Castle Question
So I’ve been following the new mid-season start-up murder mystery TV series Castle (ABC Monday, 10pm Pacific). It’s starring one of my favorite dramedic actors, Nathan Fillion, and has been doing a good job of entertaining me so far. Entertaining, but maybe not challenging.
The setup goes like this:
Its worth as a source of stimulating mystery was called into question with this last Monday’s episode about a city councilman who turns up dead. Now, I don’t usually get to watch Castle the night it actually airs because I work nights until about 10:30pm. My wife, gracious and kind woman that she is, records Castle for me, then comes to pick me up (my car has a big hole in its exhaust pipe and I’m relying on public transit and my darling lady to get around).
So, anyway, I come in and sit down on the couch, talking with Becky while the show plays on in the background. After ten minutes of watching while maintaining a husbandly conversation, I say, “The wife did it.”
Becky looks at me and says, “How on Earth could you know that?”
And that is an excellent question. In my ten minutes of half-watching, I observed the following: the councilman was sleeping with a prostitute, he was being blackmailed, and his wife was on TV giving speeches about how much her husband loved the city.
So the question is this: am I a Holmsian genius of untapped mystery-solving potential, or was the show employing an exceptionally weak riddle?
Either way, Castle is still on my Must Watch list for sheer character entertainment power, if nothing else.