solid new tv show

So last week, I was watching "Lost", and they kept showing ads for a new show on ABC called "Castle". Noting that the lead female part is played by an attractive person, and that the lead male part is played by the great Nathan Fillion, I figured I'd tune in and give it a chance.

Having seen the results ... I encourage you to do the same.

Yes, its basically a cheap copycat of "The Mentalist", another show I love. Nathan Fillion plays Rick Castle, a crime novelist who gets drug into a police investigation when someone is staging murders based on his novels. Stana Katic plays Detective Kate Beckett, who's basically a ripoff of Olivia Benson from "SVU". She even kind of looks like Mariska Hargitay. Which is a good thing, by the way.

But despite stealing liberally from two established procedural dramas (two that I love by the way, I watch both every Tuesday night) ... it didn't feel like either one of those shows.

For one thing, Fillion and this Katic chick, have a really good chemistry together. It doesn't feel forced, like on "The Mentalist". They play off each other very well. I love sarcastic people, and Castle is as sarcastic and free flowing as they come. I also love girls who can dish it out as well as they take it, and Beckett is definitely solid in that regard.

For another, I liked how they played out the first "case" as if it was a novel. It seemed to wrap up too easily. Which was, of course, the point -- things are never as easy as they appear. I won't ruin the "who dun it" part in case you want to go to abc.com and watch the episode (or you TiVo'd it and haven't gotten around to watching it), but there's a couple key elements involving one of the victims family that you never see coming and made for a damned good storyline.

Another thing I liked, and considering its my favorite show of all time, it was nice to see ... the resurrected NYPD Blue precinct!!! OK, ok, its not quite the return of the "rogue 15th precinct", but I swear the exterior shots, and the interior, of the squad certainly brought back memories. Definitely looked like they resurrected the set of the greatest show ever.

I loved the card game with "Rick Castle", and the actual James Patterson ... and the greatness that is Stephen J. Cannell. I actually had to set the glass of shiraz down when that scene came on. I noticed in the opening credits that Cannell was listed as a "special guest star", but man, the scene with the three of them just rocked.

I liked Castle's family situation. You begin by meeting his ex-wife / still publisher, who's the b*tchy blonde stereotype you'd expect. But then, you meet his mother, played by the awesome Susan Sullivan, and his daughter, played by someone I've never seen before. Neither character plays to form. The daughter is the grown-up of the group. I loved the mom's "graydar" comment when she was "looking to score" at the book party, that was just hysterical. She delivered the one liners at just the right time throughout the episode.

All in all, appointment television. I'd give it 1 3/4 thumbs up. The only thing I didn't like was the very ending, the writers took the easy way out in getting Castle to stick around. (Its not hard to figure out, you'll see it coming from 26.2 miles away). I would have liked to have seen something more creative. But still, if you're holding my attention at 9:50pm CT on a Monday night after a really long but great weekend, and a really long and not so great day of working in the office and at home, you've done something right.

Give "Castle" a chance. You won't regret it. Unless you're not a fan of entertaining television ...