Kristen Bell hasn't had the post Veronica Mars success everyone had thought she would have. Since her break out, she's never been out of work, but early momentum coming off the series and transitioning into films was held up by the constant delays that plagued Fanboys. By the time it was released, she had all but shed her geek-centric career, following appearances in Heroes and Astro Boy. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which, title character aside, she was not the star of), she then moved into regrettable cookie cutter romcom flops that are as generic as the way this sentence is going to end. Lately, she's returned to the world of TV with House of Lies, and taken to appearing in smaller roles in films like Safety Not Guaranteed and Scream 4.
Last year saw her in Hit and Run, which I liked but others were not as impressed by (to be fair, what I liked about it was the chemistry between her and real life partner Dax Shepard). This year, she does in yet another direction, the deeply dramatic coming of age route, sure to be awards bait come that time of the year, The Lifeguard. Despite starring her and Party Down's Martin Starr, it doesn't look like Lifeguard, about a woman who moves back in with her parents, takes her old high school job and starts having an affair with a 16 year old boy, will have a lot of laughs.
And then to balance it out, next year we'll get some new Veronica Mars, and then start the whole cycle all over again.