01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 10, 2005

BY MIKE DUFFY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

The real mystery is why more people aren't already hooked on Veronica Mars.

It's only the freshest, most engagingly offbeat new series of the year. And spiced with the sly, charming energy of Kristen Bell as the coolest teen detective since Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars finally reaches the tense moment of whodunit revelation on the show's first season finale tonight at 9 on UPN, Channels 28 and 38.

Who murdered Lilly Kane? That's the answer loyal Veronica Martians have been waiting for all year.

And series creator Rob Thomas, the sharp-witted man with the wily sleuthing plan, promises there will be no cheap perpetrator thrills in finally solving the murder of Veronica's best friend.

"The trick is to surprise people," said Thomas. "And yet you can't just pull somebody off the curb. People can't feel like you've cheated them."

The overall audience for Veronica Mars may be teensy -- averaging just over 2.4 million viewers each week compared with the 23 million or so who tune in Desperate Housewives each week -- but they're totally hooked. And they pay very close attention.

"The same person I envisioned being the killer at the beginning is still the killer," said Thomas.

So will it be Lilly's devious, software billionaire father Jake? Or maybe her perplexing brother Duncan? Or her old boyfriend Logan? Or some other homicidal creep?

Whoever it is, said Thomas, it will all make logical whodunit sense.

And when the Veronica Mars DVD is released later this year, the truly obsessed can piece together the mystery all over again clue-by-carefully-revealed clue, said Thomas.

"I'm really excited about the DVD," Thomas said, "because it might help us build an audience."

Oh, that. Lousy ratings. It's the longtime curse of imaginative, high-quality cult shows from My So-Called Life to Freaks and Geeks. Tiny audiences usually spell quick cancellation doom.

But thanks to the smart, patient support of UPN programming boss Dawn Ostroff -- and the small network's desperate need for a signature hit that doesn't feature steroid-inflated pro wrestlers, Star Trek space cadets or bad sitcoms with cacophonous laugh tracks -- Veronica Mars has become a rare exception to the rapid oblivion rule. It's already been renewed for a second season.

"We felt the audience watching the show was very devoted," explained Ostroff. "It's just a matter of getting more people to watch. So we'll be looking at different ways to market the series. I think Veronica Mars can be a big hit."

In addition to being a terrifically stylish mystery series, a clever teen noir with a spikily irreverent wit, Veronica Mars is perhaps the most perceptive portrait of contemporary adolescent attitudes and peer group interaction anywhere on network television.

"This is a generation that's seen it all," said Thomas.

"They're prematurely jaded, media-savvy, sensory-overloaded kids. And Veronica is the poster child for that . . . The thing that's heroic about her is her reaction to all this tragedy."

Her best friend was murdered. Her mother mysteriously took off. And everybody at Neptune High School, in a sunny California beach town, pretty much loathes her. No biggie. Veronica's fearless, a proudly self-confident outsider, nobody's teenyboppin' fool.

On top of that, she's a very nifty chip off the sleuthing block, following in her detective father Keith's gumshoe footsteps, lovingly bonded to him in TV's best new father-daughter pairing. It's an emotionally layered relationship wonderfully captured in the chemistry shared by Bell and TV dad Enrico Colantoni (Just Shoot Me).

But without Bell's captivating lead performance, which is infused with a playful, sparkling intelligence, Veronica Mars just wouldn't be the same. UPN's Ostroff calls her "a breakout star."

Thomas concurs: "Kristen's phenomenal. It's hard to imagine the show working without her. I've been very, very spoiled by her."

Bell feels the same way.

"Rob and I are very similar. I think we have the same sensibility as far as the way we speak. We both have a cynical, sharp sense of humor," said Bell, chatting during a recent quick visit to Detroit to promote the series.

"It's been very cool," added the petite 24-year-old Bell, who makes you believe she's just 17. OK, an unusually together 17. "I feel cooler because I play Veronica. She's like the girl you really want to be friends with. She's much cooler than I am. She just knows exactly what to say and she's very tough."

Tough but tender. Veronica sports a hip, eclectic fashion look as protective emotional armor.

"A lot of it's a sense of style and a lot of it's hardening your outside because you feel really soft inside," Bell said of Veronica's fashion profile, which one critic amusingly described as a blend of tomboy threads and trashy Catholic school girl outfits, a black leather jacket and short skirts.

"In all her flashbacks, Veronica's dressed in pink and bubblegum. Now she's covering up her feeling vulnerable," explained Bell. "So she dresses hard to sort of feel hard and stay tough and have thicker skin."