I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly's feature on the upcoming Veronica Mars movie when I suddenly found myself tearing up. My weepy reaction wasn't exactly surprising, seeing as I have yet to make it through the entire trailer without shedding a tear, but it reminded me just how much this show means to me -- to all of us -- and how truly special it is that we get to experience it again.
Let me tell you, as an avid television fan, I have loved and lost my fair share of TV shows, but none were harder to say goodbye to than Veronica Mars. I remember when I heard the news that the fledgling CW network had cancelled my favorite series: It was my senior year of high school and I was walking into my government classroom when another classmate (whom I was only friends with through our mutual love for Veronica Mars) told me that the show had been axed. I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. I couldn't focus on anything else for the rest of the day until I went home and checked online to confirm what she had told me. Needless to say, I was devastated. Things only got worse after I watched the intentionally open-ended series finale several weeks later. You never feel anything quite as intensely as you do when you're a teenager, and even years later, Veronica Mars still has the ability to tap into that passion and fervor that I poured into it when I first watched the show.
Before you judge me for overreacting to the loss of a TV show (one that got three whole seasons, which is more than a lot of others can say), keep in mind that this was the last half of my senior year of high school. I already felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me as I futilely tried to run backwards away from the big scary future that lay before me. Veronica Mars was something that united my brother and I, along with several of our old friends who all got into the show when we binge-watched it together the summer before. Losing Veronica Mars on top of saying goodbye to them was like pouring salt in a wound.
When I went to college five months later I ran into an old friend whom I hadn't seen since elementary school. We got to talking, and at one point I swear to you this is exactly what I said to her: "Speaking of bus crashes, do you by any chance watch Veronica Mars?" She immediately started gushing about her love for the show and how heartbroken she was that it had been cancelled. That moment cemented our friendship, and she became my partner in TV obsession. During our college years we did everything we could to bring our show back: writing letters to producer Joel Silver and CW exec Dawn Ostroff, stalking the fan forums, sending out Veronica Mars Valentines, and even writing our own unofficial Veronica Mars movie script. (You know, just in case they needed some help getting started.) Honestly, my college degree should list "Veronica Mars" as my field of study.
Years went by and the likelihood of any sort of comeback went from "long shot" to "why are you still talking about this?" Yet even after one or two false starts where it really sounded like something might work out (Rob Thomas would say he had a script written, or Kristen Bell would mention it in an interview), we never lost hope.
Then one day, something magical happened. Rob Thomas turned to Kickstarter to see just how many people out there still cared about a sassy blond sleuth and her ragtag group of friends and family (not to mention a few frenemies and foes). The response was a deafening roar of support, breaking Kickstarter records and proving once and for all that yes, people would pay money to see a Veronica Mars movie -- $5.7 million to be exact.
I spent the next few weeks in a state of disbelief, unable to process the reality that I would actually get to see these beloved characters on screen again. Now here I am buying tickets for a film that I'll be watching in just three weeks, and I still can't fully comprehend that this could be happening. It's not a dream. It's not an extremely elaborate work of fanfiction. It's real. Seven years after hearing that Veronica Mars was down for the count -- seven years of wishing, dreaming and squeezing the life out of every last shred of hope -- and here we are. It's just like the age-old saying goes: "If you love something, keep writing about it on the Internet. If it's meant to be, it'll come back to you." Welcome back, Veronica Mars.