Castle: Thanks

I gave Castle a shot purely on the casting of Nathan Fillion, the ever-lovable Mal Reynolds. And I enjoyed it, even though it was another murder mystery of the week. But it truly locked me down with season 2, episode 6, "Vampire Weekend". Why? Because of this exchange between Castle and his daughter:

Alexis Castle: What exactly are you supposed to be?

Richard Castle: Space cowboy.

Alexis Castle: Ok, A: there are no cows in space. B: didn't you wear that like five years ago?

Richard Castle: So?

Alexis Castle: So, don't you think you should move on?

Richard Castle: I like it.

Everyone involved in making the show was well-aware that a chunk of their viewers came from Firefly, and they weren't afraid to play on that a bit. But Castle stood on its own. It gave us a typical precocious child, but she wasn't immediately hated, and grew into her part fairly well. And it gave us underling cops who didn't actually need the star to do every little thing for them. Ryan and Esposito were tremendously competent. And funny. The actors Huertas and Dever have some of the best on-screen chemistry I've ever seen. So much that I would happily watch a spinoff starring them.

Sure, the murder mysteries of the week weren't terribly interesting (you often knew who was guilty by looking at the guest starring credits for names you recognized), and frankly, their long arcs weren't very compelling either. But I kept coming back because all of the actors did a hell of a job at keeping me interested in them.

Did they stumble along the way? Sure. What show hasn’t? And yes, the quality dropped off in season 8 (the LokSat arc was mind-numbingly dull and required prodigious use of the idiot ball), especially in casting the charisma sink of a performer, Toks Olagundoye (two expressions: confused and constipated), but the primaries were still fun to watch.

Apparently, it’s cancelled now, I imagine largely due to the loss of Stana Katic. And I’m okay with that. Ultimately, they gave us 8 years of some pretty fun television. Everyone involved should be proud of the work they did.

Thanks, people.