Aired: 2004-2005 UPN
DAD: Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni)/ unknown marital status
DAD’S JOB: Private Investigator
KIDS: Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell)(17)
WHERE’S MOM?: Dead, possibly.
STAND-IN “MOM”: unknown
Calling a character “Nancy Drew” wouldn’t be hip now, would it? Consider “Veronica Mars” – – *that* is a cool name.
Here’s trivia for Galaxy Quest fans: two actors on TV Single Dad shows on UPN this year are alums from that movie. Patrick Breen, the nanny on Kevin Hill played Quell (the alien who worshipped Alan Rickman’s pseudo-Vulcan character). Enrico Colantoni played the alien leader Malthasar. Will Missi Pyle make the hat trick?
How UPN wanted us to think about the show:
VERONICA MARS is set in the wealthy, seaside community of Neptune, where the rich and powerful make the rules, own the town and the high school, and desperately try to keep their dirty little secrets just that…secret. Unfortunately for them, there’s Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) a smart, fearless 17-year-old, apprentice private investigator dedicated to solving the town’s toughest mysteries. During the day, Veronica must still negotiate high school like any average teenage girl. Along with fellow outcast, sophomore Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), she bravely maneuvers her classes, wary of former in-crowd friends, like ex-boyfriend Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn) and his best friend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), and edgy outsiders, like Weevil (Francis Capra) and his P.C.H. Bike Club boys. At night, Veronica looks after her former-Sheriff father Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) and helps with his struggling, new private investigator business. By sneaking through back alleys and scoping out no-tell motels with a telescopic-lens camera and her math book, Veronica attempts to uncover the California beach town’s darkest secrets, including who killed her best friend and Duncan’s sister, Lilly, and created a scandal that cost her father his job, his home and wife. Pushed to the edge of this multicultural, venomous little Peyton Place, Veronica Mars relentlessly continues to search for evidence that will clear her father’s name and get her back into the “in-crowd,” but what she finds may tear the town of Neptune apart at the seams.
I guess “The Hardy Boys” will be renamed “The Brothers Shizzle.”