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What is the most memorable moment of a TV show that went off the air too soon?

Farrah Staff

Oh boy, talk about a tough question! As a binge-watcher extraordinaire, there have been so many TV shows that went off the air too soon that it's hard to pick just one memorable moment. But if I had to choose...

Let's set the scene. It's the early 2000s, and a fresh-faced young woman named Veronica Mars has just enrolled in high school in the seedy, fictional town of Neptune, California. She's spunky, she's smart, and she's got a chip on her shoulder the size of the Pacific Ocean. Oh, and her best friend was just murdered. Fun times, right?

Veronica spends the first season of the show investigating her friend's murder, getting wrapped up in all sorts of sordid plot twists and turns along the way. But it's not until the season finale that we really get hit with the big one: the reveal of the killer's identity.

I won't spoil it for you (although, if you haven't seen it by now, that's on you), but suffice it to say that the moment the killer is unmasked is incredibly satisfying. It's one of those TV moments where you literally stand up and cheer, the kind of moment that makes you wish you were watching it with a room full of other fans so you could all high-five each other and scream "YES!"

But here's the thing: as good as that moment is, it's not the most memorable part of the show for me. No, that honor goes to the show's complex, nuanced depiction of classism, corruption, and privilege in small-town America. Veronica's Neptune is a place where the rich get away with murder (sometimes literally), where the police are corrupt and ineffective, and where the only justice to be found is doled out by a teenage girl with a badge and a grudge.

It's a depiction of a world that's both hyper-realistic and totally heightened, where every twist and turn is both thrilling and devastating. It's a world that I fell in love with instantly, and one that I've never quite been able to shake.

Of course, it's also a world that was taken away from us far too soon. After just three seasons, Veronica Mars was unceremoniously cancelled by the network, leaving fans with a cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for almost a decade (thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign that funded a follow-up movie).

But even though the show didn't get the ending it deserved, it's still a cultural touchstone for a whole generation of fans. It's a show that proved that TV could be smart, thrilling, and socially relevant all at the same time. And as far as memorable moments go, it's got more than its fair share.