[ the thing about castle... ]
Three years a TV show came on air. It was called Castle and what I could tell from the previews it was another version of Bones. At the time I watched Bones weekly, I wasn’t obsessed with it, but I kept up with it and since I already had a couple of police procedurals in my viewing schedule I ignored Castle completely, didn’t even watch the pilot episode.
However this show kept sneaking into my life. People were talking about it on Livejournal, and occasionally in real life. I thought about watching it, I may have even flicked it on a few times while surfing through channels late at night, but nothing about it particularly caught my attention.
Anyway, Nathan Fillion was in it so clearly it was going to suffer from the Firefly curse and be cancelled in it’s first season anyway.
But then even more people started to talk about it, I saw it mentioned on Facebook, which meant it had reached the realms of being watched by people who aren’t my TV nerd friends. So I watched it. I don’t even know what episode I started at, I’d like to assume it was the beginning, but I can’t be sure.
And I watched all of season one. I enjoyed it.
Then I forgot about it.
Season two rolled along and I watched the first couple of episodes and dropped it from my schedule. At the time I was flat out busy and dropped the majority of shows I had been following religiously for the previous few years. Then for some reason I decided to start watching it again, something drew me back to it. Maybe I missed the quirky nature of the characters, maybe I needed a police procedural in my life. Whatever it was, I started watching it again at exactly the right moment.
Somewhere at the start of season two they found what they were good at; writing television as it should be written.
Suddenly this quirky little show about a writer who follows around a hot detective because she is his inspiration to write became a whole lot more than that.
While the general week in and week out episodes are about the usual murders, there’s always something in them that makes the show more interesting than the usual cop show. Where with a CSI or a Law & Order, yes, even Bones, you would be able to pick and guess at who the murderer is, it’s usually very unclear with Castle - of course there are exceptions to that - and this makes watching the show far more interesting, because I’m not being treated like an idiot. I actually want to know who the killer is as much as they are.
Then there’s Beckett’s mother’s murder. Nothing original about her backstory. She’s cop because her mother was murdered when she was younger and the case was never solved. This is probably the most common backstory for antisocial police officers who live for the job. Fox Mulder and Jordan Cavanagh are the first two that spring to mind, but they are two among many.
However, in true Castle style, they do the unoriginal idea, but better. Every episode to do with Beckett’s mother’s case was one up on the one before. Murder, conspiracy, cliffhangers and a shady group of people holding back important information. Sometimes I almost feel like she is Fox Mulder.
Then of course there is the relationship between Castle and Beckett. This isn’t like the usual TV ‘will they or won’t they’ relationships so common in today’s television. Why is it different? Because it’s realistic. You can’t tell me that Booth and Brennan would have realistically worked together with that amount of sexual tension for six years before they slept together. And you can’t tell me that everyone who has sex once gets pregnant.
But you know what I do believe? I would believe that a guy who’s been married twice and is following a hot detective around as inspiration for his character would flirt with her. I would believe that she would find that annoying at first, but then play into it, because hey, why not? I believe that being in dangerous situations day in and day out they would grow much closer to each other and I would believe that one day the flirting will subside and give way to something much more.
I would believe that someone like Castle would keep the fact that he’s in love with her to himself, because that’s the moral thing to do, and I would believe that someone like Beckett would be afraid of being close to someone because of her past and therefore hide in a relationship with a guy she’s not in love with.
I believe that they would kiss as part of a case and not discuss it for a long time, and I would believe in the middle of a fight it would come up.
Why?
Because, with the exception of dangerous situations bringing me closer to people, I’ve been in all those situations. I’ve fallen for someone without the ability to tell them because it’s not the right thing to do, I’ve hidden in a relationship with someone I don’t love because it’s the safest option at the time. I’ve flirted with someone I’ve worked with.
I’ve done all those things.
I’ve never worked with someone for six years and not slept with them for no particular reason. I can’t relate to that situation.
And of course on top of the great stories and brilliant writing of a relationship there’s the constant references to Firefly, X-Files and anything else you can think of.
So why do I like Castle?
All of the above.
I feel for the first time in a decade I am watching show that I trust the writers to write in a sensible manner. Is it going to stay this way forever? Probably not, all American shows have their great downfalls due to the networks refusals to cancel them while the ratings are still decent. But while it does I’m going to make sure I don’t miss a minute of it, because as far as I can see it’s a good lesson in how to write a TV show.
However this show kept sneaking into my life. People were talking about it on Livejournal, and occasionally in real life. I thought about watching it, I may have even flicked it on a few times while surfing through channels late at night, but nothing about it particularly caught my attention.
Anyway, Nathan Fillion was in it so clearly it was going to suffer from the Firefly curse and be cancelled in it’s first season anyway.
But then even more people started to talk about it, I saw it mentioned on Facebook, which meant it had reached the realms of being watched by people who aren’t my TV nerd friends. So I watched it. I don’t even know what episode I started at, I’d like to assume it was the beginning, but I can’t be sure.
And I watched all of season one. I enjoyed it.
Then I forgot about it.
Season two rolled along and I watched the first couple of episodes and dropped it from my schedule. At the time I was flat out busy and dropped the majority of shows I had been following religiously for the previous few years. Then for some reason I decided to start watching it again, something drew me back to it. Maybe I missed the quirky nature of the characters, maybe I needed a police procedural in my life. Whatever it was, I started watching it again at exactly the right moment.
Somewhere at the start of season two they found what they were good at; writing television as it should be written.
Suddenly this quirky little show about a writer who follows around a hot detective because she is his inspiration to write became a whole lot more than that.
While the general week in and week out episodes are about the usual murders, there’s always something in them that makes the show more interesting than the usual cop show. Where with a CSI or a Law & Order, yes, even Bones, you would be able to pick and guess at who the murderer is, it’s usually very unclear with Castle - of course there are exceptions to that - and this makes watching the show far more interesting, because I’m not being treated like an idiot. I actually want to know who the killer is as much as they are.
Then there’s Beckett’s mother’s murder. Nothing original about her backstory. She’s cop because her mother was murdered when she was younger and the case was never solved. This is probably the most common backstory for antisocial police officers who live for the job. Fox Mulder and Jordan Cavanagh are the first two that spring to mind, but they are two among many.
However, in true Castle style, they do the unoriginal idea, but better. Every episode to do with Beckett’s mother’s case was one up on the one before. Murder, conspiracy, cliffhangers and a shady group of people holding back important information. Sometimes I almost feel like she is Fox Mulder.
Then of course there is the relationship between Castle and Beckett. This isn’t like the usual TV ‘will they or won’t they’ relationships so common in today’s television. Why is it different? Because it’s realistic. You can’t tell me that Booth and Brennan would have realistically worked together with that amount of sexual tension for six years before they slept together. And you can’t tell me that everyone who has sex once gets pregnant.
But you know what I do believe? I would believe that a guy who’s been married twice and is following a hot detective around as inspiration for his character would flirt with her. I would believe that she would find that annoying at first, but then play into it, because hey, why not? I believe that being in dangerous situations day in and day out they would grow much closer to each other and I would believe that one day the flirting will subside and give way to something much more.
I would believe that someone like Castle would keep the fact that he’s in love with her to himself, because that’s the moral thing to do, and I would believe that someone like Beckett would be afraid of being close to someone because of her past and therefore hide in a relationship with a guy she’s not in love with.
I believe that they would kiss as part of a case and not discuss it for a long time, and I would believe in the middle of a fight it would come up.
Why?
Because, with the exception of dangerous situations bringing me closer to people, I’ve been in all those situations. I’ve fallen for someone without the ability to tell them because it’s not the right thing to do, I’ve hidden in a relationship with someone I don’t love because it’s the safest option at the time. I’ve flirted with someone I’ve worked with.
I’ve done all those things.
I’ve never worked with someone for six years and not slept with them for no particular reason. I can’t relate to that situation.
And of course on top of the great stories and brilliant writing of a relationship there’s the constant references to Firefly, X-Files and anything else you can think of.
So why do I like Castle?
All of the above.
I feel for the first time in a decade I am watching show that I trust the writers to write in a sensible manner. Is it going to stay this way forever? Probably not, all American shows have their great downfalls due to the networks refusals to cancel them while the ratings are still decent. But while it does I’m going to make sure I don’t miss a minute of it, because as far as I can see it’s a good lesson in how to write a TV show.