Pilot (Veronica Mars)
The pilot episode of the television series Veronica Mars premiered on UPN on September 22, 2004. It was written by series creator Rob Thomas, and directed by Mark Piznarski.[1] Set in the fictional town of Neptune, the pilot introduces Kristen Bell as the title character, a high-school student moonlighting as a private investigator under the wing of her detective father. Two separate mysteries are presented in the episode, which are explored throughout the season and resolved in the final and penultimate episodes.[2]
"Pilot"
Thomas originally wrote Veronica Mars as a young adult novel, featuring a male as the protagonist. He changed the gender of the protagonist because he thought a noir piece told from a female point of view would be more interesting and unique. The original pilot script was darker in tone than the one filmed, and several details were changed. Although it ranked low in the ratings, the pilot was critically acclaimed and Bell's performance as the protagonist was praised.[3]
Plot[edit]
Flashbacks reveal Veronica's backstory: in small-town Neptune, California, Veronica – daughter of well-respected County Sheriff Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) is a typical teen who was dating Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn), and was popular with loving parents. But when her best friend and Duncan's sister, Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried), is murdered, Veronica's life falls apart. Keith accuses software billionaire Jake Kane (Kyle Secor), Lilly's father, of being involved in the murder. This provokes Neptune's wrath, and Keith is ousted from office and replaced by Don Lamb (Michael Muhney) in a recall election. Veronica's mother, Lianne Mars (Corinne Bohrer), unable to face the loss of status and economic security, develops a drinking problem and suddenly leaves town. Veronica's boyfriend also ends their relationship, and her friends turn their backs on her. To prove that she is unaffected by the rejection, Veronica attends wealthy classmate Shelly Pomroy's "09er" party. Her drink is spiked with GHB and she is raped, but Sheriff Lamb refuses to take her report seriously. These events shock Veronica and she changes her attitude towards her former friends, becoming tough and cynical.
Estranged from all her "09er" friends—wealthy students from the fictional 90909 ZIP code—including Duncan and Lilly's ex-boyfriend, Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), and feeling the drop in income and status that her father's dismissal from office brings, Veronica takes a part-time job in her father's newly opened private investigation agency, Mars Investigations. Although the case of Lilly's murder is officially closed following the confession of a former Kane Software employee, Abel Koontz (Christian Clemenson), Veronica continues her own investigation into what happened. Her investigation discovers new evidence which suggests that Koontz is innocent.
In the present, Veronica starts her Junior year at Neptune High by freeing new student Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), who had been stripped and duct-taped to the school flag pole. Wallace explains that while working at the local Sac-n-Pac, he alerted the sheriff's department to two PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) bikers who took alcohol without paying. Sheriff Lamb exposes Wallace as the witness, and despite Wallace's attempts to retract his accusation, Lamb walks away with proof from the in-store video camera. Wallace's duct-taping is PCH retribution for his honesty. In a convoluted scheme to help Wallace, Veronica sets up Logan by placing a bong in his locker. Once the bong is taken to the evidence room at the sheriff's department, Veronica triggers it to smoke and spark by remote control, leading to the arrival of the fire department. The fire chief, a friend of Veronica, switches the video from the Sac-n-Pac with one Veronica filmed of a deputy receiving sexual favors. When the bikers are in court, that video is shown instead, embarrassing Lamb and undermining the case against the bikers. Wallace is forgiven and Eli "Weevil" Navarro (Francis Capra), the bikers' leader, becomes Veronica's occasional ally.
At Mars Investigations, Duncan and Lilly's mother, Celeste Kane (Lisa Thornhill) hires Keith to ascertain if her husband Jake is having an affair, despite her open contempt for both Keith and Veronica. Keith is busy with other projects, and Veronica takes it upon herself to follow Jake. Veronica takes photos of him at the Camelot hotel as he meets with an unseen woman after midnight. Once Keith sees the license plate number of the woman's car, he stops the investigation and files the photograph. Puzzled by his actions, Veronica finds the file and learns that Keith has continued his own personal investigation of Lilly's murder. Veronica discovers that the car belongs to her missing mother, Lianne, and begins to investigate the murder herself.
Production[edit]
Conception[edit]
Rob Thomas originally wrote Veronica Mars as a young adult novel for publishing company Simon & Schuster. Prior to his first television job on Dawson's Creek, Thomas sold two novel ideas. One of these was provisionally titled Untitled Rob Thomas Teen Detective Novel, which formed the basis for the series. The novel had many elements similar to Veronica Mars, however the protagonist was male. Thomas's father was a vice-principal at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, and the main character attended a "thinly disguised version" of the school. As Thomas had begun writing for film and television, he did not resume his teen detective idea for several years. Writing a novel could take months for Thomas, whereas a television script only took several weeks. Knowing that television scripts paid more, Thomas wrote the television version of the teen detective project as a spec script before it became a novel. Since no studio or network had asked him to write it, and he would not get paid unless it sold, Thomas said that "it was never a very pressing project for me". Tinkering with it from time to time, Thomas wrote project notes a year before he actually started writing the television script. Most of his original ideas made it into the script, but some changed drastically. Thomas wanted to use flashbacks, and he had to shorten the timeline so that the murder could happen in a recent time.[4] Thomas changed the gender of the protagonist because he thought a noir piece told from a female point of view would be more interesting and unique.[5]