This is Thomas's fifth writing credit for the series, after "Pilot", "Credit Where Credit's Due", "Return of the Kane" (story), and "Drinking the Kool-Aid (story). In addition, the episode is Seidel's fourth writing credit, after "Meet John Smith", "The Girl Next Door", and "Silence of the Lamb" and Ruggiero's fourth writing credit, after "The Wrath of Con", "The Girl Next Door" (teleplay), and "An Echolls Family Christmas". As a joke, three of the episode's guest stars' last names are also names of chess pieces—Carrie Bishop, Susan Knight, and Chuck Rooks. Among the episode's guest stars are Adam Scott, who would later become known for his role on Party Down (which was co-created by Veronica Mars writers and producers Rob Thomas, John Enbom and Dan Etheridge), and Leighton Meester, who would later become famous for her role on Gossip Girl as Blair Waldorf. Lead actress Kristen Bell provided the anonymous voiceover for Gossip Girl. 11 years after this episode aired, Bell and Scott would later appear together on the comedy series The Good Place. Reception Ratings In its original airing, the episode received 2.70 million viewers, ranking 107th of 115 in the weekly rankings. Reviews Television Without Pity gave the episode an "A". Rowan Kaiser, writing for The A.V. Club, gave a positive review. He noted Veronica's increased presence in the episode. "Veronica's a busy bee in this episode, making time to dominate the A, B, and C-plots." Also, the reviewer praised the character development in the episode, stating that "[b]ut again, it's the character work that makes this episode stand out. Thanks to having three different plots, all using Veronica, it has a constant narrative drive." Price Peterson of TV.com wrote positively of the episode as well. In the reviewer's verdict, he wrote, "This was just a good episode of Veronica Mars. Lots of different conflicts, reversals, and reveals." References External links "Mars vs. Mars" at Mars Investigations 2005 American television episodes Veronica Mars (season 1) episodes Television episodes directed by Marcos Siega