After three TV-oriented entries in a row, my loyal readers can be forgiven for thinking I’ve given up on any pretense of an actual life, but I want to mention that The Girlfriend and I have really been enjoying the new series Castle. It’s basically a throwback to the ’80s-vintage detective shows I grew up on, somewhat similar to Moonlighting, only without the smug self-awareness that so often came across as less clever than irritating.

Nathan Fillion of the late, lamented Firefly plays Rick Castle, a very successful writer of crime novels who, as the series begins, has just killed off the protagonist of his best-selling series in a fit of creative boredom. Chance brings him into contact with NYPD Detective Kate Beckett when she comes to him for consultation on a murder case that appears to have been inspired by one of his books. Inspired himself by Beckett, Castle pulls a few strings and becomes her unlikely (and unwilling, on her part) partner. Ostensibly tagging along on Beckett’s cases in the name of “research,” Castle naturally starts helping her solve bizarre murders by working out the “plot” of the mystery.

Honestly, the mysteries are probably the weakest aspect of Castle, but they always were on the classic detective shows I loved in the ’80s, too. Like Magnum or Simon & Simon, the real pleasure comes from watching the likable characters interact with one another. Fillion is perfectly cast as a flirtatious, wisecracking man-child, spoiled by fame and a seemingly bottomless bank account that allows him to pretty much get away with anything; as the show progresses, however, he’s started to demonstrate that there’s a good and even noble man lurking under the smart-ass exterior. Stana Katic as Beckett has been a little more difficult to like, a little tougher to see as anything but a straight man to Castle’s nonsense, but she’s starting to reveal some interesting depths as well, and she and Fillion have an enjoyable chemistry.

My favorite relationship on the show, however, is between Castle and his teenage daughter Alexis, played by newcomer Molly C. Quinn. Predictably, she’s characterized as the mature counterpoint to Castle’s childish behavior, but the two actors bounce off each other with such comfort and good timing that they appear to be a real father-daughter pair.

One final element that has endeared the show to me: each episode appears to contain a single geeky in-joke. So far, I’ve caught references to Highlander, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Land of the Lost, and I imagine there are probably others that I didn’t notice. I can only assume these are intended as Easter eggs for Fillion’s Firefly peeps, but whatever the reason for them, I like…

Castle is on ABC on Monday nights. Check your local listings, as they say. And let’s hope this show gets more of a chance than Firefly or Fillion’s last network series Drive, which was ignominiously canned by Fox — of course! — after only four episodes. Too bad, too, as I thought that one had potential…

I haven’t watched ER on any kind of regular basis for years. I started losing interest after Dr. Mark Greene — wonderfully played by Anthony Edwards of Top Gun fame — died of a brain tumor in Season Eight, leaving Noah Wyle’s Dr. John Carter as the only remnant of the show’s original cast. Nothing against any of the actors who rotated into County General as the old folks left, but I just never found any of the newer characters as compelling as the first group. Also, while the really over-the-top “event” episodes were still in the future (I think… it’s hard to recall quite what happened when, considering I haven’t seen many of these episodes in years), the show was already evolving toward sensationalistic (and frequently ridiculous) sweeps-week plotlines and a tangled soap-opera-esque preoccupation with who was hooking up with whom in between patients. (Honestly, was there any woman around that hospital that Luka didn’t have a go at? Maybe Kerri Weaver, but that’s only because she turned out to be a lesbian…)

And yet, I never did give up entirely on the show. I kept tuning in from time to time, even after I’d reached the point of not knowing the names of any of the characters anymore, and I was thinking of them only as “John Stamos,” “the Rock and Roll Kid,” “Red-head Dude with the Beard,” and “Cute Nurse with the Big Watchband.” Oh, and, of course, Neela, whose name stuck because I thought she was a babe. I guess I took the show for granted; I always knew that if I couldn’t think of anything better to occupy my attention on Thursday nights around 9 PM, well, there was always ER.

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