Monday, May 26, 2014

Push the Castle hanger over the cliff


It's been a long time since the last rant about television outside advertising one-liners, so here goes.

Once again the writers of the TV show "Castle" have come up with a disappointing dangling mystery to hold viewers over the summer. They did it a couple of years ago with an unrealistic event and then, again this year.

As a watcher of several television mystery series, I have seen many of them disintegrate when they go too deeply into involving the main characters in crimes against themselves. I mean how often in real life do policemen and their families become the targets of crime? Except for the occasional threat, or a heat of the moment, probably not often. Yet, every mystery show eventually gets there and then loses its focus in dealing wtih crimes against their characters rather than coming up with a new mystery for those characters to solve in their unique ways each week.  At some point they become little more than soap operas. It's one thing to build back story with family members but quite another to involve them in crimes of lingering mystery week after week.

Even "Castle" got there eventually, entangling just about every main character and family member in some sort of contrived crime, one of them involving a missing relative which is also often used in hack mysteries. Then once the sexual tension between Castle and Beckett disolved into plans for a wedding the quality of writing began a slow decline.

A few years ago, in the last seasonal episode, a sniper shot Beckett. Now, who was really going to believe one of the two main characters in the series was going to die? She didn't of course and the cliffhanger didn't really work.

Then this year they outdid themselves. In the final episode where one contrived event after another stood in the way of the wedding, the writers ended it with Beckett in her wedding dress staring at Castle's car burning in a ravine within minutes of their scheduled wedding ceremony. Now, who is expected to believe Castle actually died? I suppose the cliffhanger is who did this and where does the main character end up before the issue is resolved.

Here is the best guess. In this last episode, the two became involved with an organized crime figure, but that seems too obvious even for the those still writing the series. My bet is it involved Castle's mysterious father, who showed up in an episode where Castle's daughter was kidnapped by some international criminal bent on revenge against hs father. The father appeared and revealed himself in time to save them and then disappeared into the haze of international intrugue again, but with the suggestion he would be heard from again.  The mysterieous all black SUV with tinted windows that we are to believe pushed Castle off the road on his way to the wedding, hints more in that direction, than in the direction of some Mafia don.

So we are supposed to spend the interim until the series starts up next fall wondering if Castle died. Doubtful.  Maybe we are supposed to wonder who did it and will he and Beckett ever exchange vows. and for sure I doubt anyone who appreciates the show will accept a scenario where Castle awakes in the hospital suffering from extreme amnesia. Reaching the point here where I don't much care. I am still betting on the father string, given that the writers just can't live without one of those now that the issue of Beckett's mother has been resolved.

Or just maybe they could go back to solving crimes, which has always been the best part if the Castle series.

Time we have wasted on the way ...

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