So we're well on our way into the CW's newly-streamlined Veronica Mars, and so far the changes this season are becoming vastly more apparent. Clearly, an effort has been made to "simplify" the show, and we're seeing more stand-alone storylines. Case-in-point: this episode's romantic subplot concerning Veronica and Logan. Veronica finds herself being more suspicious, Logan finds himself being more distant, they have a fight, and it's resolved by the end of the episode. What is this, One Tree Hill? If this had happened last season, we would've gotten a few choice lines of dialogue, and it wouldn't have been resolved for at least another few episodes, at which point we'd have found out Logan had probably killed someone. Or something.

Yes, this season is decidedly lacking in any murderous storylines, which I always thought gave the show it's edge. Instead, we're being treated to a serial-rapist storyline, which is intriguing, but has two problems. First, the brutality of it is at odds with the kindler, gentler feel of the show. Second, it's not personal. The first season her best friend was murdered. The second season, a whole busload of classmates were murdered, including the girl pregnant with Veronica's boyfriend's baby. It sounds uber-melodramatic on the page, but the mysteries were handled so well it became masterful storytelling.

It also gave the show something of a lose-lose proposition for its third season: the labyrinthine storylines were what made the show great, but they also made it one of the lowest-rated shows on television. Now that they're trying to appeal to a larger audience, the show has lost some of that gravitas.

Still, I'm far from giving up on this season, because I trust the writers enough to allow them more than three episodes to warm me up to the new college folk Veronica is running into. Plus, this episode brought us the return of Weevil, a great character who had been conspicuously absent, and his new janitorial job at the college is a clever way to keep him invovled in the series. I'm also looking forward to the planned arc of having three separate overaching mysteries, each taking roughly eight episodes. Make the one after the serial-rape mystery more personal and more insidious, and I'm there.