In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new Veronica Mars spinoff. Any die-hard Veronica Mars fan has surely heard of the online mini-series “Play it again, Dick.” However, the spinoff is not exactly about the characters from the fictional town of Neptune, California.
Remember Dick Casablanca? The surfer guy who is Logan’s best friend, and a constant annoyance to Veronica? Well, the spin-off is about him; Ryan Hanson, actually– he’s the actor who portrays Dick Casablanca. In the show, he’s trying to start a spin off of said character. It’s absurd, and totally meta.
Dick Casablanca is no longer just the frat guy; he’s also a private investigator. Yep, a P.I. The first four episodes have Hanson pitching the Casablanca P.I. show to his former castmates, as well as the CW– the folks who owns the rights to “Veronica Mars.” Funny bits, like Kristen Bell’s appearance in the introduction song, is video from when she just pulled up in the Hanson’s driveway to talk about the new show. Jason Dohring (Logan Echols) thinks the mini series is going to be a buddy cop movie, only to be disappointed when’s he written as the second fiddle to Hanson’s character, refuses to be in the series, and is replaced with the production’s dance choreographer. Even series creator Rob Thomas makes an appearance in a Skype interview, where he says the mini-series sounds awful and will never happen, because the CW studio respects him and the series– quick cut to CW executives telling Hanson they’ll give him $50,000 dollars for a mini-series.
The mini-series takes nothing away from the superb TV show because it’s over-the-top ridiculous. It’s not trying to base a reality in the “Veronica Mars” world. The web show is its own way for the actors to go off course. Like Enrico Colantoni (Veronica’s dad), saying he can only do the show in Toronto because he’s barred from being in the states and asks Hanson to pick up a box in a sketchy neighborhood and put it under Tom Hanks bed. Percy Daggs (Wallace Fennel) will do the show as long as Wallace Fennel is not doing any of that wimpy stuff: “No model airplane flying, no getting duct tape to flag poles, no magical negro bull…”
There have only been six episodes so far, and episode five was the long-awaited production of the Dick Casablanca P.I. show. “Veronica Mars” fans will love the web series because anything thing these actors do together is bound to be great. The P.I. show may be so bad that you have to watch but the overall show is something anyone could get a kick out of.