Castle: New Episode Tonight

Anyone catch the pilot of the show Castle last night? I'm watching it now - it's very fun.

Richard ?Rick? Castle [Nathan Fillion], a rock star of the literary world, is suffering from a case of writers block after killing off the main character in his novels and is struggling to come up with a replacement.

Castle had grown weary of having it all, ?fame, fans and females?, when he was approached by the attractive Detective Kate Beckett [Stana Katic] of the NYPD to help catch the copy-cat killer staging murders based on scenes from his novels.

Castle is not a traditional investigator and his approach to solving the crimes conflicts with Beckett?s conservative approach leading to much tension and a hint of romance.

Keeping Castle grounded are his mother [Susan Sullivan], teenage daughter Alexis [Molly C. Quinn], poker playing friends James Patterson, Sue Grafton, and Stephen King and his ex wife Gina [Monet Mazur] who is also his editor.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson will play the Police Chief.

Castle is inspired by shows like ?Rockford Files? & ?Moonlighting? that are lighthearted with romantic tension and unlike the dark procedurals prevalent today Castle invites the viewer to invest in the relationship of two people having fun together and engaging in witty banter.

Castle is directed by Rob Bowman whose credits include Day Break, Night Stalker and X-Files and is produced by Andrew Marlowe, Armyan Bernstein, Laurie Zaks and Rob Bowman.

 

Saw it, enjoyed it, played a lot like Chuck in that it doesn't appear to be serious in any way and is more for fun.

 

It was a breathe of fresh air, after a number of shows with cynical and annoyed characters, it's nice to have one that's just plain fun.

 

I have a healthy man-love for Nathan Fillion, so the show didn't disappoint on that front. There aren't any surprises or innovations here, but it's not really trying for that. It's light popcorn television, and succeeds as such. The daughter is so far the closest to a different kind of character, and even she's just a less prevalent cliche than the others. But this is only one episode, and the characters may yet develop complexities. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is "Psych," where the cases are mostly secondary to the goofiness of the protagonist.

 

Yeah, Nathan Fillion is an amazing talent. I haven't seen the show, but I hope he has a long run with it.

 

I'm currently enthralled with The Mentalist, another show about a wacky outsider, so I tried to give this one a go, but my television fritzed out after the first five minutes. Too bad. It looks pretty good.

 

Damn! I forgot to post in this yesterday...

 

Well, the premise is tough to swallow.

Nathan Fillion plays one of those writers -- you know, the extremely affluent, extroverted, photogenic, athletic, personable and witty sort of professional author who's great friends with the mayor and everyone else of influence and has book launch parties full of hot girls waiting for him to sign their chests. I love how the writers of shows like this and Californication love to perpetuate the image of the writer as a sexy, desirable profession. Anyway, he gets to tag along with a real cop on real cases, because that's the sort of thing that's likely to happen, and of course she's a fangirl who has first editions of all his novels.

But it's no more ridiculous than any other TV show, and once you swallow that it's moderately enjoyable fluff. Not terribly interesting, but I second the man-love for Fillion thing, the rest of the cast is at least solid. I do hope that they introduce a bigger story instead of having it be just a formulaic weekly procedural.

I also think that the victim in the second episode was much too well-arranged and put-together considering the situation she was found in.

 

I quite enjoyed the second episode, fun stuff.

 

Yes, when I saw the previews, and the first five minutes of ep 1, I instantly flashed back to a quote about Californication when it first came out. Some critic or other said, "Once again, some fool writer feels it necessary to try to convince us that writing is sexy."

 

I actually kind of hope that we'll see a little overall story, but I like that it's not too structured - there's a certain amount of fatigue when you have too many of those out in TV-Land in general, and that can adversly affect shows.

 

New episode last night - watching it now.

 

Caught last night's episode. I think if Nathan Fillion wasn't in the show, there wouldn't be much here worth watching. It was interesting, but most of that came from Fillion.

 

LATEST EPISODE
Hedge Fund Homeboys
Air date: Monday March 23, 2009

"The son of a once wealthy family is found dead in Central Park. As Castle and Beckett are working on the investigation his friends are trying to stop them. Castle isn't sure he can trust Martha to be left alone while he chaperones Alexis' class on a field trip to Washington DC."

Glad you reminded me...

 

I agree, he makes up most of the life of the episode. This one was so-so. Not as good as the first two.

 

I thought the newest episode was the same as what we've seen so far, a lot of fun with some witty banter and an interesting story, I continue to like this show.

 

I finally caught a whole episode and wasn't terribly impressed. Wit is always good and Fillion is good at it, but the show as a whole doesn't stack up to, say, The Mentalist.

 

As long as the show is on I'll watch it for the Nathan factor but I don't see it going far.

 

In mind, that's why I'm liking this show - it's light and fun, something I don't have to think a whole lot about.

 

No, no, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's not nearly as much fun as The Mentalist. The Mentalist is the most purely joyful show I've come across in a very long time. The Mentalist just radiates happiness.

 

I'm the opposite, I couldn't get into The Mentalist at all, found it dreadfully boring, and I'm a fan of the lead actor, but that show did nothing for me, whereas Castle has been hitting the right fun quota from the start.

 

I haven't seen the Mentalist yet, but I've heard good things. Compared to a number of other cop shows, this one is one of the more enjoyable ones that I've seen, although Life is certainly fun.

 

This week's episode was pretty fun to watch. More good one-liners:

"Mom, we are totally doing battle on the field of honor. "
"How old are you?"
"Old enough to afford top of the line laser tag."

Looks like they'll do an ongoing story of Castle figuring out what happened to the Detective's mother.

 

Next Episode

Home Is Where the Heart Stops

"Beckett and Castle investigate numerous cases involving murders and home invasion jewel heists."

 

I really am enjoying this show. However, I do want to see some episodes where he screws up/they don't figure it out, because this cookie-cutter pattern of always solving the case isn't going to be very entertaining.