Castle - When Good Stars Go Douchey

What are the two words that make us love television?

Nathan. Fillion.

He’s great in everything from Firefly to... Serenity. Heck, he has to be the reason we liked Two Guys, A Girl & A Pizza Place because Berg, Pete & Sharon sure aren’t. We watched more of Drive than we wanted to because Nath was there for us. And now, now we have Castle.

Nathan Fillion plays Richard Castle a bestselling crime novelist. Stana Katic plays Detective Kate Beckitt who’s investigate a series of murders based on crimes that appear in Castle’s novels.

Pop Quiz:

Will Castle & Kate either:
A) Get along perfectly.
B) Realise they don’t get along and keep out of each other’s way or
C) Not get along, banter, bicker and then eventually have feelings for each other.

If you picked ‘c’ well then obviously you’ve seen at least one television show before in your lifetime.

The proceedings are fairly generic, the twist of Castle being a crime novelist is a good one. In fact the most interesting scene was probably the awkwardly acted cameos from James Patterson and another guy who I assume I’m supposed to know but don’t.

The problem with Castle is that Nathan Fillion is kind of douchey. I didn’t actually like him when, as is obvious from my opening paragraphs, I usually do. But not here, if they can tone down his dickishness in coming episodes I can get on board.

On the flipside Stana Katic is pretty great as Kate Beckitt. It’s always surprising when a star you know and love is upstaged by actress you’ve never seen before. See: Fringe.

Having sat through the entire show I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. It wasn’t that funny, the crime itself was fairly boring, and yet there’s a part of me that wants to see it again – kind of like what happened with Life. It wasn’t great to begin with but once it found its footing it was.

The “twist” at the end to keep Castle paired up Kate for further episodes forces you to hurt your imagination by stretching it so far, but I guess it could work – in that dumb TV plot point kind of way. At least all of the CIA’s information wasn’t downloaded onto his brain, I suppose.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average