‘Veronica Mars’ may be the new ‘Buffy’

What it is: Veronica Mars is a new prime-time drama on UPN. Yes, UPN. It airs every Tuesday.

What it’s all about: Life has turned upside down for former in-crowd it-girl Veronica Mars. She’s lost her best friend (murdered), her boyfriend (dumped her) and her mother (skipped town). Then her father loses his sheriff’s job amid a swirl of scandal, and Veronica finds herself shunned by her so-called friends and the subject of vicious gossip. She’s gone from prom queen to outcast in a matter of months.

Now she’s working nights and weekends for her father’s fledgling private investigations business, a hip and snarky Nancy Drew in training. Besides outsmarting the various authority figures in her life (the new sheriff, her high school principal, even her father) and solving minor mysteries on a regular basis, Veronica’s also determined to clear her father’s name and to find the truth about her friend Lilly’s murder.

Why we like it: Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air – or rather, ever since Buffy’s character went off to college – I’ve been missing my weekly dose of high school hell. There’s just something compelling about the concept of a smart, skilled, gutsy girl negotiating social minefields by day and mortal danger by night, trying to fit in with her classmates while living half her life in a world they can’t imagine.

Veronica Mars fills the gap nicely, and only two episodes in, I’m already hooked by the smart scripts, the intriguing mysteries, the snappy one-liners and the authoritative performance of Kristen Bell in the lead role.

The show may sound like a downer, what with all the miseries the writers have piled on poor Veronica, but our heroine handles her troubles with toughness, grace and sarcasm – a killer combo that makes her both believably human and enviably cool.

And maybe that’s the real key to the show’s appeal. Watching Veronica in action, you can’t help wishing you’d had her gritty confidence in dealing with high school’s various jerks, thugs and snakes. You can’t relive your high school days (and who’d want to?), but you can watch Veronica living them for you, in (hopefully) more difficult circumstances, but with (undoubtedly) better comebacks.