Popular Drama Series Returning to Netflix for First Time in Over a Decade

Netflix will be making lots of changes to its streaming catalog in January, with hundreds of titles coming and going. According to the latest reports, the streaming platform will be adding a well-known teen drama series to its library for the first time in over 10 years.

Veronica Mars, starring Kristen Bell, was removed from Netflix more than a decade ago. However, the show, which was produced by Warner Bros. Television, is coming back next month, though not in its complete form.

What to know about 'Veronica Mars' return

According to TV Insider, the first three seasons of Veronica Mars will be available again on Netflix starting Jan. 14. Seasons 1 and 2 of the program ran from 2004-06 on UPN, while the third installment aired on The CW in 2006 and 2007.

A Veronica Mars movie was released in 2014, and the show was revived for a fourth season on Hulu in 2019. However, neither of those projects will be part of Netflix's library moving forward; you can currently catch the movie on HBO Max, and the rebooted fourth season remains on Hulu.

There's no official word on how long Veronica Mars will live on Netflix this time around, but What's On Netflix's Kasey Moore theorizes around 12-to-18 months.

'Veronica Mars,' a fan favorite

Created by Rob Thomas, the co-creator of Party Down and iZombie and co-developer of 90210,Veronica Mars features Bell as the titular character living in the fictional town of Neptune, California.

In what was the performance that launched her career to a new stratosphere, Bell plays a high school student who moonlights as a private investigator, working under her father, a detective. She won multiple awards for her role, and was honored alongside Enrico Colantoni, who plays her dad, with the Family Television Award for Favorite Father/Daughter in 2006.

"Rob [Thomas] calls her a superhero without a cape, which is really a great way to describe her," Bell told Good Morning America in 2019. "And Veronica's superpower is that she does not care what anyone else thinks about her. She cares what she thinks about her, which I think is a really healthy way to live."

Overall, Veronica Mars has strong fan approval, with a 92% rating and 79% average popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.3/10 on IMDB and a 78 ("Generally Favorable") on Metacritic.