Veronica Mars: Charlie Don't Surf

[rachelmanija]

It wasn't that last episode massively offended me. It was that every single thing that I haven't liked about this season was still there, and there was no narrative drive or compelling character conflict or development.



The shrill, stereotyped, obnoxious feminists are still shrill, stereotyped, and obnoxious. Given that class wars and institutionalized misogyny, both issues involving prejudice, violence, unfair advantages, and the value of collective vs. individual action, were so well handled in the first season and to a certain extent in the second, it is rather shocking that the concept of college feminism seems to make the writers brains melt, so that all they can spit out is "rape is bad, but feminists can't do anything about it and their efforts only make themselves stupid, prejudiced, and bitchy."

Logan continues to be... nice. This makes him boring. I do not care about his child abuse and inner pain if he's going to be so damn reasonable about it. (He had so much provocation to punch the reporter that even that seemed reasonable.)

Are they going to do anything with Logan's half-brother? It seems a huge element to bring up for one episode and then abandon. Also, how in the world did the reporter know to bug the brother's phone when the only people who knew that Logan knew about the brother and might call him were Logan and Veronica?

Apparently due to budget problems ($ for actors), Mac, Weevil, and Wallace are MIA.

Keith's plot was extremely boring.

In the dinner with Logan and Keith, Keith didn't say anything outrageous and Logan handled himself just fine, so Veronica's constant and unfunny interruptions made her seem kind of nuts.

Her confession of having been raped herself fell completely flat.

I did like the scene with Dick. That was funny and had relevance to the overall themes-- something seriously lacking in the rest of the show.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I kind of resent that they've figured out a way to make Dick Casablancas integral to the show, but not Wallace, Weevil, or Mac.

[oyceter]

Argh, yes. I am also really annoyed that they are making Parker an increasingly less sympathetic character, given that hello, date rape! And taking the time to make Dick and company more sympathetic. Argh. Argh. Argh. I like sympathetic yet nuanced and difficult characters, but I am very, very annoyed at the portrayal of the college feminists.

[liquid-identity.livejournal.com]

Is that the episode with Parry Shen (http://www.xanga.com/ParryShen/539484043/item.html) in it?

[supacat.livejournal.com]

Do you think the twist will be that Logan was raped? Everything else seems to have happened to him at this point. ;-)

[lydzi-de-galles.livejournal.com]

Yeah... season 3 is just... the firsts épisodes were good but it's becoming, I don't know, a little cliché now.

[nbardsley.livejournal.com]

Re: supporting characters. I think most of the cast have contracts for 13 of the 22 episodes -- that was true for the first two seasons certainly -- and so there's going to be an erratic use of most of the characters. Plus breaking the season into three chunks each with its own "big mystery" means that there are some interesting pressures on writing any single episode since so much of the structure is based on a season.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be the dissenting voice: So far, this season is better than last season. I'm assuming that the feminists and Parker will develop as time goes on; I do see one pegged as a hard core extremist including in several out-of-group encounters, but we haven't seen enough of the others outside their group activities to know what they're like.

Several characters in the first four episodes of season one would have seemed all stereotype if that was the only development they ever got. Including Logan.

I'm willing to give Logan a chance to be the good guy for a while; Veronica's love life was angst angst angst for the first two seasons, and with every seemingly innocent relationship getting mucked up, I was starting to think this would go the way of Whedon (Where everyone in a happy relationship dies, or it otherwise goes FUBAR, sometimes in ways that twist the character out of reasonable shape.)