Life On Mars

WHEN IT CAME TO HULU’S revival of his beloved teen-detective drama Veronica Mars, creator Rob Thomas had exactly 18 f---s to give. Or give up, that is.

- Sarah Rodman

The executive producer assumed that since the resurrected series starring Kristen Bell would be airing on the streaming service (beginning July 26), there’d be latitude regarding profanity. As they might say on Bell’s The Good Place, he was forking wrong.

“The original script had 18 f---s in it. In fact, the first word of the show was, f---,” Thomas explains. “Hulu came back and said, ‘You can say any word, but not that one.’ ” Fans will soon learn the inventive solution that Thomas devised to help his title character keep it clean(ish) as she reunites with her dad, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), to run their family gumshoe business in sun-soaked but seriously shady Neptune, Calif., where clashes between the affluent and the struggling keep their client stream steady. “We were so bummed,” Bell says of the cursed cursing, but a silver lining came in the form of comedy gold “because now it’s a [running joke] and yet another way that Veronica and Keith can stay playful.”