Castle - Media Blog Project #1

Monday nights at 10pm on ABC is home to a great crime drama, Castle. This week's episode, The Nose, featured a witness with hyperosmia, or a super heightened sense of smell, who had a brush with the man who killed someone transporting a priceless oil painting. Due to the fact that she has the ability to smell absolutely everything, Mia Laszlo (guest star Stephnie Weir of MADTv fame) tries to avoid human contact by not giving the police all of the information she has, but Richard Castle, the show's male lead played by Nathan Fillion, convinces her to help. Another part of the story follows detective partners Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito (played by Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas respectively) who after anxiously awaiting results from their Seargants exam, learn that Esposito passed, but Ryan didn't. During a chase with a suspect shortly after finding out, Ryan accidentally shoots Esposito in the rear. The last important story line is that Captain Kate Beckett, Castle's wife played by Stana Katic, cleaned her clothes out of his apartment, but left one of her shirts behind for him. This is incredibly meaningful, as Beckett is only leaving so she can pursue a dangerous lead that could get Castle, and anyone else she cares about, killed; not because she doesn't love him anymore. As all good murder drama's do, the episode ends when the police, with the help of hyperosmia suffering Mia and Castle, catch the killer and recover the painting.

In my research into the lives of the actors beyond what we see every day, I was shocked to learn that Susan Sullivan, who plays Castle's mother on the show, used to be a playboy bunny in her 20's. She even joked in an interview, "I had been a waitress before and I felt I would rather show my legs and make sixty dollars a night instead of twenty." She has had a full acting career, keeping her busy since the mid 1960's, has been on and off Broadway and even had recurring roles in several other TV shows before Castle including a 9 year run on Falcon Crest. A bit of a surprise was finding out that the majority of the filming for the show is done in Los Angeles, California, not in New York City where the show is set.

The following is a breakdown of each of the five commercial breaks during the broadcast of the episode:

1st break:
Alive - adult multivitamin
Keurig coffee
Surface Book - laptop by Microsoft
Walmart
Maybelline 24 hr lip color
Humira - prescription medication for Colitis
Wicked City on ABC

2nd break:
It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on ABC
Subaru Impreza - car
Samsung Galaxy for AT&T
Victoza - prescription medication for Type 2 Diabetes
Agents of Shield on ABC

3rd break:
Disney vacations
Love the Cooper's movie
TGIT (Thursday night primetime) on ABC
KATU news at 11
Lexus GS - car
Unleashed - pet food by PetCo
Subway's autumn carved turkey sandwich
Nissan Altima - car

4th break:
iPhone6s
United Healthcare insurance through AARP
Red Robin
Lexus LS and LX - car
hepchope.com - Hepatitis C support
Quantico on ABC
Toyota Rav4 - car
Les Schwab tire center

5th break:
KATU news at 11
Ford Fusion - car
Ford Focus - car
InDeed job hunting
Movantic - prescription medication for OIC (Opioid Induced Constipation)
Edward Jones financial planning
Wicked City on ABC
Jimmy Kimmel on ABC

The overall style of the show is generally very classy and somewhat sophisticated. The main characters are always very smartly dressed. Beckett closely follows current fashion trends and updates her hair styles each season as well. Castle and the detectives can often be found in dress slacks and a fitted button down shirt. Everything is exactly what you would expect to see on the Upper East side of Manhattan (a high fashion/wealthy area) with one exception: Martha Rogers, Castle's over-the-top theatrical mother, who wears the type of outfits that would perfectly fit the stereotypical aging diva. The show is incredibly well scripted, and panders to a more intelligent audience than a typical prime-time show. The characters use advanced vocabulary and often don't slow down to explain a new concept, assuming their viewers can pick up the meaning from the context of the case. Castle is split between set and location shooting. Main sets have included the police precinct, Medical Examiner's office, Beckett's apartment and Castle's loft where he lives with his daughter, Alexis, and his mother. During the 7th season they added a new set for Castle's private investigator's office which they finished "construction" on for the start of season 8. The majority of the murder scenes and investigation happen out on location. The crew finds places in downtown LA that look like they are straight out of Manhattan.

There have been several shows since Law and Order first came out that all follow the same basic storyline: someone gets murdered, detectives investigate, get thrown off the trail of the killer, find new evidence and someone gets their eureka! moment, the murderer/serial killer is caught and arrested. Some of the ones I've actually seen are the Law and Order spinoffs (S.V.U and Criminal Intent were my favorites) CSI:NY and Miami, Bones (a personal favorite) NCIS (and I suppose JAG was similar too, but a bit earlier) and Castle. One thing that sets Castle apart from the rest of the crime dramas is their ability to make a light situation out of murder. While the majority of the cast takes each case seriously, Castle, who is a mystery writer and not a cop, has a more childlike sense of wonder around the cases when the series begins. He is so enamored with following Beckett in her investigations that he almost forgets that murder is supposed to be a serious event impacting real people. As the series has progressed, he has matured to a point, but is still able to bring the humor element. He comes up with crazy theories about the murderers that seem more off the wall with each episode.

Castle's writers do a decent job at avoiding stereotyping their characters. Each individual has a unique personality and it is rare that you find yourself saying something like "of course he'd say that - he's Mexican". The cast is racially diverse, but you can only tell by their skin color and their characters' name. Castle's mother is the closest character I can think of to being stereotyped, and she is just a theater diva who has passed her acting prime but isn't willing to admit it. The police precinct that Castle assists has had two African-American Captains; Beckett has now taken over as the third Captain of t he series. Both were educated and well dressed, excellent leaders. The stereotypical female police officer is a humorless automaton out to prove that she is just as powerful as her male counterparts. That is the exact opposite from Kate Beckett. She has the wit to rival Castle, often sparring verbally with the professional writer, and is able to think outside the box when it comes to solving her cases. While there is a certain hardness needed when you're dealing with murder day in and day out, Beckett is able to maintain a healthy level of emotion, which does spill out from time to time.

The advertisements during commercial breaks are spot on for the target demographics of the show. They strongly feature reasonably priced vehicles, medications for prescription drugs that adults of varying ages may find intriguing, and also other shows on ABC that if you enjoy Castle, you might like as well. With the rest of the commercials being widely technology based, and job hunting resources, it seems like they are targeting the younger adult crowd somewhere in their 20's or 30's. They aren't targeting the extremely wealthy, by using high end car ads, or using much snob appeal (aside from the cell phone ads), instead opting for a more inclusive audience. By having commercials for financial planning and the upcoming news program, they are targeting the older audience members, and also those who are more responsible and socially aware. This helps to show just how wide of an audience advertisers assume watch Castle. With such a widely varying range of demographics in their advertisements, they are giving a little bit to each type of person you might find watching the show.

Someone who is watching Castle to get an idea of US life, might actually assume that we as a whole are smarter than the general population really is. They will get to see a variety of cultures, proving just how diverse our population is. You can see just about any kind of subculture out there, from models to pop stars, the Irish mob to corrupt politicians and even goths and steampunks. If there is a group of people who share a commonality, Castle just might do an episode about it.

While the show does use a lot of satire, it is mainly an accurate representation of our cultural society. The murderers and victims may be fictional, but the relationships between characters have been made so well, you feel as though they are real people you could befriend. Throughout the series they have tackled many different topics that you can relate to. One episode that stood out to me was a Christmas episode, where a family who had lost the father had fallen on hard times and were struggling to keep themselves afloat. At the end of the episode, Detective Esposito had gone to their apartment to return a priceless family heirloom thought lost, and was invited in to stay for Christmas dinner. Just like we hear of more and more he, like many other police officers, chose to stay and make a positive impact on a family in his community.

The on screen chemistry of the cast is one of the show's greatest strengths. You can see if in the final edit just how well they get along, and really play well off of one another. The only real weakness I see is new to this season and had previously been a strength - the main story line has taken a very confusing turn, and I just can't understand why. Throughout the series, the relationship between Castle and Beckett has been at the forfront, evolving from Beckett hating Castle and being annoyed by him to a greatly anticipated marriage between the two. However, the writers decided to have Beckett leave Castle and not be living with him, though she clearly still loves him. The reason given was for his, and his family's, safety while she looks into who the partner of Sen. Braken (former bad guy of the show who had Beckett's mother murdered in the past). Showrunner Alexi Hawley said in an interview with US Weekly after the season premier, "We're using this to actually put the spark back in, and the stakes back in, which give us the fun and the juice... Obviously there's some heartbreak in it as well, but it makes it much more emotionally impactful every week, because there are stakes now." My main problem with this is that they are trying to take the relationship between Castle and Beckett back to how it was at the beginning of the show, when it can't go there if they want it to survive, just like a married couple who believes the spark may be going out long for the days when they first met, they have been through too much together to start over and have the same impact. I was really enjoying the evolution of their relationship and didn't see a reason to try to change it so drastically.

I really love this show and have only allowed myself to get a couple weeks behind since I was introduced to it during the second season. I was incredibly surprised to find out that my brother is just as addicted to Castle as I am, as our tastes in TV programming are usually miles apart, and I have several friends who I can talk to after each new episode airs. I follow Castle on Facebook and Twitter, though I try to avoid social media if I have to wait to watch the new episode. On Twitter, the PR department live tweets during the East Coast broadcast of the show, putting up screen caps with quotes that are funny, important or memorable. Nathan Fillion goes crazy on Twitter, usually answering fan questions on Mondays and generally having a good time with it. The conversation grows as people watching the show chime in with their theory of whodunit as new clues are introduced.

I've been more aware of a lot of the thought process is behind story changes while I've done my research. What seemed like a rash decision on behalf of the show's writers was actually a carefully crafted attempt to bring back what initially brought the fans into the Castleverse, and that so many of the actors are very much like their characters on the show. While watching some other similar shows, I noticed that Castle doesn't let their characters fall into stereotypes nearly as much as their competition. I now have a much greater appreciation for all of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to create a cohesive show for people of all ages to love. So, next time you're free with nothing else to watch on Monday night before bed, turn on ABC and laugh along with me.