Characters Matter More Than Plot

Last week I accidentally watched the entire first season of Castle in two days. I say “accidentally” because I didn’t realize I was done until the disc threw me back to the menu.  And I guess I technically didn’t watch the entire first season.

See, my new used DVD player is about ten years old. It’s about the size of a VCR and has issues reading discs that are anything less than pristine. Pretty much everything I get from the library has to be washed in soap and water if I’m going to have a chance of getting through it. The library should probably wave all my library fines in thanks for my hand washing all of their discs.

Sadly, some of the Castle DVDs were too abused. I had to skip chapters and one entire episode. Fortunately, the first six episodes were all written with the same form and I always knew whodunit by the second commercial break. For the last half of the season they cheated and the killer was always introduced so late in the episode you had no chance of solving it first. Jessica Fletcher would not approve.

If you’ve never heard of the show, Castle stars Malcolm Reynolds, who has been sent back in time to Earth that Was circa 2009. Instead of finding a way back to his spaceship to fight the Alliance, he decides to call himself Richard Castle and become a best-selling crime novelist*. Just for fun, he finds a way to follow around an attractive New York City homicide detective, making her the basis for his latest fictional detective. But he really just wants to solve murders and banter with everyone in sight. Honestly, it’s just another mystery novel writer solves murders show that doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.

Mystery writer or space cowboy? You be the judge.

 Yet I kept watching. And it was more than chronic boredom and loneliness that kept me washing, drying and putting on the next disc. I kept watching for the characters and their world. As an aspiring novelist, I want to live in a world where writers are treated like rock stars and book debuts are like album release parties, complete with groupies.  I've never seen a life size cardboard standee of Stephen King or George R.R. Martin (and I thank God for that), but in Castle’s world an author standee at the bookstore is as normal as a Harry Potter one at the movie theater.

Better looking than every fictional writer after  Angela Lansbury

 I’ve come to find that audiences will put up with just about any plot, no matter how tired, if they like the characters. I mean, Castle is going into its fourth season—there’s got to be something there. The characters on Castle are great fun. Our mystery writing protagonist is the clever jerk we all want to be, and his homicide detective foil gives it right back. Even the at home scenes are fun. Gone are the days of the 80’s loner bachelor (sorry, Magnum and MacGyver). Now our heroes live with their moms and kids from past relationships. My favorite scenes are the ones where Castle and his daughter are talking over and around his (literally) theatrical mother.

Good characters are hard to create. But clearly, we value them in our stories more than the stories themselves.

*I may have made up that first part. But the show’s a lot more interesting if you watch it that way.