Fans are from "Mars;" network executives are from ...

No other show has lasted as long on broadcast network with ratings as low as “Veronica Mars.” When it was renewed for a second season, UPN president Dawn Ostroff declared the show was returning thanks to momentum from critical acclaim and fan word of mouth. It basically duplicated the lame numbers as season one. When it was renewed for a third season, The CW president Dawn Ostroff said now that it had a dream lead-in in “Gilmore Girls,” it was set to take off. Again, it didn’t.

But that hasn’t stopped the dreamers at WatchVeronicaMars.net from launching yet another scheme to save their favorite show: Littering. Yes, they papered four cities (all major media markets, where you’d think folks’d’ve had the chance to hear about “VM” if they were truly interested, and not smaller markets, where the show probably doesn’t get much attention) with 30,000 flyers, and invited fans to download, print and distribute even more.

When was the last time you paid attention to a flyer? And given that “VM” needs a bounce of a good 1, 2 million viewers (or – a 50-100% ratings boost) for The CW to be able to justify bringing the show back, just what are 30,000 flyers going to manage except killing trees in vain?

Ah, well, Veronica returns tonight at 9 for her swan song in some stand-alone episodes, as opposed to the serialized story arcs ignored by the majority of the populace. (Note that The CW did not send out screeners to critics in a last-gasp effort to save the show, as NBC did all season in efforts to keep “30 Rock” and “Friday Night Lights” alive.) Memo to “VM” fans: Good shows die all the time, so you should consider yourself lucky that some quirk in the time-space continuum kept this one on for as long as it managed.

At least no one’s mounted a campaign to save “According to Jim.”