Veronics Mars: Season One

So I just finished watching Veronica Mars Season 1 on DVD. Here's my thoughts/review:

Overall

Definitely a good series and worth a watch. A lot of mysteries, a lot of clues scattered throughout. Though each episode is standalone, there is a running thread throughout the season (the Lilly Kane murder) which is developed at a good pace.

Without spoilers, I will say I was satisfied with the things that were wrapped up, as well as the things that were left hanging. I never got that "Twin Peaks" feeling that the central mysteries of the show would NEVER EVER be wrapped up.

The Good

The main cast is compelling and the characters experience some growth within the first year.

The guest cast is also top notch, and there are some good minor characters who recur, and who I am always GLAD to see when they do recur (there are many many shows that either eschew recurring characters, or the ones that return annoy me, while the ones we never see again are interesting).

The Bad

The special features on the DVD are really, really lame. This is the 21st century people. If shows like The Shield and Buffy and NYPD Blue can have actor and director commentaries and featurettes, you can too.

The only special features for an entire season are deleted scenes, and even those are done badly. There's one huge batch for the entire season at the end of disc 6.

Meaning you watch the scene and you vaguely recall the episode the scenes were deleted from but not to the extent that they enliven the episode any. Worse, there's no submenu. The deleted scenes just play one after another.

In other words, even if you WANTED to go to the trouble of going back to the episode and watching it right before you watched the DVD, you'd have to fast forward through them.

I know I'm going on about this a little, but it's really inexcusable. There should be more to a boxed set than just getting the episodes. If I was a fan and had watched these as they aired, I would be mad at the paucity of additional insights to the show offered by the boxed set.

Final Grade

B+

If the set had come with the usual amount of special features, including a few episode commentaries and a featurette about the show, this would have been A+. I'm not sure if the issue was money or laziness but either way, it's a big omission in an otherwise excellent show that deserved better.