Veronica Mars is going there. Since the original series aired on UPN, followed by The CW, there were many limits as to what was and was not allowed on screen. With the revival set to air on Hulu, all bets are off the table, creator Rob Thomas told Us Weekly exclusively at the ATX TV Festival, where he joined our “Watch With Us” podcast.
“The CW was really good to us, so no complaints there, but to have the freedom of being on a streaming network was great,” Thomas, 53, told Us. “I just didn’t want to do another, like, CW makeout scene, and I think people who watch the show will see we sailed right past that. This will feel like adults in the bedroom!”
As for language, there was only one word he wanted that he couldn’t use – and it rhymes with “duck.”
“They told us there were three words that we couldn’t use – two of them I didn’t need. I would’ve liked to use the one that began with an f,” the iZombie showrunner shared. “That would’ve been nice. They nixed that one. And the shame of that was that I had used it 18 times in the first episode. So, to get around that, I started to rewrite it, taking that particular f-word out. And that was depressing me, and so, what I did was, I rewrote it so that Veronica (Kristen Bell) and Keith (Enrico Colantoni) have a bet as to who could go longer without dropping an f-bomb. And one of them will lose before the end of the series. They’re like Fantastic Mr. Fox. They use the word ‘cuss’ in [its] place.”
While he’s been in the industry for 20 years, this is the first show Thomas has created for streaming, which means he had to take a bit of a different approach. In fact, the idea of spoilers getting out before all audiences have seen the show “terrifies” him.
“As a fan of television, I like it when I can binge. I like it when a whole show drops and I can gorge on it. But as someone who’s writing a mystery with some big plot twists and reveals and turns, it would hurt if those big plot reveals get out into the universe quicker than I would like them to,” he noted. “Everyone can binge it, but don’t say anything for a month. I mean, let everyone else watch it at their own pace!”
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Veronica Mars’ seasons 1 through 3 will be available to stream on Hulu Monday, July 1. Season 4 will debut on July 26.
