A LONG TIME AGO, IN THE 2005 MOVIE ADAPTATION OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE:
You’ve got no sons to inherit your estate, only five daughters, so what the hell are you going to do to ensure your family’s housing and security?
Why, you send Jane, the oldest and prettiest to catch a cold in the rain so rich Mr Bingley will fall in love with her!
You let your boring cousin take his pick of the flock, Lizzy; but when she’s not into it, he goes off and marries her best friend so your plan is again RUINED!
You don’t take any of the rest of your daughters seriously, till the youngest one SCANDALOUSLY runs off with Mr Wickham.
Luckily there’s a Mr Darcy around to fix the situation with money and marriage, because is there a problem that money and marriage can’t fix?
In the end, neither pride nor prejudice can get in the way of Bennet sisters marrying for love plus, conveniently, carriage-loads of money.
A LONG TIME AGO IN THE 1954 MGM MUSICAL BRIGADOON:
New York City gents Gene Kelly and Van Johnson are lost in the Scottish Highlands! They want to shoot some birds, but instead stumble upon a village that’s not on the map… Brigadoon!
Everyone’s dancing around the town and preparing for a wedding that evening; meanwhile, sister of the bride Cyd Charisse gets to fall in love with Gene Kelly on the heathery hillsides.
But something’s weird, and it’s not just the fake Scottish accents, the very tight tartan trousers, the two-dimensional mountains and all the day-drinking: it’s that the village is under an enchantment whereby it only appears on one day every hundred years, and it will disappear forever if anyone tries to leave.
Then someone tries to leave!
Then Gene Kelly and Van Johnson have to leave before the village goes sleepy-byes for another hundred years. But Gene left his heart behind...
Lucky for him, there’s a special wake-up-Brigadoon-early clause buried deep in the small print of the enchantment, because of course there is.
In an enormous house in Chicago, the enormous McAllister family is preparing to leave for a Christmas trip to Paris.
But, when designated naughty child Kevin causes a ruckus at dinner, he is sent to sleep in the attic as punishment.
Then in the chaos of being such an enormous family with shitloads of kids, the McAllisters accidentally fly off to Paris without Kevin, leaving him Home Alone.
Thus, an 8-year-old who has never even packed a suitcase before has to fend for himself in a hostile adult world.
AND fend off two serial burglars who are determined to break into the enormous McAllister house! Even after Kevin subjects them to multiple kinds of potentially fatal harm.
A grim cavalcade of child neglect and violence: ho ho ho Merrrry Christmas!
Join Jenny Owen Youngs, Helen Zaltzman and resident legal expert Lo Dodds to investigate the crimes that take place in the harrowing cavalcade of ultraviolence that is Home Alone, and learn what the penalties would be for such misdeeds as hanging a child on a hook, stealing a toothbrush, leaving your 8-year-old unattended while you jet off to Paris, and shooting a burglar in the dick.
A LONG TIME AGO ON THE VERONICA MARS SPIN-OFF WEB SERIES PLAY IT AGAIN DICK:
Ryan Hansen persuades the CW suits to let him make a pilot for a Dick Casablancas spin-off show.
So then he has to persuade the Veronica Mars actors to come back to reprise their roles...
And then they all film Private Dick! Wherein Dick Casablancas is a private detective investigating the murders of several beloved Veronica Mars characters.
There are masks! Punchings! Sexytimes! Pull-ups! Ghost Cassidy Casablancas! And bikinis as funeral-wear!
And a catchphrase that never really takes off?
Oh and a big dance number. Twice.
Join Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman to investigate the official but non-canonical Veronica Mars spin-off web series Play It Again, Dick, and contemplate such mysteries as why Madison Sinclair is the MVP of the piece, how there is so much filler in such a short show, and why the CW didn't commission a Wallace'n'cookies-focused spin-off The Great Wallace Bake-Off
Our Veronica Mars journey is complete, but the pod lives on!
VMI 2.0 will take form sometime in 2022, but for the rest of this year, we will be releasing a new episode in the middle of each month. So that you can watch and join us for the recaps, here’s what we’ll be covering:
November: TBD - we thought we might do the Kristen’n’Kirby kouponing krime kaper Queenpins, but it doesn’t have a UK release yet.
December: Brigadoon. Our once-in-100-years recap of Logan’s fave film! There are a few versions, but we’ll be watching the 1954 musical with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.
We meet Veronica Mars! High school detective with tiny jackets and flowbee hair, plus a heartbreak, an absent mother, a murdered best friend and a rape to deal with.
We meet Logan Echolls, a rich boy with a rage problem.
We meet Duncan Kane, a human screensaver.
We meet Wallace Fennel, taped to a flagpole then recruited to do Veronica’s bidding for the next several years. Wallace, we have seen the future and you should run! Now! Run!
We meet Sheriff Lamb, local law enforcement with bad jokes and even worse morals.
And we meet Keith Mars, disgraced ex-sheriff, private investigator and dad of the century - but why’s he being so weird about Veronica surveilling beige billionaire Jake Kane?
Join Jenny Owen Youngs, Helen Zaltzman and our resident legal expert Lo Dodds to answer your questions, and find out all about why you shouldn't represent yourself in court, what you have to do to get a jury trial or a marriage license, whether Veronica has sadness-clothes, and whether showrunners could stop mining the traumas of young female characters for drama.
We have completed the recapping-Veronica-Mars phase of VMI, but Jenny and Helen are not done podding together yet!
We will soon gather for more simulwatches and recaps and whatever the next incarnation of VMI shall be, so to keep yourself informed about when to join us, follow us @VMIpod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and/or sign up HERE for email notifications (we promise not to deluge your inbox; our missives will be rare and to the point).
Join Jenny Owen Youngs, Helen Zaltzman and our resident legal expert Lo Dodds to celebrate the completion of the second year of Veronica Mars Investigations, with a parade of outtakes - about what happens to police dogs when they retire, how old is too old to join the FBI, gambling with pasta, and the very real dangers of huffing petrol (especially at any point in time since the Great Depression).
Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman are joined again by Special Agent LaToya Ferguson to investigate Veronica Mars season 4 and try to solve its many remaining mysteries, including (but not limited to): who is the fifth lady of Veronica Mars? Will we ever get more Veronica Mars, and in which forms? Why has it taken so long for Veronica to have a fun night out?? Was Logan fridged? What IS 'fridged'? And was Jane The Therapist the criminal mastermind behind all of it???
