Brit Babe

Well, that was meh. I had no clue what was going on with Loksat or even what Loksat was in relation to Bracken. Caskett's ending was clearly her dying on the kitchen floor and the empty loft was when he was moving out? The tagged on ending I suppose gave it some closure and much better than the alternative. I said at the start of the season, that this was likely to be Castle's Alias season 5 and so it proved up to and including the flash forward "family and kids" final scene. The show didn't deserve this ending but between the hacks of the writing staff and BTS drama that had clearly been crippling it for a couple of seasons at least, I suppose it was inevitable. And I agree with you. And I had issues shall we say with organic storytelling!

I've missed all the drama over here, I haven't been able to keep up with it. I'm sure she hasn't seen his contract however this clause has had to be carried out in full view of a 100's of people and contrary to what had gone before, so I’m sure the crew asked questions and knows why. I also very much doubt that no one talks and cuts off all contact with former co-workers. Plus, as fans we figured this out ages ago so it’s not a shock, no showrunner would damage a show in later seasons by doing this off their own back.

I’ve been meaning to the review the last couple of episodes but due to lack of time and repetitiveness of the reviews I haven’t - aren’t all the episodes the same nowadays? Now to this episode which has sunk to new depths of crappy. The first scene is a forewarning that this episode is going to bad; Castle, Alexis and Hayley walk into a bar and, oh wait.... . The expected exposition of Beckett’s absence is no where to be seen, hell I think they don’t even know she’s in the show anymore. Note to Molly; acting lessons can help but I fear that she’s one of those actresses’ who could play a kid/teen but adult is where the career ends. So cringeworthy which leads me to.. Summer Glau - dead behind the eyes and until last night I had not realised how much of a bad actress she truly is. The Lanie and boys storyline was so stupid - she would have used Beckett for that, another missed opportunity for saying where Beckett was. And then the combining of two the worst storylines this show has ever had. What is happening in the writers room that they think “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!” I’m really struggling to make it through recent episodes because they are boring, tedious, predictable and annoying. Can someone put this show out of it’s misery?

This was a better episode but if it had aired during the early seasons it would still be on a list of bad episodes. Are the 12th precinct just generally incompetent or even Castle at this point as the eye witness.... wait don’t answer that. I could tell which route this was going down once we saw the flashback. Caleb - I have the same question why is he considered Loksat? I recently saw the actor on an episode of Hawaii 5-0 and I honestly cannot take him or his bouffant hairstyle seriously. Laine - it surprises me when we see her on screen nowadays even though she is there from week to week her role is non existent nowadays but we have to put up with mumblings from Alexis. Also, does the PI business make any money as I haven’t seen any real clients ever? No fake fighting is a positive however the writers/actors etc all seem to have forgotten that Caskett isn’t just about the kiss/sex at the start/end of episode but about the swordplay as Stana has put it. However that would mean the actors have to spend time together which isn’t going to happen.

Ratings are out: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-sked-monday-ratings-2-15-2016.html 0.9/3 5.08 million

I think they maybe trying to turn people off of Caskett, however they must be so stupid to think that in a show's 8th season that this is feasible. Ok you will have people up and stop watching the show but none of those people are going to say I have stopped shipping it - just that the writers etc ruined it. I know that ABC told them to tone it down by 1x02 but when you employ two actors who have had electric chemistry like they did I think it was difficult for anyone to tone down, except obviously during S6 when it just died a death.

Ratings ticked down slightly on millions of viewers, otherwise stayed the same. 1.1/4 5.72

I just checked the last two episodes before the break got 6.6 million, so nearly a million drop. I'll be interested to see what Sunday's episode gets.

Preliminary ratings: 1.1/4 5.73 million viewers

The fake “cheating” angle is a poorly thought out mess and so were their reactions to it, plus are they are still wearing their wedding rings. Loksat would figure these two out in a second if they cared! I didn’t get the point of the fake fighting either, if she didn’t want him there she can get uniforms to drag him out of there and being happy in public? Fillion was phoning it in during the bedroom scene, more Katic than I think we have seen in a while in this episode, and the last scene was beyond rushed. No newbie cast members annoying us with their expositions so there was a positive, unfortunately Alexis is still around but more Martha is always welcome. Nothing has really changed in terms of them approaching the characters like they are alien to them in the last 2 months since the show aired. Sigh.

Re: no announcement of it being the final season. There are two possibilities as I see it assuming as I do the status quo will not make it to season 9. 1. Castle comes back Feb 1, so still plenty of time to announce it as such. Less likely. 2. Castle becomes Castle PI next season technically making this not it’s final season. I get the impression for love for Molly but I think that Nathan’s influence, personally I would from a creative standpoint have shipped her off to Stanford years back but she remained on the show for no good reason. I also suspect that is where they are trying to go with this silly Castle PI crap; father and daughter assisted by someone. I suspect that is what happened last year but I feel like Stana is all but gone except in body and even then hardly there. I miss Laine.

I suspect they already know Stana is not going to sign for season 9 or she was never included in their plans anyway as Castle P.I, starring the unfunny Nathan Fillion and Molly "acting is not my forte" Quinn, was always the plan.

I didn't originally see this snippet when it came out in the interviews but I just don't understand why they did not do this from the start. This storyline is so silly but they made 1000x worse by actually splitting Caskett up, making Rick out to be some sad sack who likes to be trampled over and does not possess a brain cell, while Kate is oblivious what she has done.

Too busy to review last weeks episode which I thought was okay-ish. But this week’s? Poor writing, poor acting and poor direction in some parts. The ending was so stupid, within 10 seconds Castle went from angry to okay let’s have sex. Vikram - the actor is bad enough but the character is just all kinds of shady. There is not really much more I can say except echo many people’s thoughts here. This storyline has more holes in than sieve as we’ve discussed many times and it’s like the writers are ten steps behind the fans reasonable theories/story set ups.

I suppose it depends on what the supposed “contract” of them not working together entails, if it’s just 1 day an episode - fine your statement rings true but I suspect if you’re going to go that far in requesting that you are going to have other requests, like maybe no romantic scenes, with a proviso that there maybe a couple near the end? I will saying splitting them up is an easy route to take for the above.

I think you have to look at it in terms of what makes sense. Showrunners of aging shows want an easy ride, churn out some generic episodes with some crowd pleasing elements along the way. They don't want to piss off nearly every last viewer to the point where they are hurling abuse at them day in, day out and lose said viewers from the show. They are not looking to shake things up to the point where future jobs are at risk or are having to deal with press backlash. What we have in my eyes are conditions set down that the writers are having to adhere to, the fact is the leads are only working 1 day together or its hourly equivalent at the moment as evidenced by the episodes themselves. There is a tumblr out there counting up the minutes that are Caskett moments including phone calls etc which take that out and we have a days worth of filming. I will say this, in very rare cases does anyone ever come out and say anything. They don’t want to be sued by the network etc so people who do say something keep it as vague as possible for plausible deniability reasons. This allows fans to believe one way or the other.

I would not be surprised if this happens. Change the night and announce it is the final season. If ratings continue to fall over the next couple of eps and they fall below 6m viewer mark which they could do next week. It's bye, bye Castle.

I can't say I'm surprised by these ratings and the half an hour breakdown in terms of viewers tells a very interesting story. I also think the 18-49 ratings aren't telling the full story, because when you look at the number of viewers since 8x01 people have been dropping off nearly every week (there was a bit of bounce with 8x03/8x04 but very small) and lets remember the massive drop that 8x01 already took. While the internet and speculation of what was going to and is happening cannot take a big credit for this drop, many publications are making side swipes at Castle in their print publications and just take a look at comments on Facebook or that twitter account in the other thread of people who don’t usually talk about Castle. People are not happy and savvy enough nowadays to see through stuff and just switch off.

I’m going to admit I liked the Slaughter episode in season 4, Slaughter was who he was and I don’t need characters to be politically correct. The reason I was not looking forward to this episode was not Slaughter but lack of Beckett, we had a sneak peek of this last season in 7x21 which I hated so I knew this was to be potentially worse. Beckett is Castle’s foil and vice versa plus it stops the writers doing what they did in this episode turning Castle into a complete buffoon and slap stick comedian. I agree with verdana, that Baldwin was fine in this but Fillion was the weak link, I felt that he was phoning in his lines and just making stupid faces. The writers dropping in silly statements about Beckett from Martha and Slaughter was just really annoying and showed how stupid this whole storyline is. If this was what they are hoping a potential season 9 would look like without Katic, cancel the show now.

See, I think you are getting confused. TPTB have told us time and time again all of their storylines are FUN and we must come along for the FUN ride. A drama is only a drama when the storyline is organic. ;)

The operative word in the press release is "plans" doesn't mean it gets pulled off.

Voting least favourite: Number One Fan

Number One Fan

I find it interesting that in the comments section of the NF interview (?) Matt said that he would interview SK soon but my question is why haven’t they already (before NF’s interview was published) plus that was over 2 weeks ago now. While they could be waiting for a new episode (with Stana in it to air) it seems to me at this point she isn’t doing interviews. The only interview she has done was the Deadline PR one about her being a producer.

Valkryie