Castle, ABC, Mondays 10pm
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Well, I wanted to check this out because it stars Nathan Fillion, of whom I'm a fan for various of his work, but most notably Firefly. I wasn't really expecting to like it, but I did. It's kinda quirky, and fairly amusing.

Anyway, Fillion plays a murder mystery writer named Richard "Rick" Castle. His mother, Martha Rodgers (played by Susan Sullivan, best known to me from Dharma & Greg) lives with him, as does his teenage daughter, Alexis (who we quite like). Oh, btw, Castle's second ex-wife is also his publisher. So far I only remember- vaguely- seeing her in the first ep. His first ex-wife, Meredith (who we like), has also just been in one episode so far. She's a flighty actress who lives in L.A. (It's easy to see Alexis got her looks from Meredith.)

The premise of the first episode is that someone copycats a few murders from Castle's books, so he starts working with the police on the case. Mostly this means Kate Beckett (who we like). She's a fan of Castle's books, but doesn't like him, personally. He doesn't take much seriously, it seems, and has a very flirtatious personality. Which of course means he tries to flirt with her, though she doesn't seem at all interested. Or maybe I shouldn't say "at all"... Time will tell, anyway. Um, and there are some other detectives who work with Beckett, Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan. They seem both competent and friendly, and get on well enough with Beckett as well as with Castle (they have a sort of male camaraderie with Castle which may slightly irritate/amuse Beckett, while their relationship with Beckett herself is a mix of friendship and professional respect). There's also a medical examiner named Lanie Parish who provides info on cases, and is friendly with Castle, and thinks Castle and Beckett will eventually get together. We also occasionally see Capt. Roy Montgomery, Beckett's boss.

Anyway, in Castle's latest novel, he'd killed off his main character, Derek Storm, of a long-running detective series. So now, after the copycat killer was caught in the first episode, the premise of Castle continuing to work with the police was that he decided to create a new character, Nikki Heat, based on Beckett. So he'll be sticking around to work with her as "research" for his new books, much to her chagrin. Though the two do become a bit more friendly as the series progresses, she still finds him kind of exasperating, or whatever, and resists the relationship becoming more than professional. Oh, and there's another plot thread that is touched on occasionally, which is that Beckett's mother's murder, from years ago, had never been solved. She wants to leave that alone, but Castle wants to try to solve the case.

And that's about all I can say for now. Castle is an amusing enough character to watch, and he does prove helpful in the investigations, though in spite of his insights and knowledge of criminal psychology, he's also not infallible, and can sometimes be shown up by Beckett. Meanwhile, my favorite part of the show is probably Castle's relationship with his daughter and his mother. I especially wish the show had more scenes with Alexis, who is pretty smart, witty, charming, and in some ways more mature than her father (or her grandmother, for that matter). And the show has probably the best father-daughter relationship I've seen since Veronica Mars (though it's also kinda like the mother-daughter relationship from Gilmore Girls, with just a hint of Absolutely Fabulous)....