I like Nathan Fillion


...but I'm not sure I like Castle



It's a little too precious, too self-aware. Too meta, to use the currently-popular catch-phrase.

Don't get me wrong, it's a perfect vehicle for Fillion. Nobody does "bad boy with a heart of gold who gets away with misbehaving because he's just so gosh-darn cute" like him. And that's the problem -- there are no consequences for this character's misbehavior. He's a famous author who knows everybody and he's handsome and single; forensics at a busy NYPD branch get bumped to the head of a very long line if he's working on a case. The "beautiful, smart, and tough as nails" lady detective *eyeroll at stock character* neither tears a strip off him verbally nor throws his ass in jail when he disobeys orders and stomps all over a crime scene (of course he doesn't actually mess anything up, he's done research and knows better, but still) or worse yet, tackles a running, armed suspect and gets himself taken hostage. I'd have tossed him in the cooler overnight for obstruction; he'd have at least had the bother of having to phone his lawyer and pay the man to dig him out. His ex-wife is his publisher, and beautiful, and slightly catty but not out-and-out vicious to him. *another eyeroll* He lives with his mom, a batty ex-actress of no name who chases rich men *eyeroll again* and his daughter, a 15-year-old who is wise beyond her years *my eyes are threatening to stay behind my skull permanently* who brings her homework to book-release parties and refuses a glass of champagne because she's only 15. She's obviously the "adult" in the household, but she's cute and has a sharp mouth just like Dad and Grandma.

This show is labeled as a "dramedy" but there's damned little drama in the mix; it's all "Quip, beat, brilliant insight into the case, beat, quip." The show needs some real mysteries, some consequences for when the cute and well-researched but none-the-less amateur author sticks his nose into real crime and messes w/ police procedure, some fleshing-out of the detective squad, and a little less... cute.

Because although I like, nay love, Nathan Fillion, he's no William Powell. And the script writers definitely haven't come up with another Thin Man, as much as they'd like us to think they have.

Posted: Thu - March 12, 2009 at 11:12 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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