(CNN) "Veronica Mars," the noir-style drama that starred Kristen Bell as a teen gumshoe known for her pithy one-liners and fearless investigation techniques, found a fan-base in the underappreciated or outsiders when it aired on UPN and then The CW in the mid-aughts -- and has the potential to do the same now that those first seasons are available on Hulu, along with a new season that debuted Friday.

But what has set "Veronica Mars" apart from other programs geared at young adults is how it helped a certain segment of the population feel seen: sexual assault survivors.

"You want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I," Veronica narrates in an unflinching, emotionless voiceover in the pilot. The incident, the audience learns, happened when she was drugged and raped after she put on a pretty white dress and attended a house party in an attempt to realign with a friend group who had alienated her.

"It was jarring in a lot of ways. But at the same in time, it felt like it was something that I didn't feel alone about," assault survivor Celeste Smith says of this episode, particularly of a notorious flashback scene where Bell's character wakes up confused and deregulated in a strange place with her underwear on the ground.

Smith, a product marketer and photographer from Plano, Texas is one of a few "Mars" fans (who call themselves Marshmallows) and assault survivors who responded to a request by CNN to be interviewed on this topic. She began re-watching the show in college about six months after she was sexually assaulted and she says seeing this moment "was kind of a sobering reminder of what I had been through."

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