Erectus to both series. In the last couple of weeks, both have been cancelled by CW. And they were good. Real good. And relevant to the blogging community which is built around people who, for the most part, are younger than MVB's head honcho by a couple of decades. A group that-- at least for the younger bloggers-- has given up reading the newspaper because they never got into it in the first place, getting whatever they need to know from electronic sources. One of the great things about Veronica Mars was the depiction of this generational gap between her and her dad without the disparaging depiction of the father figure as a bumbling fool usually found in many TV shows today. In one memorable scene, Veronica's dad returns to the house after a fruitless search for his morning newspaper only to find it opened and waiting for him on the kitchen counter. Veronica is preparing breakfast and quips, "I wanted to see what it was like getting your news off the ground."

Both shows had a loyal following but the numbers just weren't there. Granted, Gilmore Girls probably had lost its impetus with Rory's graduation from Yale and landing a job that would take her away from mom, the effervescent Lauren Graham. Sustaining their rapid fire banter that was a hallmark of the show over the phone wouldn't cut it. But Veronica Mars still had some life in her since Veronica was still in college. Since great writing and acting isn't a prerequisite for success these days on network TV, maybe it would have been a good idea to have sexed the shows up a bit more to grow their audiences. Or dumbed them down. Or made them for less. And, last but not least, had added more Latino characters. When you learn that CW fell behind even Univision this season, you know that isn't such a bad idea.

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