Finale Day

Yesterday I watched the finale episodes of Veronica Mars (Season 3) and Doctor Who (Season 2), so I guess we're starting a new season of life here on the Anarchivist Channel.

I had various misgivings about Veronica Mars' second season, so it's bittersweet that the show got its groove back in the third, only to be canceled in the middle of assorted plotlines. Argh! Maybe the moral of the second season wasn't that season-long story arcs can't succeed, but rather, it's better to have shorter story arcs than ones than committing to a longer one that just isn't that interesting. And, you know, Piz....he was no Logan, but on the other hand, he was no Duncan either. So, six of one.

I also really enjoyed the whole plot point of Keith going back to where he started, as a respectable representative of law and order. Of course, there's a question of whether he can go back to his old pre-Lilly Kane murder self any more than Veronica can, which was beginning to be explored, but not resolved. (Sorry that this is completely unintelligible to non-VM watchers). As a detective, he'd grown used to working on the fringes of the law, and obviously gotten a taste for it. And then there's Veronica, doing many legally dubious things that she learned from him in the first place, now in conflict with his official authority.

Yummy plot material, now never to be.

The DVD contains a "presentation," twenty minutes or so, of the opening scenes for the non-existant Season 4, which would open with Veronica's first day at the FBI. Kind of an intriguing spin, but also problematic: see my comments about Keith. Since we'd have missed the character development in between, the show would have had to address the conflicts of Veronica trying to work within the law. After all, her moral ambiguity is what really set her apart.

So, I'm sad it's over, but at least the season was much more enjoyable. And we'll always have Season 1, still maybe the best television I've ever seen, or at least in the top five.

Now, Doctor Who. The show keeps going (we've already started watching Season 3), so I don't have the same kind of wrap-up to do. The biggest element (I mean, of course he saves the Earth again, duh) is that the finale wrote out Rose, although there are rumors of her guest-starring in Season 4. I have to say, in their teary, holographic goodbye, when he says he's going to carry on doing what he does, and she says, "On your own?" in this heartbroken voice, my snap thought was, "Not for long." And lo, the transmission ends, and a girl's been teleported into the TARDIS, setting up the next season. Fast even by the Doctor's standards.

I know I've gotten into this a little before, but since it's a Rose retrospective. It's not that I don't like Rose. She's fine. She's brave and heroic and big-hearted, everything everybody says she is. It's just...for people came aboard with the new series, Rose is their first companion. She's my umpteenth.

The version of the Doctor that she met was battle-scarred and more of a loner than we were used to. But it's not like he'd always been alone until she came along, far from it. So it irked me a little, how she seemed to be set apart as so much more special than the others, more so than Sarah Jane, or Ace, or Jamie (a guy, by the way), all people that, at the time, he seemed to have as strong connections with as this Doctor did with Rose (if without so much the "hey, wow, we're both young and attractive!" connotations). Or, you know, Susan, his own granddaughter, who he left behind somewhere for her own good....

And frankly, again, I liked the characters and all, but I got a little tired of her Mum and her flat and her ex-boyfriend and her going home to do laundry. There was too much of that for my taste, and I'm like, hey, let's get into outer space here! So yeah, it was sad for the characters (I'm not made of stone), but I'm not really unhappy to move on.