MONDO EXTRAS

CB: Oh, wow! You covered that up really well. I don't think anyone noticed that on the boards.

RT: Well, the only recent episode she was in was "Clash Of The Tritons," and for most of that, she was sitting behind a desk. There was one shot in which she had to cover up her stomach with a folder. But we didn't think we could write a storyline for Keith and a pregnant Miss James.

CB: So that's why you broke it off so quickly.

RT: Yeah.

CB: Well, maybe if there's a second season, they'll get back together. Speaking of which, a lot of posters have wondered whether I'm going to drop the nickname now, but it's not going anywhere until I hear you're renewed.

RT: [laughs] Please don't.

CB: So moving on to the show: how did you get the idea for Veronica Mars, and what was your original vision?

RT: Years ago, I came up with a couple of story ideas, one of which evolved into Veronica Mars. The earliest conception of the idea was that a teen detective, at that point a guy, was the son of a shamed local sheriff who, in the wake of his ousting, became a private eye. I actually pitched the idea as a book first, and if it had ended up being a stand-alone novel, it wouldn't have been particularly case-driven. I think he would have had some detective work throughout the show, but I think it would have been more about his applying his skills to regain his social position, and to do it in sort of a dark way. It was going to be about a kid who, through fear and intimidation through information, clawed his way back up through the high school. It would have been more of an internalized novel. When I decided to write it as a TV show, however, it was right around the time Freaks and Geeks got canceled, which to me meant the death of small-story television. I loved Freaks and Geeks -- I was actually as upset when it got canceled as when Cupid did. But you could no longer have these tiny moments with teenagers having these small epiphanies and very real life lessons. It had to be in The O.C. territory of lesbians and affairs and fucking the pool boy.

CB: So you're keeping up with The O.C.!

RT: Actually, I've never seen an episode, but there are a couple of writers on staff who watch it -- we always get "The O.C. did that story." But I'm not saying -- clearly, we're doing big-story television. I'm not doing these simple little Freaks and Geeks stories either. To me it meant that if I wanted to do a teen show, it needed to be high-concept, it needed to be case-driven, because those are the shows that they want to put on the air, the shows they can sell overseas. I see myself as a Northern Exposure writer in a C.S.I. world, and so when I had that book idea, it occurred to be that it was a way to do a teen show that would be case-driven and high-incident, and yet I could still make it a character-driven show, underneath the detective cases and the high concept.

CB: One other music question: in "Silence Of The Lamb," Deputy Leo tells Veronica his trick of inviting girls to see his band to see if they're into him. Is that anything you might have done at some point? RT: That was pretty much straight out of my own life! It was the only way I could ask girls out [laughs]. Honest to God, when I quit the band, I couldn't talk to women. I didn't know how anymore. If I couldn't invite them to the show and come down off the stage with swagger and alcohol, I had no idea. Not to mention when I quit the band and moved to L.A. -- well, being broke in L.A. with a shitty job is not a good way to start dating. CB: Well, you figured something out, obviously. Starting in 1990 or thereabouts, I believe, you taught high-school journalism for five years, and then you moved to L.A. and wrote Rats Saw God, which has a high-school setting. RT: Well, just to clarify, I taught high school in San Antonio for two years, then advised the University of Texas student magazine for a year, and then taught high school again in Austin for two years. Then I moved to L.A. to work for Channel One, the teen news network, which got a lot of criticism, because some people thought we were just shoving Doritos down kids' throats. Not that there weren't a lot of great creative jobs at Channel One -- I just didn't have one of them. During that time I felt like I had no creative outlet at all, so I started writing a page a day, and Rats Saw God was the result. It all happened really quickly -- it only took me a couple months to get an agent. CB: Wow, that's pretty impressive. RT: Well, you look at it as that I paid my dues playing nine years in a less-than successful band. CB: [laughs] Now, how much did your teaching period inform the work you've done since? There have been a fair number of high-school settings. RT: It had a tremendous effect. Working with kids in journalism is different from teaching them Math or English. I worked with them after school, on yearbook, in a different setting than the classroom. They'd talk about their relationships and their lives, and those conversations stayed in my mind. The funny thing, though, is that although the protagonist of Rats Saw God is in high school, I meant for it to be an adult book. I was twenty-eight when I wrote it, and I felt the themes were mature. So I was a little surprised when it ended up being marketed to "young adults."

CB: Then you took a staff writing position at Dawson's Creek. ["Thomas wrote 'Kiss (A Prelude To A Kiss)' and 'Road Trip (In The Company Of Men).'" -- Wing Chun] I don't know if you know this, but Television Without Pity's first incarnation was Dawson's Wrap, which was just our two co-founders writing recaps of Dawson's Creek. You might not be shocked to hear they weren't all that complimentary. RT: [laughs] I didn't know that! Well, the really funny thing is, I've never even seen a whole episode of that show. CB: [laughs] Well, good for you! RT: I'd watch for my name in the credits, but that's about it. That show was very good for me at the time, though, in that it enabled me to pay off some large credit-card debt and buy a house. I was making three thousand bucks a week to be on staff. But it wasn't a great atmosphere. There was a lot of upheaval at the top of the show -- Kevin Williamson was in and out and working on movies and was very involved at some points and not involved at all at others, and they fired the first showrunner they brought in -- it didn't make for a good working environment. CB: And then came Cupid. A lot of our forum posters still mourn the loss of that show. Tough time slot, eh? RT: It was a tough time slot. That show was an interesting example of what happens when you have a novice creator. The network brought in a writing team, plus two executive producers to do the showrunning, but by Episode 8, they had fired the EPs, so then I was running everything. I wasn't quite as upset as you might expect when it was canceled, although if I'd known the dry spell I was going to hit after that, I would have been. CB: Speaking of EPs, how did you and Joel Silver hook up to do this show? :Rob Thomas: Joel has two people who run his television department. Most of his work is in film, clearly, but he would love to start producing more shows, like [Jerry] Bruckheimer, to have a TV empire hand-in-hand with his film empire. I worked with one of the two women running his TV department on Cupid, and liked and respected her, and I had met the other woman, and felt the same way about her. The way the marriage between Joel and me worked was that I had the script that UPN had already bought. I could have chosen not to partner up with anyone, but my agent, who also represented Joel, made a very compelling case for the partnership, because UPN wanted it. It would give me more leverage and clout, and also Joel is a real marketing guy. Plus, we had the potential to use his film connections to get better directors and stuntcasting and that sort of thing. There was upside to it. And I have to say that we were barely picked up. They knew they were going to pick up Kevin Hill, so the other six UPN pilots knew that they were competing for the one other slot. It came down to us and one other show, and we barely got the nod. So I'm not sure the show would even be on without Joel.

CB: Getting back to Cupid, some posters have wondered, since you've already got Paula Marshall on the show, if Jeremy Piven will make an appearance at some point. RT: Well, in fact, I've wondered if I could have Veronica handle a case where Paula and Jeremy are lovers. CB: No way! I think someone on the boards had a similar idea. RT: It's occurred to me, anyway. Jeremy and I didn't have a great relationship on Cupid. We got along, but we fought over words a lot. But I'd certainly ask him to be on the show -- I just don't know if he'd say yes. CB: Now, speaking of Paula Marshall, she's been a common presence on all the shows over which you've had creative control. I saw from your post in the forums that you're aware of the little nickname I gave her [Back, Show Killer!]. You should have seen the anti-hex rituals the posters did when she turned up on the show. They thought it was imminent cancellation, right there. RT: [laughs] Yes, I was aware of the nickname. I tried to remind myself that other actors have had the same reputation -- George Clooney, I seem to remember, killed a bunch of shows in his day. CB: Well, he killed The Facts Of Life. RT: Yeah. But Paula's great. CB: Oh, people love her on the show. RT: And we loved her and Keith together, but the problem there was that, much like my fiancée, Paula is seven and a half months pregnant. CB: Oh, wow! You covered that up really well. I don't think anyone noticed that on the boards. RT: Well, the only recent episode she was in was "Clash Of The Tritons," and for most of that, she was sitting behind a desk. There was one shot in which she had to cover up her stomach with a folder. But we didn't think we could write a storyline for Keith and a pregnant Miss James. CB: So that's why you broke it off so quickly. RT: Yeah. CB: Well, maybe if there's a second season, they'll get back together. Speaking of which, a lot of posters have wondered whether I'm going to drop the nickname now, but it's not going anywhere until I hear you're renewed. RT: [laughs] Please don't. CB: So moving on to the show: how did you get the idea for Veronica Mars, and what was your original vision? RT: Years ago, I came up with a couple of story ideas, one of which evolved into Veronica Mars. The earliest conception of the idea was that a teen detective, at that point a guy, was the son of a shamed local sheriff who, in the wake of his ousting, became a private eye. I actually pitched the idea as a book first, and if it had ended up being a stand-alone novel, it wouldn't have been particularly case-driven. I think he would have had some detective work throughout the show, but I think it would have been more about his applying his skills to regain his social position, and to do it in sort of a dark way. It was going to be about a kid who, through fear and intimidation through information, clawed his way back up through the high school. It would have been more of an internalized novel. When I decided to write it as a TV show, however, it was right around the time Freaks and Geeks got canceled, which to me meant the death of small-story television. I loved Freaks and Geeks -- I was actually as upset when it got canceled as when Cupid did. But you could no longer have these tiny moments with teenagers having these small epiphanies and very real life lessons. It had to be in The O.C. territory of lesbians and affairs and fucking the pool boy.

CB: So you're keeping up with The O.C.! RT: Actually, I've never seen an episode, but there are a couple of writers on staff who watch it -- we always get "The O.C. did that story." But I'm not saying -- clearly, we're doing big-story television. I'm not doing these simple little Freaks and Geeks stories either. To me it meant that if I wanted to do a teen show, it needed to be high-concept, it needed to be case-driven, because those are the shows that they want to put on the air, the shows they can sell overseas. I see myself as a Northern Exposure writer in a C.S.I. world, and so when I had that book idea, it occurred to be that it was a way to do a teen show that would be case-driven and high-incident, and yet I could still make it a character-driven show, underneath the detective cases and the high concept. CB: You mentioned in an email that you're in the process of redesigning your website to include Veronica Mars. Are you going to include any stuff we haven't seen on the show? RT: Totally. You know, the network has been really great, for the most part -- for example, letting us say that Veronica was raped in the pilot was incredible. Also, in the original version, I had Veronica find a bunch of letters from her mom that Keith had been keeping from her. The network felt that that was too much -- they wanted me to show that Keith and Veronica loved each other. I think, in retrospect, that that was probably the right call. That said, I was really annoyed about some things that were cut in that episode. For example, when Veronica plants the bong in Logan's locker, it was originally supposed to be in the shape of a cock. He would have had to walk down the hallway with this big cock in his hand. CB: Ha ha ha! Considering some of the things I've written about Logan, that would have been hilarious. RT: [laughs] Yeah. And that was totally Standards and Practices -- the network would have loved it. I originally envisioned Veronica Mars as a cable show, where I could have gotten away with that. But I'm going to put the original pilot script on my website, and until Warner Brothers shuts me down, I'm going to try to put [up] the unaired original cold open of the pilot episode. Also, we collect our favorite sound bites and turn them into MP3s, and I thought I would drop a bunch of those in there. [At this point, Rob plays a bunch of these over the phone for me. Hee.] If we don't get a DVD after the first season, I'm going to put some unaired scenes on the site, too.

CB: Now, it's funny that you've given me so much background on the premise of the show, because I recently read an interview with Enrico Colantoni where he conceded that the short version of the premise, "teen-girl PI in training," is a bit of a tough sell, and a lot of our posters who have tried to hook their friends on the show have found the same thing. I'm reminded of my own experience telling people about Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which I watched from the very beginning. It was like, you started out saying, "It's a show about a sixteen-year-old girl who fights vampires," and before you could get to the characterization or the storytelling, there was a dust cloud in front of you and your friends wouldn't return your calls. RT: And that point was made to me before the show ever aired at a Television Critics Association panel. People asked, "Is this a silly concept?" And I'd answer that yes, the one-sentence description is, because it sounds like Nancy Drew. But Nancy Drew was always looking for secret treasure in the haunted cave or something ridiculous like that. We really try to focus on the detective work, but also to write mysteries we can solve. That's why "Clash Of The Tritons" worked so well -- the kid in the coma, the school society -- they were small stories. And we also really want to limit the guns on the show. I think we need them every once in a while, but I don't want the focus to be on the guns. That's a lesson I learned from "The Girl Door." Also, "Silence Of The Lamb" made me really uneasy -- we're going to do a B-story about a serial killer? I mean, the thing about that episode that we all got very jazzed about was putting Lamb and Keith on a case together. But in retrospect, I wish it had been a smaller case -- important, but not a serial killer, because that was too much for a Neptune B-story in one episode. CB: If it hadn't been a serial killer, it probably would have aired in order, right? Wasn't it pulled because the serial-killer plotline was deemed inappropriate for pre-Christmas fare? RT: Oh, no, actually. That was just a function of when UPN wanted to air new episodes against other networks. The reason we flipped those two episodes was that "An Echolls Family Christmas" obviously had to air before Christmas, and "Silence Of The Lamb" didn't.

CB: You mentioned "The Girl Door." I have to tell you that's my least favorite episode. RT: Yeah, for me, it's a tie between that and "Credit Where Credit's Due." We had a nice thirteen days to shoot the pilot, and then suddenly we're on this tight schedule and Paris Hilton is showing up whenever she wants, and it was really stressful. Veronica Mars is a hard show to film, in that there are a lot of scenes and a lot of players. You don't find that problem on a show like, say, Gilmore Girls, where most of the scenes are lengthy dialogue between two people. And I was really working hard on the showrunning aspect as well. CB: Speaking of showrunning, we skipped over this before, but I wanted to ask you about your brief time at Snoops. I've heard a few things about you and David E. Kelley. RT: I bear him no ill will, but he's...an odd duck. The way David runs a show is that he writes it, and he lets other people cast and edit and run the production. He writes, and more power to him. He certainly cared about Snoops -- if he hadn't, he would have just handed it off to me. But it's like he's autistic -- he's off in script world. He writes faster and more than any writer I've ever seen, but I think the tradeoff in that is that he's not present in the room in which he's in. You can have these conversations with him where you don't think he's talking to you -- he's writing the third act of week's Ally McBeal. But clearly, he had a vision for Snoops that didn't match my vision. I think there's a sense that any writer who's worked over in the Kelley camp has that David only likes his own writing. But when I left the show, Entertainment Weekly asked him about my departure, and he actually had some very fair and nice things to say. He said I wanted to do a character- and humor-driven show, and he thought it should be more of a plot- and intrigue-driven show, which was fair and mostly accurate. But after the series ended, he told the Hollywood Reporter that the lesson he learned from Snoops was not to hand over a show to other producers. That's so offensive to me, because he didn't hand off the show. I was like, "That's your bomb, David. That's all you. Please step up and take responsibility for the show you did." And the funny thing is that three different people ran the show that year, and we were all offended. None of us know who specifically he was talking about, or if he was talking about all of us. But he ran that show. Anyway, it all worked out fine. I think I came up with the better detective show, so I feel like I won.

CB: Yeah, so you're okay with the result. Now, do you see elements of any other shows in Veronica Mars? For example, were you a Twin Peaks fan? RT: It's funny -- I was a big fan of Twin Peaks. I loved the first season. But as the show got stranger, and it became clear that they weren't really going to solve any of the mysteries, it frustrated me, and I stopped watching. I think a lot of people had that same experience. That's part of why I've stated clearly that the mysteries I laid out in the pilot are going to be solved by the end of the season. In some ways, I view Twin Peaks as a cautionary tale. But I certainly put a lot of elements of it into the pilot. In fact, as I said earlier, I originally thought Veronica Mars was going to be a cable show, so I was gearing the language and themes in the pilot toward that audience. Originally, Lilly's body was discovered in the ocean -- we even shot that. But the network freaked out about that and had us change it. Also, in the pilot when Veronica wakes up after she's been drugged and raped, she walks out of the party, and you see her walking down this path in her party dress. Originally, that walk was much longer, and when she gets to her car, the word "SLUT" has been shoe-polished on, and on the back you see, "Abel it should have been her." And that was something the network made us throw out, thinking it was too dark. But we're going to try to play that in the -to-last episode of the season as a flashback. We know that the network now has more faith in the show, so we're hoping they'll allow it. CB: Now I notice sometimes that elements of your past work pop up here and there on Veronica Mars. For example, in "The Wrath Of Con," where the kids are playing "I Never" on the beach, Lilly says she's "never not had sex," which is an unusual construction lifted from Rats Saw God. RT: You caught that! Ha ha ha! I didn't write that! CB: Oh, seriously? RT: Yeah, one of the other writers did. CB: So it was like a little shout-out to you? RT: Exactly. She put it in, and when I saw it I wasn't sure if I was going to leave it in, but I did. CB: I also noticed that you used a Rashomon-type method of storytelling in your second book, Slave Day, and that popped up again in "An Echolls Family Christmas." Does that kind of reuse happen organically, or do you think, "I'd really like to use this idea again in another context"?

RT: Well, to tell you the truth, I wasn't really going for a Rashomon-style story with "Echolls." There may have been a bit of an Agatha Christie feel to it, but I didn't think that mystery was big enough for a Rashomon-level episode. But, funnily enough, where we are using that idea again is in the episode I just mentioned, the -to-last episode of the season, where Veronica figures out who roofied and raped her. We're trying to get as many people from the season together for that episode -- both people she's helped and people she's hurt, so we can get all their points of view so Veronica can solve the case. CB: Wow, that is awesome! I can't wait for that one now. RT: We're looking forward to it. Of course, you have to be careful with theme episodes. We talk in the writer's room about how we'll know we've jumped the shark when we start having the characters acting out a version of Clue. CB: [laughs] Speaking of the characters, let's talk about the casting for a minute. It's fairly well known, I think, that Jason Dohring originally auditioned for the role of Duncan. Am I right that Logan wasn't even supposed to be a main character? RT: Actually, he was supposed to be a main character, but probably not with quite as big a role as he ended up with. But we love writing for him, because he's so dynamic. We cast Kristin first, so she read with all the male auditioners. We were down to three guys for the part of Logan, and after the first one read, we asked Kristen what she thought. She said she just didn't think he was intense enough. Knowing Jason was up , I said, "Wait 'til the guy." CB: Well, yeah. There's a lot going on there. RT: And Jason could have played Duncan. But the thing is, UPN's just like any other network in that they want pretty people. And Jason's a handsome guy, but when the network is looking for the romantic lead, the only headshots they want to see are male-model types. I think it worked out better this way. CB: Well, he was so hated after the first couple of episodes. And it's partly the writing, but it's partly his acting ability -- I mean, his popularity rivals [Kristen's], and that's not easy to accomplish. RT: We feel that way in the writer's room too. CB: The whole cast seems really eager. Some of our posters have gone to the publicity events they've done around the country and met them, and have had nothing but good things to say about how pleasant and into it they are.

RT: And that's really a blessing. They're all great with the fans. And Kristen works so hard. She never gets any rest, and I'll see her at those things and know all she wants is a day off, but she just smiles and gets through it. The boys love those things, because 95% of the press on the show goes to Kristen. So they love getting on the plane and meeting the fans. And it's not that Kristen doesn't enjoy doing that too, but I just think she's exhausted and wouldn't mind lounging instead. CB: What did you all do when you heard about the full-season order? RT: We were pretty happy. I had gotten some very positive signals leading up to the announcement, so it wasn't a huge surprise. And I have to say, I'm getting positive noise about a second season. UPN really likes the show, and Dawn Ostroff, the network president, has been telling me how every critic she talks to has told her that she can't cancel us. Also, Diane Ruggiero [a Veronica Mars staff writer] and I rewrote a pilot for UPN, which they loved, but they're not going to make it season because they told us they don't want us to split our attention year, which indicates that we'll have Veronica Mars on the air. CB: I've been optimistic too, although not everyone is. RT: Well, there have been other signs. We recently beat our lead-in for the first time. Also, on nights that Kevin Hill didn't have a lead-in from America's Top Model, we've been spanking it. CB: And UPN has been saying how much they want to be taken seriously and have good scripted dramas. Given that, now that they've canceled Enterprise, I don't really see how they can afford to cancel Veronica Mars, but we'll know when we know. When will you find out? May? When will Rob find out? Tune in for the Part II of the interview and see.