Yep. His schtick was charming during the first few seasons, then it became a caricature.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Fillion very much, but yeah, Castle’s run its course. Let it die a dignified death.
Joke suggestion: replace Katic with Kirstie Alley.
Serious suggestion: Get Coté de Pablo to join the show as Beckett’s replacement on the Force. She can reprise her Ziva David role, or make up a fresh one. Either way, she has no time or tolerance for Castle’s foolishness, but he’s still friendly with the Mayor, you know…
I could see that working. It would be a similar dynamic to what her character had with Dinozzo. Castle could use a Klingon. (That’s my inside joke about NCIS: if NCIS were cast in Star Trek Next Generation style, is there any way that Ziva would not be a Klingon?)
I tend to agree with you on this. Season 6, with all of the teases and delays over the wedding date, was a little frustrating, but it was still generally* enjoyable to me. However, it was also the last season that creator / showrunner Andrew Marlowe was really involved in the show, IIRC.
I stuck it out through season 7, even though the stories strayed further and further from the formula that had made the show so good in the first place. I got 3 or 4 episodes into this season, and gave up…the idea of Beckett keeping Castle in the dark over the Conspiracy (which had become ludicrously over-the-top, anyway…once Bracken had been sent to prison, that plotline should have been over) was the last straw, for me.
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- as you note, “For Better or For Worse” was probably the stupidest episode of the series to that date. Beckett had take a job at the Justice Department the previous year – and we’re supposed to believe that the extensive background check which Justice undoubtedly ran on her didn’t turn this up? “Ms. Beckett, would you care to explain this husband of yours whom you failed to mention in your paperwork?”
According to Wiki, the last episode of the season is titled “Crossfire”. My bet is that she dies, and the is a short season 8 where he solves the murder and breaks THE CONSPIRAC*Y once and for all.
Someone on a dedicated Castle message board made an observation that I thought was interesting yesterday: it seems as though, over the course of the last two seasons (which, FWIW, also appears to coincide with when they changed show runners), they have slowly and methodically carried out the process of either diminishing or straight eliminating the roles of all of the strong female characters on this show. Anybody else picking up on that?
I always thought Ziva was more like Mr. Data. Both of them have trouble with idioms, and neither of them ever use contractions.
And the ax has fallen - Castle canceled after 8 seasons | EW.com
Now Fillion can get back to real work.
Writing?
Spectrum!
From what I read long ago the chick that was beckett was irritated over the whole thing where he held up the show over wanting a huge contract and that’s where most of the big problems started
Tho I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t go back to her home country and do local stuff or just be a wealthy house wife and have kids (her husband wasn’t impressed with Hollywood and all that and wanted to go back to the old country)reportedly
Stana Katic has four movies filmed and in post-production right now and has been working pretty steadily in Hollywood since 2004. She’s from Ontario, Canada. She married her husband last year. Doesn’t look like she’s leaving Hollywood any time soon.
No power in the 'verse can stop him.
I had a suspicion that the “Stana Katic leaving” thing was a ruse to make the planned cliffhanger extra suspenseful, that they’d make everyone believe Beckett had died then she’d actually return, maybe halfway through the season.
Apparently they filmed two different endings in case they weren’t renewed, so it may tie itself up with a satisfying conclusion at least.
I don’t follow that at all. Alexis’s role grew from earnest kid to actual useful grown-up, Beckett got promoted to captain, they introduced Toks as a badass recurring character, etc. What strong female characters were reduced or eliminated?
As much as I have enjoyed the show, I was rooting against it getting a Season 9. I just didn’t see a way for the show to continue without Beckett in a form that I would really want to watch. Kill her off? If this show didn’t suck so much at serialized storytelling, that might be an option, but I was seriously not looking forward to a lengthy slog through The Hunt For Beckett’s Killer. Divorce? No, this couple was meant to go the distance. Pack her off on some deep-cover op? Meh. We got eight frequently enjoyable seasons; no reason to be greedy.
Gates is gone. Castle’s mom and Lanie both have less airtime.
Not only those, but Beckett has also been diminished: she’s been promoted, sure, but that promotion has also come with less screen time, and a lessened impact on any given episode.
This … show.
The 5/9 one could have been interesting. Castle going on about demons and such. But it got stupider and stupider.
E.g., there’s a huge secret room next to the pointless PI office. They mention a landlord. Is this landlord an idiot? How could such a large, unused chunk of NYC real estate be ignored for years? You know the sq ft of each floor, know where all the runs are, etc., it would not have just sat there.
All found due to an amazing coincidence just for this episode.
Now, if the show continued, you’d have to incorporate this new space into an already waste of a set. Or you just do the usual episode reset. (Wished they had done a reset on the Castle missing and Beckett’s 2nd giant conspiracy stuff.)