SDCC 2019: 'Veronica Mars' Star Kristen Bell Reveals How Long She Would Play Title Character

Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell said she would love to play the titular private investigator for as long as she can during Friday's panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The panel ended with the surprise release of Season 4 on Hulu, a week earlier than planned. The new season was released more than a decade after the third season ended on The CW.

During the panel, Bell said she would return to Neptune, the fictional California town where the series takes place, as long as fans want her to.

"I'll play Veronica until everyone in Neptune is dead," Bell told the crowd to cheers.

"I really want to play this character for a while," Bell also told Entertainment Weekly before the SDCC panel. "It felt so necessary when I got back into her skin. And I have a theory: When the world felt safer, we were okay rooting for Walter White [of Breaking Bad]. I don't think people want an antihero anymore, I certainly don't. And Veronica is safe. She's fighting for good. She's in situations that we've all been in, where we felt like an outsider."

Elsewhere in the panel, attendees saw the entire first episode of the new season. The episode included a scene where Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) proposes to Veronica, but she rejected him.

"I think one of the things we didn't explore as much in the first three seasons is Veronica's commitment issues," Bell said of the proposal scene. "She always sees people break up and hurt each other, and it's hard for her to believe that something could be that perfect. And from her perspective, it's perfect right now, so she doesn't want to ruin it."

The new season runs only eight episodes and was originally supposed to be released on July 26. It is set during spring break, and Neptune's visitors are getting murdered, putting the tourism industry in danger. Veronica and her father, Keith Mars (Enrico Colatoni) are hired to get to the bottom of the case, which involves wealthy elites trying to put an end to the spring break fun.

Percy Daggs III (Wallace Fennel), Francis Capra (Weevil) and David Starzyk (Richard Casablancas) are back in the new episodes. J.K. Simmons and Patton Oswalt play new characters Veronica meets during the investigation.

Veronica Mars originally ran on UPN and The CW from 2004 to 2007 and was created by Rob Thomas. The show has such a fervent fan base that Bell and Thomas successfully launched a Kickstarter fund to make a film in 2014. Thomas also wrote several novels set in the same world.

Hulu also has the streaming rights to the first three seasons, so new fans can check them out and longtime fans can revisit Veronica's mysteries.