oberon55

Here's a funny story about letting things go. I was in line at HEB (grocery store) not long ago & they had all the rags displayed. One of them (I think it was the Enquirer but I'm not sure) had the headline "Why Betty White Hated Beatrice Arthur". That show's last season was damn near 25 years ago. So I would not hold my breath while waiting for them to stop milking every last drop of blood they can from Castle.

For me it was never about her knowing a few things. It was always how everybody else was dazzled by her. It's not that she modeled as a teenager. It's that one of the top people in modeling (someone that has probably seen thousands of models come & go) was just so damn impressed with this teenager that modeled for a few months that she still remembers her 15 years later. That she wasn't just one of the top people at the academy but was a legend. That she is so amazing that a bunch of people got together on their own (without her knowledge) & wanted her to go into politics.

The funny thing is that after all of the breakup bullshit to protect him Castle looked LokSat (or his minion if you think the lawyer not GDS guy was LokSat) in the face and told him "I already work with the greatest detective in the world and I can not wait to get back home to her".

I believe one reason is that a lot of their relationship was portrayed as fairly adversarial. I think it started in s4 with the secrets & went from there. From that point on it was pretty much standard procedure that each season we would have a new lie or secret. Very few ended with them acting like adults. Either they got mad and yelled or they proposed. The writers never showed any long time growth from either of them. Even at the end they would both break the others trust at the drop of a hat. I think years of playing the characters against each other this way went a long way to fostering a divide in the fan base. Either side could make a pretty good case that their favorite character had been wronged by the other.

I suspect with all the different angles involved (actors ego, network interference etc.) it's a miracle that any show manages to maintain its quality over the years. The WT\WT aspect is one thing with its own built in problems but there is no other explanation for Castle's disappearance arc or the infamous LokSat story but bad writing (or not giving a damn). It is unbelievable that professional writers could leave so many aspects of the story (that they came up with) unexplained or ignored. I hate to say it but the fact that they did it twice & were all set to do it again for s9 shows an attitude of "Don't worry. We can have our characters do or say anything. No matter how nonsensical or ridiculous it gets this audience will swallow it & keep coming back for more".

Yeah I hate commercials. The only thing I watch completely live anymore is sporting events. Even if I'm going to watch a show when it airs I record it & wait 20 minutes for a hour long show & 10 minutes for a 30 minute show. That way I can fast forward through all the commercials. I agree about the quality but the problem is the quantity. HBO, Netflix, Amazon & Hulu combined probably put out the amount of shows one of the big three do a season. If HBO spent upwards of 100 million dollars to produce 50 to 75 original shows a season like ABC for example instead of the 8 or 10 that they do they would have to charge somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 dollars or more a month to make a profit. Or turn to advertising dollars. It all comes down to how much people are willing to pay. Right now advertising dollars probably of over a billion dollars a season finance most of the original content produced. If that money goes away then it will have to come out of subscribers pockets. Are they willing to pay?

I disagree. Without the networks volume of shows produced there is just not enough material made to fill up the hours people watch TV. I live in Houston Texas & we probably have 15 or 20 independent free over the air stations that basically show reruns 24 hours a day. You would think that if the market were truly dying they would be the first to go but it seems like we have more channels every year instead of less. Netflix's lifeblood is streaming the thousands of shows made the traditional way. Netflix may put out a dozen series a year. How long would they last if that was all they had to offer. Without the hundreds of shows produced every year by the networks (including cable) all the streaming companies would collapse. The advertiser model still produces probably 85% to 90% of streamable content and is the backbone of the industry. That's not even addressing the fact that we are not even close to having the infrastructure in place to handle it if 100 million households were all trying to stream TV at the same time.

Calling fans entitled is just a way to try & spin things their way. That way they can ignore the points about plotting, character or whatever. It is a tactic politicians have been using forever. In debating circles it is called "Argumentum ad hominem". Ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person", short for argumentum ad hominem, is a logical fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. In other words it's a lot easier to say "I'm not saying anything because you are all a bunch of assholes" rather than try to explain why they were going to kill Beckett off for example.

Part of being in charge is doing the hard interviews. I have watched head coaches stand in front of reporters after horrendous losses & be torn to shreds on live TV. It's part of wearing the bosses hat. They should have manned up & gave the standard "I appreciate everybody that worked on the show & I'm thankful for the time I got" speech & went on down road instead of backhandedly blaming the fans for their own shortcomings.

Castle premiered at 1.2\ 6.8M & the finale ratings were 1.3\7.8M. So it started low & stayed low all season. I think they clearly renewed it for s8 expecting better numbers than what they got. I blame s8's poor performance at the start of the season to the viewers reacting to s7's terrible writing & s8's bad writing just solidified the low ratings. I think a real case can be made for cause & effect.

The writing on Castle for the last two seasons has not been close to "good enough". In fact I think it has been dreadful. Speaking for myself the only things that kept me watching was goodwill from the early seasons & an inability to look away from the car wreck no matter how bloody it got. I'll even risk being called entitled & say I'm damn glad it got cancelled before it inevitably got worse.

I agree completely about harassing anybody but I don't really understand the definition of entitled fans. Were the small but loud group of trekkies entitled when they lobbied for a Star Trek movie for years. What about the Save Chuck Subway campaign which is credited with giving Chuck a third season. Even Chuck (Zachary Levi) was seen leading hundreds of fans to a Subway restaurant in Birmingham, England. On the campaign, co-creator Josh Schwartz remarked that it "has been one of the most amazing experiences of [my] life to witness — and certainly the most creatively gratifying". He didn't say "I wish those entitled bastards would just let this go". From what I can tell someone trying to get their way by saving a show is just a passionate fan but if that same fan becomes critical of the show all of a sudden he's an entitled prick.

There is at least one more I know about. There are over 40 novels from "Murder, She Wrote" written by Donald Bain. The author credit for the novels is shared with the fictitious "Jessica Fletcher" ie. written by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain. They are actually still being written today with the next one being released in October of this year.

What about Star Trek. There have been over 1000 novels published in the Star Trek universe. The first one published in 1967 by James Blish has had over 20 printings. Hell even Shatner had one on the bestsellers list in 1997.

I hate to burst your bubble but it is their M.O. not to address most things in the next episode or any episode after that really. To me two of the most glaring examples of this are: 1. Beckett was framed for Simmons murder & then the writers just completely ignored that fact. We have no canon explanation for how she was cleared of murder. She found a 15 year old tape & then just magically shows up to arrest Bracken. 2. How the hell Castle got from LA watching LokSat to being stranded 80 miles offshore in a boat. But then I remember episodes like "Sleeper" & the finale when they do try to follow up & realize that maybe this is a blessing in disguise. It's like the writers say "I know this doesn't really make sense but fuck it that's close enough".