With Entertainment Weekly calling CASTLE “an implausible muddle,” the Washington Post proclaiming it to be a “misbegotten MOONLIGHTING imitation” and theTVaddict.com’s very own Aleks Chan admitting that it’s “actually very boring,” one can only imagine the excitement this TV Addict was feeling for Nathan Fillion’s new series CASTLE.
Which is why I waited until late last night — following a rather lengthy two-hour AMERICAN IDOL extravaganza — to give the show a shot, hoping that at the very least, Fillion and co-star Stana Katic’s playful back-and-forth would keep me awake until my traditional nightcap arrived in the form of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Well, mission accomplished.
Not only did CASTLE manage to keep me awake, it kept me laughing, smiling and most of all wondering how on earth anyone could fail to enjoy this show.
In case you missed it, CASTLE stars the ridiculously-likable Fillion as Richard Castle, an equally-charismatic novelist who finds himself paired up with Kate Beckett (Katic), a tough-as-nails NYPD detective, in an effort to track down a killer who has been using the author’s best-selling murder mysteries as more of a “how-to” rather than the light and fluffy page-turners that they are intended to be.
Do sparks fly between our two leading players? Of course! Is the episode’s ultimate baddie utterly predictable? You bet’cha! Does Castle’s overly-sexed mother and too-smart-for-her-own-good teenager daughter scream television cliché? Absolutely!
Yet Fillon more than makes up for any and all of CASTLE’s shortcomings thanks to the perfect mixture of flirtatious eyebrow raising and a seemingly endless stream of witty one-liners. So much so that I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun watching an hour-long police procedural.
Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t trade in my mythology-laden, dense and disturbing hour longs such as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, LOST, and TERMINATOR for anything. But there is simply something to be said for a show that just wants to have fun… and doesn’t make me feel like a modern-day luddite for not realizing that the guy in that grainy black and white video on last night’s LOST was revealed to have been vaguely connected to the Dharma Initiative four seasons ago. 
