Note: Massive, Promiscuous Spoiler Alerts– you have been warned
Last night saw the fourth season premiere of “Castle” on ABC, and it was an enjoyable hour-long police procedural that has as its main job to UNDO everything that had been done during the cliff-hanger end of the third season, but in doing so the show had to undergo trans-genre surgery from its unique blend of “dramedy” to a more conventional drama. I only noticed the shift during the preview for the second episode airing next Monday.
Here’s what I mean: “Castle” is like “Moonlighting” with better crimes to solve. You take the super serious tone and rigorous plots of “Law & Order” and inject it with a court jester in the figure of Richard Castle whose job it is to poke fun at the police procedural genre and flirt with Kate Beckett, the tough-as-nails and totally gorgeous lead detective. Their banter is what drives all the charm of the series, while the plots keep the characters busy and give them something to banter ABOUT in the first place.
But not last night. Last season’s cliff hanger ended with Beckett being shot during the funeral for squad Captain Montgomery. And she bled out and started to lose consciousness, Castle declared his love to her and the screen went blank. This season’s premiere started moments later with Beckett being rushed to the hospital, the other characters standing vigil until she was out of surgery. Then, Castle and the other squad detectives began investigating why Beckett was shot. Three months later Beckett returns to duty with amnesia of the moments after the shooting. A new captain arrives as well as a shrink for Beckett (played by Michael Dorn of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame), and there’s a B plot about a murder so trivial that the entire crime and resolution could have been squeezed into a preview.
The job of the entire episode was to get Beckett and Castle back to where they were before the cliff-hanger, with Beckett functioning and well, Castle poking fun and the whole storytelling engine (to use John Seavey’s excellent term) humming right along.
Except that there was nary a barb or zinger thrown in the entire episode. No ironic commentary. Not a laugh or a smile to be found. None of the characters seemed like themselves… as if they were guest starring in an episode of “The Closer” or “Law & Order: CI” where there are grim looks a plenty but no smiles. “Castle” has had more serious episodes before, but nothing like this.
The weird thing was that I didn’t notice until the preview for next week’s episode in which a guy dressed up like a superhero is either the victim or the crook (hard to tell) and Castle’s total delight in that circumstance lit up the screen. It was emotionally jarring– like when an intense moment in a TV show is followed by a McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” commercial with smiling happy families.
But THAT’S the “Castle” I started watching.
Conclusion: Different genres are good at different things. Drama forces change. Comedy — particularly situation comedy — forces circling around a central idea and exploring it in fractal detail.
“Castle” is a combo-platter of police procedural and situation comedy, but in the latter “situations” can’t change internally. They require external events to goose the characters into different modes of interacting. However, the gravitational force of the situation, the storytelling engine, will always move the characters back to the status quo. I can imagine a full-comedy episode of “Castle” (it would probably be a wedding) but it would be followed by a dramedy, just like this all-drama premiere was followed by a pendulum wing back to dramedy.
You can catch last night’s episode of “Castle” on Hulu, but if you’re new to show I’d wait until next week.
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