Ya think?

Not much going on on the VM front these days, which I'm sure explains the paucity of posts here on our fabulously colorful blog. But our off-season is Season One first-run time for people in the penumbra of America's global cultural hegemony. Despite the amazing persistence of that "sexy vegetarian" story on our news ticker, the ticker has managed to clue me in to how the show is being received in places like Canada, Singapore, South Africa and Australia. (Did I mention Canada? Which, by the way, is better and more enlightened than the United States . . . oh, I guess I did mention them—I got distracted momentarily by the need to invade a defenseless country.)

But I digress. It can be amusing to read the foreign TV critics' takes on VM and what it says about American culture. At times I feel they are as equipped to do this as I am to dissect the different characters' accents on MI-5 (a/k/a Spooks). So we hear that "Veronica spears the sacred cows of middle America with the same relish as the coiffured and couturied women of Wisteria Lane," an observation that makes me think Fergus from the Sydney Morning Herald may have been watching VM but perhaps not Desperate Housewives.

My favorite so far as been a Singapore writer's twist on the "they all look alike" school of cultural sensitivity: "[B]ecause of her physical resemblance to elfin blonde actress Allison Mack, it feels like we're watching a Smallville spin-off about annoying gumshoe wannabe Chloe Sullivan." Yeah, that's what it feels like.


They do have some interesting promotional tie-ins in South Africa: Tell Veronica Mars Your Secret Blog. Not a bad idea. So go ahead and tell me your secret. I promise to keep your name to myself while I distill the best elements of your secret down to a hilarious anecdote to keep us entertained here during the long off-season. Come on, spill it!