⭐8.1
Description: Richard “Rick” Castle is a millionaire playboy who recently killed off his main character when a serial killer starts killing people like he does in his books. He teams up with New York police detective Kate Beckett to solve the case. He finds inspiration in Detective Beckett and starts shadowing her for his next book.
Creator: Andrew W. Marlowe
Stars: Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic, Susan Sullivan
Taglines: A whole new chapter in crime solving.
Trivia
- The actress who plays Ryan’s wife in the show, Juliana Dever, is Seamus Dever’s (Ryan’s) real life wife.
- According to Andrew W. Marlowe, Nathan Fillion read with 125 actresses to find the perfect Beckett.
- When Stana Katic first met Nathan Fillion, she had just gotten out of hair and makeup for the final callback between her and one other actress, and realized she was wearing a blouse that was too long. She asked for a pair of scissors, saw Nathan Fillion getting coffee, and greeted him. He asked if she wanted to run lines, and she replied, “No, but speaking of lines, can you cut a straight line?” To which he replied “I can try.” And so he cut her blouse shorter for her. The producers saw this and she got the part.
- Detective Kevin Ryan (Seamus Dever) could be seen carrying a copy of one of Castle’s books at least once in every episode.
- As a tie-in, the “Nikki Heat” and “Derrick Storm” books Castle writes are published in real life. The novels are written as stand-alone stories that don’t require watching the TV series, but also contain in-jokes and references to events on the show. While the books are credited to Richard Castle, the ghost-writer’s identity can be found in the author’s bio in the form of an eponymous award that Castle has won.
- In the Nikki Heat novels, Richard Castle writes about the shadowing of Detective Heat by a writer by the name of Jameson Rook. In chess, “castle” and “rook” are interchangeable names for the same piece. To begin with, Castle’s name was a tribute to the name of the real best-selling novelist Stephen King, whose surname is also a chess piece.
- This show has a close association with the Whedonverse in that many actors from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) have been featured (including Marc Blucas, Ethan Erickson, Leonard Roberts, Bailey Chase and D.B. Woodside). The creators also insert several allusions to the TV series Firefly (2002) via in-jokes and other references. In the episode “Vampire Weekend”, Nathan Fillion starts the episode by appearing in his “Firefly” costume.