CASTLE (TV SERIES) - DVD review

It's starting to feel like a Seventies' revival. On my review shelf sits "Life on Mars," a series about a NYPD detective who finds himself literally reliving 1973 after he's struck by a car. And then there's "Castle," this ABC-TV series that plays exactly like one of the old P.I. shows from the Seventies. So if you notice Stephen J. Cannell, one of the writers and creators of "The Rockford Files," playing poker in the first episode of this crime series which sports "Rockford"-style comic moments and romantic interests, it's because "Castle" creator Andrew W. Marlowe patterned his show after "Rockford" and "Moonlighting." Which raises an interesting question: Is it possible to go back in time to a kinder, gentler period in TV history when violence wasn't as pervasive and the whole CSI fascination the public seems to have developed with forensics hadn't begun yet? Sure, there are grisly murders here, but will a public now used to X-treme this and X-treme that warm to an old-fashioned series that de-emphasizes the oh-so-serious carnage and doesn't show every scalpel cut or needle poke that every coroner or medical examiner seems to routinely do these days?

I wouldn't have bet on it, but the answer seems to be yes, because the numbers were good enough to buy "Castle" a second season. And for a show that cast a couple of relative unknowns in the male and female leads, a 35th-place Nielsen finish is pretty good. Or as Larry David would say, "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good." So's the level of banter and chemistry--something that's been missing from crime shows these days as all that forensic seriousness blends better with melodrama than it does a breezy style like this.

Nathan Fillion ("Firefly"), who played Dr. Adam Mayfair in "Desperate Housewives," stars as Richard "Rick" Castle, a self-absorbed, arrogant crime novelist who basks in the attention. He autographs women's chests ("Call me when you're ready to wash that off") and acts like a twentysomething single, though he lives with his teenage daughter (Molly C. Quinn) and tippling mother (Susan Sullivan), a former Broadway actress. And boy, does he find it flattering that his novels have apparently sparked a copycat killer--someone who's doing away with people in exactly the same way as his crime novels.

Then there's Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic, "Quantum of Solace"), the lead investigator in the case who seeks out Castle and distributes copies of his novels (all from her private collection--she likes to read) to the other detectives working on the case. She's the typical no-nonsense cop, and he's the typical who-cares free spirit with a Peter Pan complex. But put them together and each one softens a bit. And it's the stars' chemistry, not anything that comes out of a forensics kit, that makes this crime drama work. Castle and Beckett play off of each other well, with banter never deteriorating into overlapping dialogue or awkward pauses. The stars seem to have a handle on their characters and know what they're going to say without having to think about it. That adds an air of spontaneity to an otherwise slick and formulaic crime show that's indeed a throwback to those Seventies' private investigator shows.

The premise is simple. You can't stretch a copycat killer over an entire season, unless you're the creators of "24," and so it turns out to be convenient that Castle killed off his main character in his last novel. Why? Because it occurs to him, as he's accompanying Beckett on that first case, that he could gather a lot of material by shadowing her and come up with a new character as a bonus. And he has the clout to make it happen, despite Beckett's kicking and screaming.

I don't know that I'd place "Castle" in the rare company of "The Rockford Files," "Simon & Simon," or "Magnum P.I.," but it's a solid show with brisk pacing. If anything, "Castle" could use a legitimate nemesis for the two, who begin to "play nice" fairly early in their relationship. And while mom Martha is a character, she doesn't intrude on Castle's life the way that dad Rocky did for Jim Rockford. If I were the screenwriter, daughter Alexis would get more involved too. The other thing that keeps this show in the second tier of cop shows is the supporting cast. Their personalities just aren't distinctive enough to add life. They're not bad, but when you consider characters like the snitch Angel and police detective Dennis from "The Rockford Files," those characters were strong enough to carry a scene even if Rockford was in the back room taking a nap. Here, the supporting cast stays in the background. And yet, it was a conscious decision, because even the guest stars are relative unknowns and non-descripts.

Ten episodes are contained on this Season 1 package, housed on three single-sided discs in a single-width DVD keep case that has one disc on the left inside cover and two overlapping on the right. Unfortunately, a listing of the episodes is printed on the inside cover (which is obscured by the discs), so you have to slide the paper out to see . . . and even then there's no annotation to remind you of the episodes.

Here's a rundown:

1) "Flowers for Your Grave." A copycat killer begins by covering his nude victim tastefully in flowers, then progresses to other Castle books and other unique ways of killing people. And so Richard Castle is recruited to help them stay a step ahead of the murderer.

2) "Nanny McDead." A nanny is found dead in the dryer of a New York apartment building laundry room.

3) "Hedge Fund Homeboys." Castle worries about leaving Martha to chaperone Alexis' class trip to Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, friends of the son of a once-wealthy family try to thwart their investigation.

4) "Hell Hath No Fury." This time it's a body rolled in a rug that's found on the sidewalk, and that leads Beckett and Castle deeper into local politics than they'd care to be.

5) "A Chill Goes Through Her Veins." At a construction site the corpse of a frozen woman is found at a construction site, and the case prompts both Beckett and Castle to look to their own pasts.

6) "Always Buy Retail." Vudon? Apparently it's a religion, and apparently their worship includes ritualistic human sacrifice.

7) "Home is Where the Heart Stops." Residential break-ins are turning up more than missing jewels. A lot of corpses are being found too, and it's up to Castle and Beckett to figure out who's behind it all.

8) "Ghosts." A bathtub full of motor oil is a recipe for disaster, and that's where Castle and Beckett discover their latest victim in a case that leads them to seek out a true-crime pulp writer who may have known the woman.

9) "Little Girl Lost." A two-year-old girl turns up missing and Beckett's ex-husband turns out to be the lead investigator for the FBI, and a thorn in Castle's side.

10) "A Death in the Family." Castle frets over his daughter's first prom and also digs a little into Beckett's past. Meanwhile, the murder of a plastic surgeon keeps them professionally active.

Video:
"Castle" is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and stretched to fill out a 16x9 monitor. Black levels are strong, colors are natural, and the picture is pretty sharp and clear for standard definition. It's the kind of quality we've come to expect from ABC-TV-on-DVD.

Audio:
The audio is also a nice, lively Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, with French and Spanish subtitles. The rear speakers actually come alive for most of the scenes, infusing a nice layer of ambient sound into the mix.

Extras:
Aside from four episode commentaries, there really isn't a lot here--just a short blooper reel and three very short bonus features. Cannell turns up in several of them. In "Write-Along with Nathan Fillion," which is done tongue-in-cheek, the star visits Cannel to see how a writer lives and works so he can better tell how to play his own novelist character. It runs around nine minutes. Then there's Cannell again talking with creator Marlowe and Marlowe's co-producer and co-director Rob Bowman, who pays tribute to Cannell for giving him his start in the business. But in this seven-minute feature there's really nothing that we don't already learn elsewhere. The only other bonus feature is ""Whodunit: The Genesis of "Castle," which is a bit of fluff that feels like a pre-release promo and runs just six minutes.

So the "meat," really, is to be found in the commentary tracks, which can feel as crowded as an LA freeway. Jamming into this virtual phone booth are Marlowe, Bowman, Fillion, Katic, and actor Jon Huertas for the commentary on "Flowers for Your Grave." It gets even more crowded when Quinn joins them for "A Chill Goes Through Her Veins," and "A Death in the Family." An alternate commentary for "A Death in the Family" features just Huertas and fellow actor Seamus Dever. I'd pronounce them average, because we never get just the right balance of information and anecdotes, or between professional insight and personal responses. The commentaries kind of veer here and there, sometimes getting too technical and other times too esoteric. Some may enjoy listening to people talk about their proms, while others will think, "Get back to talking about the TV show."

Bottom Line:
"Castle" is a solid crime drama that works because Fillion and Katic play off of each other nicely. The scripts and supporting cast are good enough to keep the crime-fighting duo from falling flat on their faces, but they don't add as much to the series as they could have.