Sunday, February 3, 2013

Crime-Fighting With Sassiness

So instead of watching the Super Bowl Halftime Show, I'm blogging. Yes, I'm that person. Besides, I don't really want to go downstairs and be around three teenage boys who just finished off a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew in less than half an hour... Never mind they just came upstairs. There is no escape.

Where was I? Right. Crime-fighting. So when it comes to TV shows, I become so obsessed with some that I do nothing else for the next few weeks except watching that show and the occasional homework. It's extremely unhealthy and I do not recommend it. It's also the reason I never started watching Doctor Who. Just recently, though, I found that the first three seasons of the show Castle is on YouTube, so I braced myself for a long few weeks.

Basic Summary: Castle is a show about a best-selling author, Richard Castle, who has just killed off the main character in his latest set of novels. In need of some inspiration, he starts following around Detective Kate Beckett after he's needed to help solve a case of a triple-homicide based on some of his earlier books. At first Castle's allowed to hang around the 12th Precinct because he's buddies with the mayor of NYC, but then he eventually stays because of the friendships he's made with the detectives and mortician (d'aww).

If you don't watch Castle, and you are interested in good acting, or good plotlines, or good crime-solving, or good anything, then check it out. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic have some of the best on-screen chemistry that I have seen in a while, and the entire cast just makes me smile. :) It's unfortunately all too common to have a show with all good actors with such good chemistry with some awkward main character in the middle of all the awesomeness. At first, I had my doubts about Molly Quinn (who plays Castle's daughter Alexis), but she's proved to be just as capable as the other actors on the show.

SPOILER ALERT. (hint hint watch the show now hint hint)

One thing I've noticed with these popular shows is that there's usually some sexual tension involved. This makes it extremely difficult for writers because of the nature of television shows, because they can do one of two things: they can either make the characters realize this tension that they have and... have a good time... OR, they can just drift apart because they can't just stick with that tension forever. The show would become boring, the jokes would become old, and the characters would stop being so dynamic. The second unfortunate truth about this kind of show is that either way, everybody loses because then there's no show.

...Or is there? Here's a classic example of avoiding this problem: In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Angel started off with a lot of this tension that the writers weren't sure people would like. Once the fans reacted, they decided to keep Angel on the show, but all of a sudden, he and Buffy are suddenly so in love, everything is happy and beautiful and right in the world... So BAM, they have sex and Angel becomes an entirely different person because of a mysterious gypsy curse. Joss Whedon, with all of his genius, makes it physically impossible for Angel to have one truly happy moment without becoming evil. There's always some hope, because otherwise the fans would just cry of disappointment all the time. Good shows make fans cry only once in a while.

I find it hilarious when I see these tweets (yes, I have Twitter) about how "Omigosh those two are toootally gonna get together at the end of this episode" or "Why can't So-and-so and So-and-so just realize they're perfect for each other??" because I know that the exact opposite is about to happen. The writers just have to throw in some monkey wrench in there so people keep watching the show. When I tell my cousin what I think will happen next in The Vampire Diaries, 10 times out of 10 she disagrees with me and 9 times out of 10 I'm right. So there.

Back to Castle, here's where I really should've put the spoiler alert. So yes... Castle and Beckett are a thing. Caskett. Stana Katic (Beckett) apparently ships Caskett even harder than some of the fans, which is something I've never heard of before. (Also related to real life, "Richard Castle" actually wrote a couple books! Heat Wave, Naked Heat, Heat Rises, and Frozen Heat are all New York Times Bestsellers and available at a bookstore near you. I just read that in my head in a very deep male voice.) Caskett could've been awkward, and fortunately there are no magical curses that turn Castle the wise-ass into Castle the asshole, so the writers did something completely different -- They continued the sexual tension as the whole audience watches knowing that they just got out of bed. There's even an episode where they literally take turns cockblocking each other with their obsessive crime-solving habits. I appreciate the genius so much. I also apologize for making this post a little inappropriate...

So there you have it. Watch the show. Stop reading this right now and just watch it.

I'll try not to digress so much in my next post. So thanks for readinSQUIRREL.

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