10 Cult TV Shows Your Friends Bang On About (But You've Not Seen Yet)

5. Veronica Mars

Cult shows tend to have one thing in common: intelligence. Veronica Mars was definitely a smart show, especially when you consider that at its heart, it's a teen drama set in small town America.

Veronica Mars is a student moonlighting as a private investigator under the guidance of her father, sheriff of their home town; imagine Jessica Jones if she lived in the OC and hadn't been orphaned. Audiences hadn't been given such an empowered and resourceful heroine since the days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The first two seasons patiently played out with mysterious season-long story arcs, but the show never felt gimmicky despite its twee concept. The pay-off of a season-long arc has to be good for a noir crime mystery, and the first two seasons of Veronica Mars definitely delivered in that respect. The drama was character-driven and Kristen Bell is predictably brilliant in the title role.

Oddly, Veronica Mars actually picked up more viewers as time went on before its cancellation in 2007. That looked like it would be all she wrote for the town of Neptune before show creator Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie.

Fan support was so overwhelming that the campaign met its $2-million goal in just ten hours, and it acts as a nice way to tie up the story (although there is now talk from Thomas of a six-episode revival, so there might be even more to come).