It all started one January morning in 2009 as I sat down to enjoy a short break while watching The Bachelor before I had to go back to the Column office. I had ran down during a commercial break and brought up Chinese from the Eagle's Nest, our little "grill" in the basement of our dorm building. I grabbed my chopsticks and started plucking away at the broccolli and beef, hardly paying attention to the TV.
Then my roommate glanced at the television and started freaking out. She had seen a favorite actor of hers on a commercial for a new dramedy. I had seen the commercial a couple times before, and although I admit it caught my eye, I didn't think much of it. It was this show starring some guy named Nathan Fillion. Kind of a quirky girl herself, she was engrossed in this show called FireFly, which he starred in. She kept raving about this actor. Our tastes often didn't match, so I was quite reluctant to think he might be the great actor she said he was.
The commercial was for a show called Castle, about novelist Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion) who starts following around the reluctant and annoyed Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Kanic). The night it premiered, I decided it was worth the watch - just because the writer in me was intrigued by what the show might hold. So that night, my roommate and I sat and watched the premier together. We laughing over the quips and annoyed glances Beckett and Castle shared, and trying to guess "Who done it." And, as the saying goes, the rest is history. I was hooked. She was right, Nathan Fillion is probably one of the funniest actors I've seen since FRIENDS...and it's hard for anything to beat FRIENDS, in my opinion.
To be honest, although I was hooked on the show, I wasn't sold on it. I just enjoyed watching a mystery every week, trying to figure out the mystery. It also helped immensely that it provided a great source of laughter every week. It was refreshing to have a mystery show that wasn't all about the drama, and provided many lighthearted moments amidst the tragedy that murder really is. And despite all of that, I wouldn't have said back then that Castle was the show to watch.
But just like how true love grows through time, getting bigger and stronger, so are my beliefs that Castle is truly a great show. And as time went on, we learned, piece by piece, a little more of the character's hearts. Castle's character is very perceptive, not only at figuring out the crime, but also seeing into someone's heart. His taking to Beckett was rather cute in the beginning, but it quickly grew into developing a heart for her and her story. Learning about Beckett's past was a huge draw to the show, and has since played a pivotal roll in the storyline - even 4 seasons down the road.
1. Major reason #1 why I love Castle? The writers.
Over the past four seasons, the writers have developed a plot and a story so thick that it's difficult to imagine where it's going. You have your standard week's episode - A murder has been discovered, and Castle and Beckett work together (with their team, of course) to solve the mystery. By the end of the show, the case is closed and Beckett and Castle grow a little closer in their relationship, while still offering humerous bits that make the audience either giggle in between the hum-drum serious moments or completely split with laughter that it makes them miss the next couple lines.
But the ongoing plot the writing team has created is so deep it's difficult to uncover and unravel. Part of the thrill of a mystery show is that you try to piece together what's happening, seeing if you can guess what happened before it's revealed. However, the mystery that is Kate's mother's murder seems to take so many twists and turns that you cannot predict. And that has affected Kate and Castle's relationship, and even Kate's emotional journey in dealing with her hurt and her drive.
One of the hardest things to do as a writer on a television show is create an evolving love story that can't really resolve. In a novel or a film, you have a beginning and an ending. And somewhere between the beginning and the ending, the two end up falling in love and having some sort of conclusion to their story, whether it tragic or a happily-ever-after. On a television show, you have a beginning. But until that final episode airs, you don't have an ending, and most don't even know until just months, maybe just weeks, before that time comes. So what we end up watching is the beginning and the middle. It's difficult for a show to resolve that love story tension without feeling like that story has ended.
Yet, the writers have somehow managed to develop these character's love story to a point where we are satisfied - to a certain extent. For the first several seasons, we shouted at the television while watching them be with other people when we know they are perfect for each other. And somehow, after the last year's cliff-hanger episode, their relationship transformed into something new - something a bit deeper. Yes, feelings are still left unspoken, but at least understood. No, that doesn't bring their relationship to the point many of us want to see, but at least to the point where we feel some sort of satisfaction - at least for the time being. The writers are brilliant to create the story line they have to create that sense of satisfaction and at the same time creating outside forces that make it nearly impossible for the two of them to finally get to that point. And until that mystery is solved, we will sit by, satisfied that there's a shared understanding, but that it will take time.
2. Major reason #2 why I love Castle? The acting.
Now, I'm just going to say it right now. I was not originally a big fan of Stana Kanic. I just thought she sometimes couldn't deliver lines up to the standard Nathan Fillion demands. I think it was simply just how she speaks. But I've realized that I think many actors are great, despite how their voices make me cringe a little inside...actors like Drew Barrymore, Mary Steenburg, and even sometimes Meryl Streep. So despite my slight annoyance with Stana Kanic's voice, she consistently delivered great episodes, pulling out a heart-wrenching scene that makes your heart feel with her, or even simply delivering the annoyed glances at Castle that make your heart flutter as you chuckle. (Just a note: Stana is not originally from the US, so it makes sense that she's not as quick on the quips, compared to, say Lauren Graham and Alexis Blidel's bantering on Gilmore Girls.)
Nathan Fillion, from the very first episode, has proved he is an actor worth paying attention to. His ease and comfort in his role as Castle is both extremely believable and fantastic. It probably helps immensely that it seems Fillion has brought his own personality to his character as Castle. Everyone in high school always loved the smart alec and class clown, and Fillion takes those titles and rolls it into an hour full of laughs. But Fillion knows when to dial down the inner-child and start acting his age in those serious moments.
But I think one of the greatest reasons the acting works in this show is that the cast has chemistry. The difference between real-life chemistry and the chemistry we're talking about is that actual chemistry can be explained with numbers and equations. But this chemistry can't be explained, because it just works.
The way Fillion and Kanic interact with each other translates from the script to the screen with a sense of honesty and an delivers to us that inexplicable bond. Their jesting and verbal sparring, their quiet shared moments of love, and their ability to communicate with each other through a single glance proves that whatever that bond is, however that chemistry works, the two work together like peanut butter and jelly.
Now, however, I will take the time to say that I'd be doing the show a great disservice if I didn't mention the chemistry of the cast in its entirety.
Aside from the Fillion-Kanic connection, the relationships of the cast all together are something akin to a loving, yet sometimes dysfunctional, family. Seamus Dever, who plays Detective Ryan, and Jonathan Huertas, who plays his partner Detective Espisito, act like brothers. The kind that battle over the dumbest things, but would follow the other into a gunfire. Their relationship plays out on screen exactly what you know most cops and their partners do. Because when you entrust your life to someone when the danger is high, their forms a bond that cannot be broken.
Tamala Jones plays Lanie, the M.E., and features as a great female companion to the lone Detective Kate Beckett.
The other key members of this family is Castle's mother Martha, played by the incredibly talented Susan Sullivan, as well as his daughter, Alexis, played by Molly Quinn.
Together, they prove that family isn't always who you are related to, but those who are an important part of your life.
With that said, I wanted to add one more reason that I love this show.
3. Major Reason #3 I love Castle? The fiction.
Technically, I suppose I could have inserted this under the "writing" category, but it's different enough to separate it.
One of the key factors in creating a good story is making it realistic. You wouldn't insert a cell-phone reference in the civil war. Or even in the 1950's. In that matter, you need to be careful in how you create your story, because if it's too unrealistic, the audience begins to realize that it isn't real.
But part of creating fiction is that it is just that: fiction.
Part of what I admire about the writers is how they tie in different themes to certain episodes. Just in this season, there's been a superhero themed show, a ghostbusters themed show, and coming up, there will be a 1940s themed show. The writers have done an admirable job thus far of writing fantastical, yet very believable story lines in these themes.
Typically, it'd be hard to see any other show on television doing themed shows like this. But somehow the cast and crew of Castle pull it off so very well that I am probably more excited about this show than a 24-year-old female should be.
So there. My top 3 reasons why I love Castle!
