Three Times the Charm for Rob Thomas?

Not quite a year ago, bleary-eyed teens, twenty-somethings, and (ahem) slightly older gentlemen woke up to a world without plucky young P.I. Veronica Mars. After three great seasons, May 7, 2007 marked the untimely end for writer/creator Rob Thomas* and one of the cleverest shows no one watched.

Fast forward to today, and it’s suddenly sunny days for fans of smartly written TV. With ABC’s recent announcement that they’re picking up a Thomas pilot based on the New Zealand show Outrageous Fortune (about a family of criminals trying to go straight), that makes the beleaguered writer three-for-three this pilot season.

Oddly enough, the first two greenlit projects also fall under the “remake” umbrella, though considering his other ABC order is for a remake of his short-lived 1998 series Cupid, it begs the question: if you created a show in the ’90s, and remake it 10 years later, will it still star Jeremy Piven? The answer, it seems, is no.

Of course, the Thomas pilot we should all be most excited about is his spin-off of the ’90s 30-year-old-high-school-kids mega soap Beverly Hills 90210. That’s right…. a spin-off of 90210. It sounds so awful, Rob Thomas is the only person I’d trust to make it awesome. Either way, it’s coming to the CW, so we can all look forward to the inevitable Rob Thomas/Aerie Girls reunion special.

Whenever someone this talented’s luck suddenly turns from bad to rad, it’s tough to tell whether the glass is half full, or half full of poisoned lemonade. Most of me believes that with three chances to do so, Rob Thomas will finally rise to the Apatow-level of success he deserves. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that all it really means is that a year-and-a-half from now I’ll have three more complete season box sets in my Amazon cart that I’ll be too depressed to buy.

What would Veronica do?

* Not to be confused with the lead singer of “rock” band Matchbox 20 (my musical arch-nemesis… don’t ask).