WHAT DO YOU SAY, VERONICA? New school, fresh start. It’s a whole new year, a new network, and a new look for "Veronica Mars."

The show’s third season finds Veronica in her first year of college, and the program going in a new direction.

I think "Veronica" is one of the wittiest, most entertaining shows available this season. Unfortunately, it is also on the verge of cancellation.

The CW has picked up only 13 episodes so far this fall and if viewership numbers don’t pick up, "Veronica" may be toast.

So, please give "Veronica" a chance this week. I have a feeling you’ll love it as much as I do.

Let me give you a little background:

We met Veronica Mars two years ago when she was a junior in high school and worked for her father’s private detective business. Her father, Keith, used to be the sheriff of Neptune but was "released" after the murder of Veronica’s best friend, Lily Kane, the year before.

Neither of them believed that Lily’s real killer would ever be caught. Finding the truth was Veronica’s obsession during the first season.

At the beginning of her senior year at Neptune High (season two), a bus that Veronica was supposed to be on went over a cliff and crashed into the ocean below, killing many of her classmates.

Veronica, believing the crash was meant to kill her, went into detective mode to track down what happened to the bus and why someone wanted her or someone else on that bus dead.

Since the beginning, "Veronica" has sort of gone the way of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

The show does have some big-name fans, including Stephen King and Joss Whendon, creator of TV shows "Buffy" and "Angel."

The past two seasons, "Veronica Mars" has focused on one big season-long mystery, with smaller cases thrown in. This, truthfully, made it hard for new viewers to come in and actually understand what was going on. So for season three, producers decided to change "Veronica’s" format. Instead of one season-long mystery, the season is going to be split into three different arcs, each running about nine episodes, maybe a few more. So we get three "mini-mysteries" instead.

This season kicked off last week with Veronica’s first day at Heart College along with friends Wallace and Mac and boyfriend Logan. And, of course, she gets thrown onto a case right away.

This is not the big mystery for this arc, though—that was introduced last season.

In this week’s episode, Veronica is hired by the campus newspaper to go undercover as a sorority hopeful during rush week in order to investigate a rape, something the sorority may or may not be linked to. While there, she will discover that nothing is as it seems in the Zeta Theta house.

Also, Logan and Wallace will be participating in a guard-and-prisoner role-playing experiment for their sociology class. Meanwhile, Veronica’s father, Keith, having been shot in the premiere, is still running for his life in the desert.

"Veronica Mars" airs on The CW on Tuesdays at 9 p.m.