Praising "Veronica Mars"

Veronica Mars is in its third year. Some might say it's just a serial about a girl who likes to play detective. It's not.
The show created by Rob Thomas has captured the deserved attention of scholars. Veronica Mars is the true inheritor of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's art and wit: adolescence as a transitional period not as an eternal era of mindless fun and brief romances, a time when we find our identity and place in the world. It doesn't have the allegorical trait of Joss Whedon's creation, it has a confessional tone, but the moral and political discussions are there, called upon by this string of stories, events, and characters. "A long time ago, we used to be friends," tells us the song in the opening credits.
Veronica (Kristen Bell) is now in college. Successive campus rapes have made a group of radical feminists decide to hate confusing patriarchal power with "men" and a true criminal with a "scapegoat" - not her. To this I might add, e.g., the references to Abu Ghraib in "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week" (3.02) where Logan and Wallace and their colleagues participate in a Sociology class role-playing experiment as prisoners (with a secret to keep) and prison guards (with a secret to get).
Wasn't this supposed to be just entertainment? (Why just entertainment??) It never was.
Look again.
[Congrats on quitting smoking, Sarah. It must be hard. Hang on!]