a post about television!
A couple of quick thoughts about last night's Castle.
1. More Dana Delany, please!!!!
2. Although...Dana Delany's character emphasized for me the way I often like the idea of Kate Beckett better than the execution of Kate Beckett. I like Kate a lot. I want to like her more than I do. I simply adore fialka's Kate Beckett, but sometimes Stana Katic's doesn't have as much presence as I think she should. And I had sort of forgotten that--had gotten used to the reality of Katic's Beckett--until Dana Delany climbed out of her shiny, black SUV and commanded every scene she was in and had so much chemistry with Nathan Fillion.
I think there's an argument to be made that this is intentional, at least in that episode. There is, after all, the whole "who do you want to play you in the movie" conversation: Kate Beckett, however extraordinary, is human, fallible, low-tech, not-so-flashy. She's not the larger-than-life FBI wunderkind genius profiler played by Dana Delany. This is the point.
I also quite liked the dynamic between Kate and Delany's character (whose name I obviously don't remember). There's a certain amount of professional and personal jealousy, but it's also more layered than that: Kate is impressed and surprised by her, and I really liked the scene in the car where the two of them bonded a little over Castle's exuberance/obnoxiousness. There's a lovely potential mentor relationship there that is complicated by jealousy and turf wars and all these other things, and I thought the whole thing had more depth than a lot of writers might have given it, and I appreciate depth and complexity in relationships between women. (You're shocked, I'm sure!)
If this were another show, I would expect Kate to a) not be as injured by that bomb as it seems she should have been, and b) to be the one who solves the crime in the end, thanks to good old-fashioned police work and her whiteboard, showing up the FBI superstar and all her gadgets. And that may well be the way they go, because this show walks a fine line between playing with the obvious formula and just going with it. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Dana Delany solves the crime at the end, and the point is more that Kate is normal, human, not larger than life. (I just wish I felt more confident that this is a conscious acting and directing choice and not just that Stana Katic doesn't have as much presence as I wish she did.)
Unless
3) Is Dana Delany the killer? I see no particular reason why she would be (motive????), except that the Castle formula usually dictates that the killer is someone we meet early in the episode but who does not appear to be the killer. Then again, this episode has deviated from formula (thankfully! I found the past couple eps rather boring in their overreliance on formula), so maybe there should not be that expectation. But if the formula holds and we've already met the killer but don't realize it, then who else besides Dana Delany is it going to be?
4) To be continued! Kate's apartment just exploded! Oh noes!!!!!!! Except I think we can be fairly confident that Kate did not die, what with her being one of the stars of the show and all. And I feel like if she were going to die, there would have been spoilers.
5) More Dana Delany, please!!!
1. More Dana Delany, please!!!!
2. Although...Dana Delany's character emphasized for me the way I often like the idea of Kate Beckett better than the execution of Kate Beckett. I like Kate a lot. I want to like her more than I do. I simply adore fialka's Kate Beckett, but sometimes Stana Katic's doesn't have as much presence as I think she should. And I had sort of forgotten that--had gotten used to the reality of Katic's Beckett--until Dana Delany climbed out of her shiny, black SUV and commanded every scene she was in and had so much chemistry with Nathan Fillion.
I think there's an argument to be made that this is intentional, at least in that episode. There is, after all, the whole "who do you want to play you in the movie" conversation: Kate Beckett, however extraordinary, is human, fallible, low-tech, not-so-flashy. She's not the larger-than-life FBI wunderkind genius profiler played by Dana Delany. This is the point.
I also quite liked the dynamic between Kate and Delany's character (whose name I obviously don't remember). There's a certain amount of professional and personal jealousy, but it's also more layered than that: Kate is impressed and surprised by her, and I really liked the scene in the car where the two of them bonded a little over Castle's exuberance/obnoxiousness. There's a lovely potential mentor relationship there that is complicated by jealousy and turf wars and all these other things, and I thought the whole thing had more depth than a lot of writers might have given it, and I appreciate depth and complexity in relationships between women. (You're shocked, I'm sure!)
If this were another show, I would expect Kate to a) not be as injured by that bomb as it seems she should have been, and b) to be the one who solves the crime in the end, thanks to good old-fashioned police work and her whiteboard, showing up the FBI superstar and all her gadgets. And that may well be the way they go, because this show walks a fine line between playing with the obvious formula and just going with it. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Dana Delany solves the crime at the end, and the point is more that Kate is normal, human, not larger than life. (I just wish I felt more confident that this is a conscious acting and directing choice and not just that Stana Katic doesn't have as much presence as I wish she did.)
Unless
3) Is Dana Delany the killer? I see no particular reason why she would be (motive????), except that the Castle formula usually dictates that the killer is someone we meet early in the episode but who does not appear to be the killer. Then again, this episode has deviated from formula (thankfully! I found the past couple eps rather boring in their overreliance on formula), so maybe there should not be that expectation. But if the formula holds and we've already met the killer but don't realize it, then who else besides Dana Delany is it going to be?
4) To be continued! Kate's apartment just exploded! Oh noes!!!!!!! Except I think we can be fairly confident that Kate did not die, what with her being one of the stars of the show and all. And I feel like if she were going to die, there would have been spoilers.
5) More Dana Delany, please!!!