Rob Thomas is the new Joss Whedon.

For those of you who don't read the credits as carefully as we do, Rob Thomas is the creator of UPN's "Veronica Mars," and like Joss Whedon, the guy who brought us "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," he's one of the guys who's guaranteed to have a crowd around him at a network press party, even if former contestants on "America's Next Top Model" are roaming free, looking rather like giraffes, but more brightly dressed.

Before Joss Whedon, we had "X-Files" guru Chris Carter to pester for plot lines, and if I'll never have back the half-hours I spent having him whisper mysterious and ultimately meaningless things into my tape recorder, I have no regrets.

And like everyone else who watches "Veronica Mars" -- and I continue to hope more of you will, particularly when CBS gives it a promotional shot at the big time for four episodes starting July 29 -- I really, really want to know what's going to happen next.

Or maybe I don't. I"m not sure.

I know there'll be a new mystery this season, and Thomas seemed to slip at one point and say "murder mystery," but he may be playing us.

Here's the stuff he said that won't spoil the fun:

-- He had a backup plan for Lilly Kane's murder, in case word leaked out that Logan's father (Harry Hamlin) had done it. The killer would then have turned out to be poor Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn), who'd have actually known what he was doing and would just have been playing his parents. (Don't you like the way it turned out better?)

-- Harry Hamlin's part nearly went to Andrew McCarthy, another '80s icon. "He read it and liked it and it was just he was living in New York and couldn't justify moving to California for just eight episodes," Thomas said.

-- Lisa Rinna -- who's Hamlin's wife in real life -- knew going in that she'd be dead after a few episodes, but the network had hoped we'd see more of her. Thomas resisted: "The more we get to know Logan's mom, the longer I'm going to have to play Logan grieving and the fallout" from her death, he said.

-- "It hurts my head when I try to think about" sending Veronica (Kristen Bell) off to college after next season, Thomas said. "There's part of me that says, 'Veronica's this smart girl, send her off to Stanford'...and part of me thinks maybe some kick-ass university moved into Neptune that we never visited."