Description
This collection includes materials from the television series
Veronica Mars. It contains production documents from each episode, administrative and financial records from the series, a banner taken
from the set, as well as audiovisual media utilized during the series' production.
Background
The television series Veronica Mars ran for three seasons in the United States, from September 22, 2004 until May 22, 2007. The first two seasons aired on the
United Paramount Network (UPN), and the final one screened on the newly established CW Television Network (CW). Based on
an untitled teen detective novel by Rob Thomas (author of such novels as Rats Saw God and Slave Day), the titled hero of the series, Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), served as a young private investigator fighting crime in this
weekly noir-esque mystery series. As scholars Rhonda V. Wilcox and Sue Turnbull note, Veronica Mars is "supposedly teen television," yet "friendship, family, loyalty and rape, murder, corrupt law officials, and gangs, whether
bikers or 09ers – all are part of the mixture of honor and darkness, heroism and social cynicism, that is Veronica Mars" (3). This unusual mixture of themes, combined with the show's undaunted consideration of complex issues like race, class,
gender, and sexual orientation, resulted in positive critical attention during the first two seasons. Ratings waned and the
CW opted to cancel the series after its third season, but persistent Veronica Mars fans successfully backed a 2013 Kickstarter campaign for a cinematic sequel. The film was released in 2014 and, as of this
collection's publication, a Veronica Mars revival is currently being planned through the online streaming website Hulu.
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish
or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Research Collections. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Department of Special Research Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained