Charisma Carpenter

The new CW network starts 7 p.m. Wednesday with the seventh season of "America’s Next Top Model." Here’s an exclusive picture of Logan and Veronica, the "it" couple from the CW’s "Veronica Mars," which returns Oct. 3.

Are the stakes higher this season?

"I do think the stakes are higher and I certainly think the pressure is more pronounced. There was a always a certain safety I felt in UPN, once I got on the schedule, because they didn’t have a lot behind us, you know, waiting to take our spot.

"Now, on the CW, I know they have midseason shows ready to go in case we don’t do well out of the gate. So there’s certainly more pressure that way. Also, I do believe that success will be measured by how well we retain the ‘Gilmore Girls’ audience. I don’t think anyone knows exactly what numbers the new network will do, but I do know they expect us to keep most of the ‘Gilmore Girls’ audience watching the network."

And that would be a significant uptick for ‘Veronica Mars’ ratings, right?

"Oh yeah, it would certainly be a significant increase. So I’m thinking in addition to having a lead-in that we jibe with much better, I think that we’re also going to have some increases in numbers just because we won’t be on opposite ‘Lost.’"

There you go. So what’s the retention they’re expecting, like 80 percent or something?

"I think if I threw out a number, it would be 80 percent, and yet no one has told me that, that’s my pulling a number out of thin air and saying, this is what I’m imagining they’re expecting."

Are you going to try to make the new season sort of a reboot, make it inviting to people who’ve heard of the show but really don’t know much about it?

"I actually think we failed miserably on that front last year, and I’m the chief culprit of that. In fact last year’s episode one I think turned back in on the mythology over and over, it flashed back to things that new viewers wouldn’t have any knowledge of.

"This year, I’m very, very consciously making the first episode sort of a beginner’s guide to ‘Veronica Mars.’ It is an easy episode, certainly in comparison to a lot of our other episodes, it’s a straightforward detective case. All the noir elements happen toward the end of the show.

"I’m trying, in those first three acts, to say to the ‘Gilmore Girls’ audience, ‘hey look, we have fun, fast banter. We have a great parent-daughter relationship. Watch us too!’ Then sort of the last 10 minutes it turns back into the ‘Veronica Mars’ people are used to, and it really does reintroduce Veronica as a detective.

"It doesn’t assume any knowledge. There aren’t any flashbacks. Even the story that comes off of last year’s cliffhanger, the story of what was in the briefcase Kendall showed, I tried to write that in such a way that you don’t need to know what happened last year in order to follow that story."

You talked at press tour about the fact that the show last year got very convoluted and this year there are going to be these three distinct overall story arcs. But aside from that, has there been any feedback from the network about shifting the tone of the show, to kind of lighten the tone?

"There have been notes like that, and I think ... it’s funny because I think episode 1 is a pretty breezy episode, though it has a couple of stunning acts of violence in it as well. But it certainly starts breezy. That’s been a concern. I don’t think we’ve modified it in terms of the ... I guess it’s modified slightly in the sense that last year [there was] a mass murder. This year, I’ve made no secret, the first case is the case of the college serial rapist. So depending on how you view those two crimes, it could be lighter."

In terms of people coming back, is anyone coming back, is Charisma Carpenter coming back?

"We’ll have her for at least one."

But for the most part, it’s new people this year?

"Yeah. It’s kind of a show that, for lack of a better term, needs new blood every year. Otherwise you’d have a big mystery happening to the same six people each year. So this year we have Ed Begley Jr, he’s joining the cast as the dean of Hearst College. He’s the dean. He sort of occupies the space of a Steve Guttenberg or a Harry Hamlin in the cast, he certainly has a lot of screen time and we’re loving what he’s doing on the show."

"And Veronica’s criminology professor, played by Patrick Fabian, he is going to be a recurring adult character. There are two new young series regulars, Parker and Piz. Parker is Mac’s roommate and Piz is Wallace’s roommate."

And Piz is not the messed-up rich boy?

"Right, he’s sort of a happy go lucky, cheerful, Labrador retriever of a guy."

Logan and Veronica, they’re such an epic couple, but part of me wonders — they’re so great apart, are they going to be as great together? Is it going to be a rocky road for them?

"It will always be a rocky road for them. And believe me, I have that same internal dilemma as you all the time. I love them when they’re together, I love them when they’re not together. And I want to try, as best I can, play the reality of a romantic life at that age.

"Even if you thought you were fated to be together, even if something did feel so big and epic, could it [survive]? I mean, how many people growing up today think, ‘I’m going to find the person I’m going to be with at 17, 18, 19 years old and live happily ever after?’ And particularly in a noir show, that rarely ever happens.

"But I can say that I don’t want to just write a situation in which they’re constantly at odds. We’re trying to do a much better job than we did with Veronica and Duncan of seeing the good times, seeing them happy together, like there’s something worth struggling for."

It’s hilarious to me that you actually got Patty Hearst guest on the show [as a trustee of Hearst College]. Did you get Lewis Black as well?

"We did not get Lewis Black. Who took that role is kind of fun though, it’s Dan Castellaneta [from ‘The Simpsons’]. We also have a guest star who I think is going to be really cool, playing the first husband of Ed Begley Jr.’s wife — it’s Richard Grieco."

How about Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera from "Arrested Development"?

"No, not at this point. We want both of them, but they have not been available. We thought we had it then lost Alia at the last minute."

I heard there’s a tall, gangly character called Moe. From Chicago, perhaps?

[Laughs] "The RA on Wallace and Piz’s floor is named Moe and he’s a recurring character who actually kind of looks like Tom Hanks circa ‘Bosom Buddies.’ He’s very proper a gentleman type, always making tea and listening to classical music in his room." [Ed. note: He’s also a huge "Battlestar Galactica" fan. Named Moe. Make of that what you will.]

Of course let’s hope this doesn’t happen, but if you guys got canceled midway through one of the three arcs, would you tell people what was going to happen at the end of that arc?

"Certainly I know everything that happens in this first arc, and I think there’s no way that we won’t get this first arc completed because we’re filming episode five. By the time episodes one and two air, we’ll have almost the first arc all the way filmed. So I don’t think there’s any world in which you don’t get to see the first arc. They would almost have to cancel us before we air for that to happen.

"The others, I know what the crime is and who did it for the middle mystery, but I don’t know enough details to tell the story well at this point. If we were canceled in the middle of the second arc, I’m sure I’d know it very well and I’d be happy to share."