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Last week at the winter TCA Press Tour the creators of Lost declared that they will be ending the series around the 100 episode mark. This was suppose to quell the restlessness amongst the fans that feel the show’s writers have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. It’s the type of announcement that doesn’t exactly solve this problem, but it does give everyone a timetable to figure out an answer. Lost will end, and hopefully that motivation will spark some decent plotting for these last two seasons.

Similarly, Heroes was rumored from the start to have stand-alone seasons. Whether or not this is still the case is up for argument. Personally, as someone who has had a love/hate relationship with the show, I hope season one ends with some solid resolution (i.e. New York City either blows up or doesn’t). Unlike Lost, Heroes has the advantage (like Veronica Mars) of telling one story over 22 episodes and then starting fresh and doing it again the next season. I go on after the break…

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Tonight capped off the first nine-episode arc for Veronica Mars‘ third season. Loved it. It had, more or less, everything you could ask for. You got yer quips. You got yer red herring. You got yer set-up for the next mystery. You got yer action, suspence, and funny t-shirts worn by cast members (”Ask me about my STD”). Really, the only thing I could have asked for would have been a little more punch on the mystery itself — though you do gotta love the groundwork laid during the “prisoner/guard” episode from six or seven weeks ago.

I’m also kind of thrilled Veronica and Logan split. Logan is a great character, but he’s always at his best when he can be reckless. Take, for example, his well timed smashing of a cop-car so that he could be locked up with Mercer. Classic Logan. This move will not only be good for Veronica and Logan (she’s too independent, he’s too bi-polar) but it will be good for us, which in the world of television romance is always the most important thing.
When all is said and done, I’m coming out in favor of these shorter storylines. Twenty-two episodes is a tad long for one mystery. Seven to nine is just about perfect, and I look forward to catching the rest of the season during the new year, even if those episodes are going to be short one Ed Begley Jr.

Remember Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? Remember how just about everyone who watched the show during that first month couldn’t believe what a disaster it had become since the pilot aired? Remember how pretentious, preachy, preposterous, and generally unfunny it was? Well it still is, but I’m also still watching it. After the jump I’ll tell you why…

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I’m not saying last night’s Veronica Mars was the best of the season. Hell, it probably wasn’t even the best of the month. But I think we can all agree that this season, as a whole, has been missing something. After finishing the most recent episode, I think I know what that something is: kick-ass cliffhangers AND personal storylines.

A friend of mine said, rightfully, that Veronica Mars will never be as good as it was in that first season, because the mystery will never be as personal– i.e. figuring out who killed your best friend and figuring out who drugged and raped you at a party. That’s some pretty heady stuff for a show as whimsical as this one. The serial rapist storyline this go-round has so far been pretty ‘meh.’ Sure, Veronica has taken the case because friends of hers were affected, but where was the urgency? In the grand scheme of things, your prof nailing the deans wife ranks somewhere between “who dinged my fender” and “where’s the beef” when compared to a masked rapist running amok through a college campus.

Now there’s urgency. It’s just a damn shame the arc only has a few episodes left before hiatus. Those last five minutes this week were everything Veronica Mars can be and more. Logan’s been on Prozac all season, but seeing him run to the rescue reminded me of how great he can be when he’s not sleep-walking though life. Though even better was the sense of actual danger. Veronica Mars fools you into thinking you’re watching a fun, family-friendly*, romp, but it can pull the rug out better than just about any show on television not involving a smoke-monster.

I can not wait for next week!

*Your family watches shows that make “shocker” references, right?

Why? Seriously. Why?

Say what you will about Lost this season, (I’m of the opinion that these first five episodes are leaps and bounds above the first five from last season) there is no denying the fact that the character Mr. Eko was extremely popular. This raises the always valuable question: at what point is a character unkillable? For example, you can’t kill off James Woods from Shark. The show doesn’t really work without him. See, his character’s name is in the title. Ensembles are a little harder to draw that line, especially when the character in question isn’t even an original castmember. More thoughts after clicking below…

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Since about episode five or six of this season, Showtime’s Weeds has fallen off a bit from the season’s strong start. That is until this week when Zooey Deshanel showed up as Andy’s exgirlfriend. It was a hilarious role and perfectly cast. Perhaps the best guest roll in television since Forest Whitaker completely took over The Shield. As an actress, Deshanel has always been best with flighty characters, and here playing someone who had spent the past 48 hours eating nothing but salmon and Red Bull, she was pitch perfect. It also didn’t hurt that she was incredibly funny, which is important on this show since sometimes it becomes a little overly concerned with its inconsequential plotting. Knowing that this is Showtime and that series rarely make it to a third season because they can’t afford to pay them, I’m assuming that Weeds will wrap itself up in the coming weeks. This is a shame, when such a great character is introduced so late in the game, but I guess that’s how things work out.

Veronica Mars seems tighter this season. (WHAT?!) Wow, that sounded horrible. What I meant was that the writing seems tighter. The story, whether it be the main mystery or the individual mysteries seem to constantly expanding. Everything is relevant to something else, and those few things that don’t seem to fit are probably just the formation of important things to come. Also, does anyone else secretly (or not so secretly) want Veronica and Logan to split? While I did find the end of last night’s episode to be mostly romantic, Logan is best when he’s bitter, and frankly he just doesn’t seem all that bitter when Veronica is on her good side. This is a shame as Logan’s quips rank among the highlights of previous seasons.

Also, you can add the line, “Larry, you’re entering a world of pain” to the long list of Big Lebowski homages. And let’s not forget the seemingly late arrival of Weevil to the Hearst campus. It was actually probably a good idea to wait a couple episodes so that his joining the school’s custodial staff didn’t seem quite so forced. Now we have all the major players perfectly aligned for some sort of horrible future conflict. But first, perhaps we should figure out who’s the rapist?

There are few pleasures in the television world that bring me as much joy as watching a new episode of Veronica Mars, the UPN holdover with the rabid fan base that simply can not get their friends to tune in. Part of the tragic excitement each episode brings is the feeling you’re watching something special, and that most of America is completely missing out. Of course, there gets to be a point where you have to just take a step back and say, “Look, America. I’ve done what I can. The ball is in your court.” Though if you’re thinking about jumping into the series, now is the time to do it.

I look at this season (the third) as being a bit of a relaunch. New network, new timeslot, new viewers? Wishful thinking. Knowing this, the premiere’s cold-open was pitch perfect. All you need to know about the character Veronica Mars was explained in those first three minutes: she solves crimes, and does so with gusto.

As a whole the episode was about par for the course, but just being able to see these characters again made the hour curiously comforting. We were introduced to some new characters, were visited by a lot of the old ones, and by the last five minutes the first big arch was set into motion (there’s a rapist going around Hearst College and the Fitzpatricks are up to their old murderous ways). General splendidness all around. Click below for some more thoughts on the episode…

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All right kids. This is the week we’ve been waiting for. It is what all those boring summer hours of reruns and high-quality premium-cable dramatic series have brought us. Over the next two days we get the premiere episodes of two of network television’s most thoroughly entertaining series. To commemorate this, let me throw a couple links your way.

Alan Sepinwall of the Star-Ledger interviews Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas* about how he maps out the show’s mysteries. Needless to say, it sounds daunting. (NOTE: if you haven’t seen Veronica Mars but would someday like to check it out, skip this article because it goes into great detail about how the previous seasons ended. Though now that I’m thinking about it some more, my site is suppose to serve primarily as a way for me to get people to watch the shows that I enjoy watching, and since I’d like everyone to start tuning in for V-Mars, you might as well read the article and maybe — hopefully — it’ll make you want to dial it up tonight and enjoy the bliss that is a teenage private-eye and her mystery-solving antics. So disregard this note.)

As for Lost, some of you may have heard about the interactive web-game The Lost Experience, which was suppose to add a whole other level of storytelling to the Lost universe. Well, BuddyTV went to the great effort of summarizing the whole damn thing for those of us who aren’t quite as die hard. Sounds like the conclusion was the whole thing seemed to be a bit of a bust. I’m for innovation, but sometimes a TV show can be maddening on its own.

Veronica Mars 9:00pm ET Tuesdays on CW | Lost 9:00 Wednesdays on ABC

*Not that Rob Thomas