Jennifer Ann

No. Just NO. And I say this as someone who absolutely adored Nancy Drew books as a kid, so the prospect of this show thrilled me. I couldn’t get into it because it was like a watered down, much less interesting version of Veronica Mars, a show I happen to LOVE. I think the writers of Nancy Drew were trying to go for a combo of fun and mysterious and add just enough dark and stormy...but unfortunately, something is off with the acting and the storylines don’t develop very well as a result. I never really want to get invested as a viewer in these characters. I really, really tried to get invested too, since I loved the books so much. I had to stop watching about midway into the second episode because I couldn’t take it anymore. The cheesy acting and narration was too much, and the parallels to the far superior Veronica Mars were shockingly obvious: ND is a teen detective being raised by just her dad and for various reasons she has gone from having a relatively charmed high school trajectory to a dark, difficult one. VM is a teen private eye being raised by just her dad and for various reasons she has also gone from having a relatively charmed high school trajectory to a dark, difficult one. Those are the broad strokes. There are differences between the girls, but the shows are both narrated by the female teenage main character, and the shows are laughably similar. In both shows, there’s the exasperated cop who wants the too clever for her own good teen to stop meddling. And blah blah blah, the comparisons could go on and on. The big problem is Veronica Mars actually does it all much better, and the biggest reason for that would be Kristen Bell. Plus, the writing was just plain better. Obviously, I was and still am a huge Veronica Mars fan, so maybe the similarities I’m seeing are creating too big a problem for me with being able to simply enjoy Nancy Drew, but I find it disturbing to see a show that is SO much the same and yet so much worse. I wish this had been put together better, because I was really looking forward to Nancy Drew!