I like Castle. I mean, it doesn’t hold a candle to The Unusuals, but it’s good, all the same. Nevertheless, I don’t much care for all the character nonsense that gets swirled around on the show, and discussed off of it. What difference does it make who they are or what they’re made of? Sure, Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) interplay well, as they should. But do we really have a need for Castle’s family? Or whatever the future might hold for the rest of the cops we’ve been introduced to in season one?
Not me. You see, CBS gets it done — rather well — by sticking to a very tight formula of interesting cases, and just enough character to keep us coming back. Why is it that ABC, like the rest of them, feel the need to ignore the silver-plated lessons that the masters are dishing out?
For my money, there’s only one thing that I want to see more of: crimes based on Castle novels.
What ever happened to that? When I first started watching Castle, I tried to imagine how they were going to revolve an entire series around that premise. After the pilot’s fantastic job of it, the show careened into fresh cases, with Castle the novelist tailing Beckett the cop, as “research” for his next book. But, with time to think it through, I can actually imagine an entire series revolving around Castle-written crimes. So why not give that a shot?
I would assume that more than one person dies per Castle novel. And, I’d bet that more than one person buys it in a fantastical way. He is a best-seller, remember. Plus, who knows how many ancillary crimes are spread throughout his books? If he’s a prolific writer, there could be hundreds of copy-cat-worthy crimes just waiting to be recreated by “real life” lowlifes. So, why did the show decide to stop at one episodes worth?
To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember where we left off in the character sagas — that’s how insignificant I find them on the show. But I do remember, distinctly, just how eerily creepy it was for Castle and the police to be chasing a murderer who was reenacting his fiction. That was an arena where his novelist machinations could really come out and play. The fact that he can apply his fictional suppositions to “true crime” actually puts a lot of question marks on the merits of police work, at least in my mind.
Maybe it’s too much to swing the entire series in the opposite direction, but then, at the very least, there could be a series-long arc for a criminal who is un-catchable, and whose crimes are all Castle-based. It would allow Castle to explore the utmost reaches of his imagination to try and out-think which novel, or which chapter, the criminal was plotting next, while still clocking in by day with Beckett and team.
Yeah … that would be pretty cool. Do you dare, ABC?
Castle‘s second season premieres on Monday, September 21 at 10:00. Curious about when your other favorite fall shows make their debut? CliqueClack’s guide to the 2009-2010 fall season’s got the answers.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Sep 11, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
I agree that it would be fun to see that story arc, and maybe that will be just the thing that keeps Castle on Beckett’s tail now that he’s sort of done his stint with her.
I completely disagree about the characters, though, and maybe that’s why I don’t really watch any of the CBS crimetime stuff. I love that Castle’s family is there, and I love Beckett’s interactions with them. His mom is proving to be a bit of a sage beneath her wackiness and I think it works.
It’s part of what lends Castle its charm and I wouldn’t want it to be just another CBS formula show. So I say yay to ABC for creating its own crime drama formula… it works for me!
*POST AUTHOR*
I knew I was playing with fire! I agree with you, to a certain extent; I went to pains to ensure that I didn’t use the word procedural for that reason. ;-)
I think, maybe, it’s that I just feel as if the characters aren’t very good on this show, specifically, so therefore concentrating on them is a mistake…. Because, I loved the character-driven stories on The Unusuals. And, actually, my biggest beef is with the mother…. :-)
So then it becomes a domino effect. By not focusing on Castle cases, which would require focusing on Castle the man, the writers need to fill the space between regular crime-fighting scenes with other intrigue. However, re-insert Castle crimes, and the crime-solving itself will be a dissection of the man, and thus heavily character driven by Castle’s character….
Wait … did I just make any sense?
Yeah, you lost me to. The only thing that I agree with you on is the mother, she totally needs to be toned down.
But eschewing character development is a critical sin in my opinion. I know I’ve yapped about it several times, so I won’t repeat everything, but to put it simply, character development is why I think TV is the best “popular” dramatic medium.
Oh, and had it not been for Renner and Tamblyn, I wouldn’t have made it through the pilot for The Unusuals. They weren’t however, enough to get me to come back for the second episode.
Wow, I stuck it out through a bunch of Castle episodes, even the Castle’s mother and Beckett’s ex-boyfriend scenes, but you really should finish The Unusuals. It actually developed into a very enjoyable show with tons of memorable character bits; I feel it was far superior to Castle, which really only had Fillion/Katic to distract from the awful cases.
*POST AUTHOR*
I agree with Ryan wholeheartedly – it’s just a shame that the opportunity has been lost.
I’m not actually eschewing character development, as much as speaking to Castle specifically; like I said above, the characters on the show don’t do it for me … I see this show specifically working better on plot alone.