Sometimes you feel like serious TV, and sometimes you just want bad puns about murder
I love mystery novels. My preference is for mysteries of the British 1930s and 40s variety, but I’ve been known to sit down with Maisie Dobbs, or Adam Dalgliesh, or even a few contemporary Americans. There’s obviously a great deal of television that’s derivative of the detective novel – everything from CSI to Law and Order to House follows the same basic format, whether you’re investigating medical or criminal clues. This is not to say that the shows are all the same or that some aren’t significantly better than others. I will always prefer to watch Bones than I will ABC’s new crime procedural show the forgotten. (The show is about a group of concerned citizens investigating cold cases, and I suppose the ridiculous lower case title is supposed to emphasize how sad and abandoned the victims are, but really it just looks like ABC forgotten the Shift key.) For all their similarities, these shows also come in many flavors, running the gamut from serious, heartfelt crime solving (CSI, Cold Case) to out and out silliness (Psych).
Rick Castle and Kate Beckett on Castle
One of my favorite newer iterations of the TV crime genre is ABC’s Castle. It stars Nathan Fillion, which, let’s just get it out of the way, is a big part of why I first watched the show. Fillion plays Rick Castle, uber-famous mystery novelist who has just killed off his money-making franchise detective and is now seeking new inspiration for his main character. After a killer stages murder victims like victims from Castle’s novels in the pilot episode, Castle meets and becomes intrigued by Detective Kate Beckett, who eventually becomes the model for his newest character, Nikki Heat. In order to better write his novels and continue to inspire Nikki Heat novels, Castle hangs out with Detective Beckett and lends his useful novelist eye in the aide of solving real crime. The whole premise is utterly, entirely preposterous.
The absurdity of the set-up is part of the pleasure. Without even trying, the tone of the show instantly shifts from something falsely solemn and is instead more campy, more light-hearted, and funnier. For me, the nature of the show’s built in self-commentary device, a mystery writer who solves crimes, immediately adds to the whole appeal and reminds me of some of my favorite mystery novels, those by Dorothy Sayers. Rick Castle is a light-hearted combination of Sayers’ two main characters, Harriet Vane, who works as a mystery novelist, and Lord Peter Wimsey, whose status as a man of leisure allows him to pursue detection as a hobby. Castle is a cheerful, intelligent, confident, goofy guy with ample resources and a wackadoo but happy home life, who walks onto every crime scene because for him, it’s fun. No sad apartment with sagging mattress and pizza boxes on the floor, no clichéd alcoholism, not even the standard tortured back story that makes him outwardly cynical and inwardly sentimental. Castle’s just a smart, silly guy with attention to detail and a love of campy mystery plot taglines. “I can already see the blurb on my next book jacket. ‘It’s Fashion Week in New York City. And the clothes are…to die for.’”
This post is thanks in large part to my sister, whose love of great mystery novels and television shows has always inspired mine, and who reminds me that not all good television has to be depressing, or force us to confront our own inadequacies, or even make a great deal of sense. Some good television is just Castle – well-made, entertaining, and goofy. Thank goodness for that.