VM fans may enjoy this essay, especially the end:
What you might be left with at the end of the first episode of Veronica Mars, however, is that not just any writer could keep all the plates this series sets spinning going, nor could just any writer illuminate all these characters as well as characters in the weekly plots besides. That would be a feat worthy of -- dare we say it -- Joss Whedon. Luckily, we have OK, So It's Like Buffy In Some Ways Similarity #4: Veronica Mars benefits from a head writer and creator who's really very good at what he does, and whose vision is worth the faith of his viewers. A little pedigree: Rob Thomas is the author of a number of very good YA novels, a silly yet fun motion picture, and one of the all time great Series That Was Cancelled Too Early -- "Cupid", which ABC tried to place against "ER" and "X-Files" in their prime, then shuffled it in the schedule again, then cancelled it far, far too soon. "Cupid" was a show with a premise that was quite hard to 'get' at first, but that masterfully juggled humor and touching emotion, as well as both an overarching storyline and one-off plots. Sound familiar? In any case, Thomas is a writer with a solid voice and grasp on character, and while he is not Joss, he doesn't suffer by inevitable comparison. Thomas is, dare I say it, in some ways a writer close to Tim Minear in terms of certain elements of storytelling and the way he can manage to knot up the motivations of his characters in ways that make you understand and ache for them. Indeed, I would be more comfortable by far if UPN compared VM to Angel rather than Buffy -- not that we can have that, given Angel was on That Other Network, but in some ways, VM is a closer series at heart to the tone, if not the general themes and genre, of Buffy's spinoff than Buffy itself.