Rob Thomas on Banff, Veronica Mars, and Life After the Show's Death
Published June 13, 2007
So Jeff Sagansky launched my career. He got me my job on Dawson's Creek, so I moved to LA for that and started to develop Cupid. It was a crazy time for me, because in the space of a year I went from living in Texas writing young adult novels to having my own show on ABC. Those were heady times. And everything came very easy for me at the very beginning, which set me up for the cautionary tale that was to come.
But comparatively, to a lot of people, you've had tremendous success.
Oh absolutely, and I'm thankful for all of it. But I had seven years of my career going like this [hand signal showing a steep upward trajectory] to the moment where David Kelley anointed me crown prince of television and asked me to run his new show (Snoops), to the day I quit that show and a four year slide into a miasma of failed projects and depression. Really to the moment where Veronica Mars got picked up and gave me renewed faith.
So why television? It seems with novel writing you're in your own world with complete control ...
Well, let me show you my pay stubs from the two careers ...
[We both laugh.] Well, OK, yeah, dumb question.
No, it's really not a dumb question and there's more to it than that. Even on a low rated show on UPN, I have three million viewers. My best selling teen novel has now sold 200,000 copies. I love having that big audience. I mean, you're a writer, you want to be read, or in this case, viewed, you know.
Then there's the thrill, when I write down "Chicago, Irish bar, Taggerty's," and a crew of people builds it and I fly to Chicago and there it is, in the flesh. And then to have really remarkably talented people performing your dialogue? I adore it. I love doing what I do.
Television really plays to my strengths as a writer and as a person in that I need the immediate gratification. Being a highly paid feature writer seems like it would be great and it would be about a fifth of the work of running a television show, and certainly there's quite a bit of cache. Except in television, the writers are the boss, and I love that.
I love that you have to shoot things tomorrow. You don't get to tinker around. You have to produce 22 episodes, and a script has to be ready every eight days. I love the process and the immediacy.
You can't fail in features. You can fail in television and be OK. You can try something different that maybe doesn't work and you have one off episode. In features, that's your shot.
Diane is a publications manager who's addicted to television, movies, and books and justifies her pop culture obsessions by writing about them for Blogcritics. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news and information about Canadian television series.
- Rob Thomas on Banff, Veronica Mars, and Life After the Show's Death
- Published: June 13, 2007
- Type: Interview
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Interviews, Video: Television
- Part of a feature: Banff World Television Festival
- Writer: Diane Kristine
- Diane Kristine's BC Writer page
- Diane Kristine's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
i wish veronica mars was still on. i would have loved for it to continue..it was aunique show and it deserves to keep on playin!
I've have been waiting forever to see if veronica mars would have a 4th season. I had finally got the 2nd and 3rd season, to complete my collection, for christmas this year, and I had hopes that there was for sure going to be a 4th season. I wish that the plot wasn't her being in the FBI yet, but no matter what i was happy there was going to be a 4th season. Today I was curious as to of when that season was going to start, and now there's not going to be one. That truely disappoints me. There was more to that show than any other show I had ever watched. I was into ever single aspect of that show. It was funny, the people seemed so real, the plots were so out there, I just felt like everything about that show as perfect and made a person want to keep watching it. It was kind of like a good book you don't want to put down, except more. I had never heard of the t.v. network UPN until one day there was nothing to watch and i was flipping through every channel and i was thankful to come across a great show that hooked me from the first episode. There are so many curcumstances of as of why VM didn't get as many viewers as it should've. At the time there were other shows people had already become into when VM was aired, nobody really watched upn, and when it started airing on the cw well it was the 3rd season already (but i'm sure those who had started watching it then wanted to see the first and second seasons also). I think if Rob Thomas fought to have it air from the beginning to the end, on a more popular channel, and gave it advertisement, it could become the big hit it should be. There are still so many things a fourth season could go on, of vm being in college still. It could go on whatever happened to Kendall Casablancas, who won sheriff, what will become of the Fitzpatricks, will Duncan ever return, will the Castle ever be publicized, and what will become of the best love hate relationship i've ever seen between Logan and Veronica. I would hope my words are read thoroughly and passed on the the big guys. I'd email them to if i knew how to communicate with them.
I'd also have to say i'm not one to actually email someone for how much i love a show, but veronica mars is the best show i had ever seen and i dont want it to end. 3 seasons is too short, i speak for many about this show when i say it must go on.
Sorry Abby, this article is half a year old - the series is as dead as dead can be and everyone involved has moved on. You might see it in a comic book, though, when the strike's over.
I definetly agree i have never bought complete seasons of any show but i had to of veronica mars. i finished the entire 3rd season in a matter of 4 days. the show is addicting and i cat believe they are cutting it off. im very disappointed. No one cares about these dumb reality tv shows like the pussycat dolls. i for one would rather watch veronica mars any day of the week. i just wish there was a chance that they would reconsider a season 4.
DUDE PLIZ GET VERONICA MARS BACK = ITS LIEK THE BEST TV SHOW EVR!!!
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/65197)
Rob Thomas is God to me for creating VM. Seriously, Rob, please don't shoot for Lost. That show is all ratings and the substance was gone long ago. 1,000 years from now, when this civilization is long-gone, people will dig up old VM dvds and think, "What the hell was wrong with CBS for canceling this awesome show?!?!"