Scouring the television airwaves today, you would be lucky to not find a crime drama airing on at least one channel. Crime dramas have flooded the airwaves almost as quickly as reality television. Personally I am not a huge fan of the genre. Since I am a fan of originality, I don’t like the lack of creativity that is present in most crime dramas.
With all the crime drama success recently, ABC has been trying to find a crime drama hit for years. Most of their attempts have been failures. With all the promotion ABC is giving to Castle, you have to believe that they really want Castle to be that next crime drama break out hit. Being a fan of Nathan Fillian I decided to give the show a chance. After checking out the pilot (thanks to an ABC contact), I have to say that Castle is far from perfect but it does have potential.
For those of you unfamiliar with the premise of Castle, it is pretty simple overall. Take your typical crime drama. Add in a childish, immature, somewhat crazy, adventurous, and sometimes annoying famous crime drama author (Rick Castle) and you have Castle in a nutshell. With Castle’s “street smarts” he joins the police department to help them solve the department’s crimes. After getting into murderer’s heads for his books he is well versed in what a criminal thinks and proves to be a help to the police department. Joining him is Kate (his partner who just so happens to be a huge fan of his books but not him) and the rest of the police department.
Castle is very close to your basic crime drama. Someone is murdered. The police are brought in. Clues are found. The criminal is brought to justice. This holds true for Castle as well. This is the huge knock against Castle and pretty much every other crime drama. Pretty much every single show in the genre repeats the exact same formula. Castle isn’t able to escape this trap.
If I was just looking at the crime drama aspects, Castle would be a pretty average to below average crime drama. Castle has one thing going for it and it’s Nathan Fillian. Nathan Fillian is perfect for the role. He single handily makes Castle a watchable crime drama. Nathan Fillian has always played wackier roles but I think Rick Castle might be his wackiest yet. Just think of him as a child in a grownup’s body. His teenage daughter is probably more mature than he is. Some people might think this would be annoying but I actually thought it brought a unique characteristic to the show. His character is so energetic and breathes life into the rest of the show which at this point the show needs.
Other than Fillian the rest of the cast is decent. Kate (Stana Katic) is a pretty good sidekick. She tries to keep Castle in check, but doesn’t appear to be successful very often. The rest of the police department is a bunch of nobodies. As a matter of fact unless things change in future episodes, the show could probably be just as good with only Castle and Kate as regulars. At this point the rest of the police department feels like filler characters.
So with so many crime dramas out there, there has to be a show I could compare Castle to. Since I don’t watch a lot of crime dramas, there might be a better comparison but I would compare Castle to Bones. Like Bones, Castle tries to mix humor into each episode. This is actually why I like both shows. I like crime dramas that put some effort in adding humor to episodes. Castle is like a more immature Booth that takes on Bones role in the show. Meanwhile Kate plays Booth’s role but has a personality pretty similar to Bones.
So at this point I would say Castle is a solid show but it has some work cut out for it. It needs to try and get over the repetitive nature of the genre. Otherwise those who are not fans of the genre will probably give up on it pretty quickly. While it has it’s work cut out for it, Nathan Fillian alone is enough to give Castle a chance.
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