Television Review: Castle

Nathan Fillion’s new show Castle premiered Monday night at 10 on ABC.  I caught this show because I’ve enjoyed Fillion’s work on Buffy, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible.  Although all of those are Joss Whedon projects and this is not, I decided to give it a shot and see if I liked it.

Castle is the story of Richard Castle, a murder-mystery author who has recently killed off his main protagonist and has been suffering a bad case of writer’s block.  After a long string of successful novels, he is now headed for a fall.  That’s when Castle is contacted by police, who are investigating a series of killings based on those in his books.  The care-free Castle teams up with none-too-pleased tough female detective Kate Beckett.  Although she’s a fan of his writing, she’s less impressed by his happy-go-lucky attitude and his inability to follow her instructions.  The two work together to find the killer, Castle’s creativity complementing Beckett’s no-nonsense police work perfectly.  In the process, Castle’s creative juices start flowing again, and he comes up with an idea for his next series of books.  Much to Beckett’s chagrin, Castle uses his connections to associate himself with the police department on an ongoing basis.

This show was surprisingly good.  I enjoyed the snappy dialogue and the contrast and interaction between Castle’s whimsy and Beckett’s seriousness.  It was also fun to watch Castle’s creative thought process and the way he reasons his way through puzzles.  Castle’s daughter is a 15-year-old who is more responsible than her father, a dynamic which has provided laughs in a few other shows, and could do well here.  I also liked the way they portrayed Castle’s relationship with his daughter, with a more human playfulness rather than the typical reciting lines at each other that we see in parent/child relationships in most shows.

However, some of Castle’s dialogue sounds like it was written for (or even stolen from) Malcolm Reynolds, which may be a pro or a con, depending on your perspective.  The show is on a bit late, in the 10PM time slot, which seems a bit odd to me, and I hope it doesn’t bode ill for its future.  And the cast feels too small to me, despite the fact that there are a few people who will apparently be recurring secondary characters (Castle’s mother, ex-wife/publisher, and daughter, as well as Beckett’s boss).  Maybe it’s just because they didn’t get much screen time in the first episode — this may get better later.

Castle was better in its first episode than Dollhouse was in its best out of the four episodes I’ve seen so far.  I definitely plan to follow this show, especially since it appears to be available on the web at abc.com (though annoyingly, the player doesn’t work in Google Chrome).  I give Castle four stars out of five, and I’m looking forward to seeing it develop.