VinceW

Taken out of context; You know that I was talking about the separation arc.

verdana. Joy has really gone rogue on us over season 8. From her latest review: "What I do know is this new direction of Castle hasn’t helped the ratings any. It’s practically the anti-Castle. The show will be on a three week hiatus – returning in early November. For the first time ever I can honestly say I won’t miss it. Hopefully something is being done to future episodes to get this show back on track".

It says a lot about the path that the show is following and in what direction things are headed when episodes can be filmed out of order and it makes no difference because the show is using a new bible envisioned by the new creative team.

The same goes for the "weird time out"; breakup=separation=weird-time-out=lost viewers.

Agree. His appearance has to be related to a crossover between Castle and Beckett cases. Otherwise, a public defender as a recurring character on a show like Castle is out of place. In most cases, a PD would only interact with detectives during the interrogation of a murder suspect at the precinct. If he is recurring, maybe there is a court hearing or the investigation is ongoing and the murder is not resolved in 8x7. If the separation is not resolved by Feb sweeps which includes them no longer living apart, it seems likely a big drop off from live viewing at that point if not already in motion after the fall hiatus. I just don't think Roum can deliver a compelling enough episode to halt the ongoing ratings drop especially after the Slaughter crapfest in "Cool Boys". For the new producers to exclude Beckett for the most part from a sweeps episode just seems really destructive to the ratings. IMO. I believe the correct acronym for the big bad is Loksat.

Henry has been putting his hands on Bess a lot more in home life scenes this season while hiding those moments from the kids which I doubt is part of the script. He does not have a no-shirt clause as well in bedroom scenes.

There is an alternative TV marriage to what persists with the forced separation on Castle presented with arrogance by the new producers. Invest in Elizabeth and Henry on 'Madam Secretary'. Their marriage presents as happy and healthy. They have their bumps in the road, but they trust each other and respect each other, and that comes through so easily in all of their scenes together. This is the show that the Castle writers need to study if they want to fix the sad state of the marriage between their two leads. There doesn't have to be manufactured drama between the married couple in order to keep the show interesting and 'Madam Secretary' proves it. It is amazing to compare the CBS writers approach to storytelling of marriage life onscreen versus what ABC has allowed with this contrived and twisted ("But how do you celebrate when you're having this weird 'time out'? Well, they find a way.") portrayal of a love story on Castle.

The new producers are writing episodes as if in a vacuum and they are just playing with the audience using such strange semantics ("weird time out") to describe the relationship. Even before any hiatus, the network will continue to lose audience as long as the producers maintain this odd separation scenario. The majority of broadcast viewing is still done live, or close to it. Until the story reaches a point that makes some sense, the best thing for fans suggests to just stop watching live until the network forces some changes unless season 8 is the end of the series.

So it goes in 8x8 "Cool Boys". The Firefly duo obsession returns to Castle during November sweeps month. All three (Hawley, Baldwin, Fillion) living in the past ("Headhunters"). A crapfest to ensure further drop in the ratings. IMO.

I agree that the shift will occur quickly when Caskett finds out that both of them are in danger from the same person. This will allow the writers to avoid explaining Beckett's emotional issues for now, but I think that the writers need something else to happen for a cliffhanger. The audience needs some hope that the separation will end soon, but that is not enough by itself to guarantee viewers waiting for three months for some kind of resolution. IMO.

I think your analysis confirms the exact reason that Marlowe was always careful to tell fans that once they got together, he would never break them up because he knew it would ruin his story and damage the characters and put the story in the place it is right now which is a mess and losing viewers weekly. His issue was writing them as married couple which he tried to avoid as long as possible. His stalling resulted in the delayed wedding and the Castle mythology. I don’t believe that writing Caskett as a married couple in the long term was ever part of Marlowe’s plan, but rather he left the story in a good place in the S7 finale for others to go forward. The early season comments from Hawley explaining his bold move implied that using her obsession as part of her DNA would not hurt the character which he thought viewers would just except with some arrogance, but you can’t split up a married couple and then have them work together for an extended time period given that one partner has no idea the reason for the change while the other keeps showing outward signs of affection without some kind of resolution. The story is just going in circles by using comedy to keep the audience watching. It is still hard to believe that the network went along with this story line because what has happened is that the current live viewership numbers are nearing levels that at some point will be lower than some of the off times repeated episodes broadcast during the last two seasons which can’t help syndication.

final ratings Monday 10/19/15 Final Ratings #Blindspot 2.1 – 7.82M #NCISLA 1.3 – 8.77M #Castle 1.1 – 6.67M lowest total viewers for the season NCIS:LA has just the right level of comedy for its demographic, but Castle reached its lowest level with the frat boy and slapstick mentality used in this episode. The only topic not covered was masturbation. It is the kind of comedy that NF must have been promised in order to renew his contract. I feel that this episode had a lot of misinterpretation about pheromone production because it has nothing to do with love and everything to do with lust. Just because Kate is turned on by Castle doesn't mean she loves him. She certainly doesn't love him more than her overwhelming addiction to the chase. 2+ million difference in numbers with certain of the competition yet the NCIS:LA stories mostly involve nothing outside national security. The crime cases given the new Castle writers have been workable, but they are hampered by the forced Caskett separation which just gets harder and harder to sit through for 42 minutes. You would hope that the Slaughter episode is not more of the frat boy stuff given the title "Cool Boys". No movement at all on the Big Bad rather just a phone call with Vikram. The summer information about the new cast member involvement and the writers expanding the secondary character roles not very evident so far except the odd changes in behavior between Ryan and Espo. As far as the fall finale, I expect what will happen comes from the title: Mr(two month disappearance) & Mrs(LOCKSAT) Castle actually involves the same dangerous person and it becomes evident to both the need to work together to solve the case. IMO

When a show runner asks his audience from the beginning to just wait until the last episode before hiatus to find out what the story path will be is just pure politics and insulting to intelligent, logical thinking viewers who are not the low information voters that politicians assume are their voting base. Marlowe was a bad wordsmith and not so much a bad politician, but the new guys are much better. Not until after fall hiatus will we know how many of the current viewership are low information voters.

Not a little politics. When a show runner asks his audience from the beginning to just wait until the last episode before hiatus to find out what the story path will be is just pure politics and insulting to intelligent, logical thinking viewers who are not the low information voters that politicians assume are their voting base. Marlowe was a bad politician, but the new guys are much better. The show is only four episodes into the season, but the growing viewer discontent over the story line is such that you wonder if the show can survive the almost three month extended hiatus upcoming after November sweeps. The show is running on fumes right now extending viewer loyalty to maximum levels because the whole ‘win her back’ story is just too ridiculous to follow. The season will go sideways if Castle doesn’t learn the truth very soon......

In an early season interview, Hawley reported about a meeting with the writers over the bible for the season. Whatever Roum has written will follow that agenda. On the positive side, the episode should give viewers some insight into what TPWinter has said during interviews is the purpose behind the separation unless it just turns out more WTWT which will not be good for ratings going forward after fall hiatus, but maybe they just don't care.

There must a point there somewhere; I merely stated that she wrote another fall finale and she uses subtext a lot. She is an EP pushing the show runner agenda for the cause which doesn't bode well for the remainder of the season after fall hiatus. IMHO

She wrote the S5 fall finale (Secret Santa); She uses a lot of subtext in her writing which has suddenly reappeared this season to further enhance the Hawley rewind agenda from earlier seasons.

Castle-Fans ‏@CastleFansOrg 18h18 hours ago #Castle air dates: Oct 19 "The Nose" Oct 26 (7x07) Nov 2 (No episode) Nov 9 "Cool Boys" Nov 16 "The Last Seduction" Nov 23 "Mr & Mrs Castle" Roum gets the fall finale after all; She wrote the worst of the Alexis/Pi episodes (Get a Clue - Castle insults Pi in public; Alexis slams door in Castle's face at end). The director (Bleckner) last worked in S3 and S4 (Nikki Heat, Heroes & Villains, Till Death Do Us Part). Still best to manage expectations about any meaningful "shift". IMHO

verdana. Found this information on the #Castle hash tag site. Not familiar with this Castle fan site at all, but if accurate, it puts a different perspective on the fall hiatus. The schedule looks reasonable since Nov 2 is the first week of sweeps which makes sense that a new episode fits there and the Nov 16 date for the Roum writing changes a lot about what might be coming then in the fall finale if no reconciliation in Mr & Mrs Castle. It always seemed odd to me that Roum would be writing a fall finale given her past efforts. I suppose that ABC has been keeping silent about the schedule and not providing any details about the sweeps episodes because of the lower ratings and possibly because of so much negativity on many media sites. “There has been a lot of confusion lately about the order the new Castle episodes will be aired in, so hopefully this will help. Ignoring episode numbers for the moment (the cause of the confusion), and going only by air dates released, this is what I’ve worked out the schedule to be, up to the fall finale. (I can link to sources if anyone wants them) Oct 19 “The Nose” Oct 26 (No new episode, re-run of “Once Upon A Time In The West”) Nov 2 “The Last Seduction” Nov 9 “Cool Boys” Nov 16 “Mr & Mrs Castle” Nov 23 (Fall Finale, no title yet) [Please remember, these air dates haven’t been officially confirmed (except for Oct 19 & Oct 26. They could change! I’m just going by what people have said in interviews, scoop,etc. Feel free to correct me] -@CastleFansOrg”

KAVEDWELLER, ON 16 OCT 2015 - 8:26 PM, SAID: Spoilers released over the summer made it seem like Vikram and Haley were going to be more involved this season. So far they've been rather unimportant and generic, and hardly worth all the discussion that has gone on about them................ Good point. In hindsight, the early information was a shiny distraction from the real story forthcoming to avoid any hint of a possible breakup which the producers knew nobody would watch going into a new season. In Marlowe's case, he would just lie about what was going to happen and then deny later that he said it when confronted with the facts. I never expected that the Beckett character would be portrayed as such a shallow person (lacks emotional depth) in the manner that she has been treating Castle so far. I still wonder if Castle is just faking things with her until he finds out more about what she is working on with Vikram.

Per The Futon Critic(Usually Very Accurate and Up to Date): date (day) time network episode title 11/23/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC TBA (*) 11/16/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC TBA (*) 11/9/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC (#808) Cool Boys (*) 11/2/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC TBA (*) 10/26/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC (#707) Once Upon a Time in the West ® 10/19/15 (Mo.) 10:01 PM ABC (#805) The Nose

A sneak like that suggests that the 'win her back' scenario has probably run its course. Her comments would make more sense if viewers knew that a clear danger to Castle currently exists and she was actively trying to stop something from happening to him, but the audience has been given nothing that really explains her behavior. Most promos are always misleading, but it presents more and more that the producers are trying to be too clever for their own good. After 8x5, there are only two more new episodes aside from the Slaughter do over before the audience will be away for over 12 weeks. The story so far has done nothing to move the relationship forward, but rather just alienate a LIVE audience to a point that many might just stop watching and will be lost for good. I doubt very much that the upcoming Christine Roum written episode will be enough to make matters any better before the extended hiatus. IMO

KAVEDWELLER, ON 13 OCT 2015 - 10:51 PM, SAID: Hal confirmed there was no reconciliation in the Mr. and Mrs. Castle episode, but that's not the fall finale, is it? 8x07 moves to 8x08 I doubt they will be fully back together then though. However, I really don't see how they stretch this whole thing out all season. We must have a few weeks without new episodes in the fall. There's only 4 more new episodes before 11/23. 10/19 - 8x05 The Nose 10/26 - ? November sweeps start Oct 29th 11/2 - ? 11/9 - Beckett-lite episode, so I guess Slaughter 8x06 "Cool Boys" 11/16 - 8x07 - "The Last Seduction" 11/23 - 8x08 Fall finale "Mr. & Mrs. Castle" 'The Last Seduction' is in there somewhere and if i remember correctly there was some suggestion of Caskett movement in that ep as well (again, take that as u want from show runners- could very well be nothing but a look and smile) It never made any sense that the Baldwin episode (Cool Boys) would be the last one before fall hiatus even though Hawley said his persona would be changed versus how he portrayed Slaughter in "Headhunters". 8x8 was filmed while SK in Italy which is Beckett lite and now 8x6(Cool Boys). If 8x8 is now 8x6, then the 3 episode scenario(8x3,8x4,8x5) with Castle's annoying "win her back" mentality might just end after 8x5(The Nose). There is a two week gap between 8x5 (Oct.19) and 8x6 (Nov.9) which won't help ratings if viewers sense after watching 8x5 (The Nose) that nothing between them is going to change soon.

It never made any sense that the Baldwin episode would be the last one before fall hiatus even though Hawley said his persona would be changed versus how he portrayed Slaughter in "Headhunters". 8x8 was filmed while SK in Italy? If 8x8 is 8x6, then my 3 episode scenario with Castle's annoying "win her back" mentality should end in 8x5. There is a two week gap between 8x5 (Oct.19) and 8x6 (Nov.9) which won't help ratings if viewers sense after watching 8x5 ('The Nose') that nothing between them is going to change soon.