Whereas I thought he was cast for his striking resemblance to Fillion -- and the actress who played the "Fan Experience" version of Lt. Chloe in the beginning looked strikingly like Katic.
My question was more on why drop names like Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Lord of the Rings but not Firefly? Were the producers worried the audience wouldn't know what a Firefly is?
Dropping Firefly directly would've been way too obvious though. I like how they got two subtle references in within a minute. Nebula 9 was a cult TV show that only got thirteen episodes but has a dedicated following, and when Castle is listing show's he mentions "that Joss Whedon show."
Exactly. And also a bit too meta... it's a cute nod to Fillion's fans that Castle is fond of a long-ago cancelled cult sci-fi show starring a guy who looked suspiciously like him. To invoke the name would be pushing it, though.
It would have been funny if he's elaborated a little more and said something like "That Joss Whedon showing staring that great Canadian actor".
Then Beckett could have said something like "There are no great Canadian actors, Castle." (It's funny because both actors are Canadian. )
Me too . Thought it was also a nice nod to Stephen King and Misery... the whole 'I'm your #1 fan' line .
Well, this was a letdown after last week. I'm not fond of the "documentary crew shooting the team" type of episode; not only is it kind of a cliche, but it tends to be contrived in the execution. But this one was particularly awkward. It did a terrible job simulating documentary footage. There were constant cuts between different camera angles in tight spaces where there couldn't be more than one camera operator, like in the victim's trailer or Ryan and Esposito's car. There were cuts between opposite camera angles yet no sign of the cameramen supposedly shooting them, and conversation scenes where we got closeups that would've been impossible because the other person in the conversation would've been in the way. There was clearly audible dialogue that the mikes were somehow picking up through closed doors. Basically they were using conventional filming techniques with a few superficial variations like shakycam and having the actors look at the camera. Very unconvincing. There were some fun bits here and there, though. My favorite was the musician improvising a dramatic sting to underline Castle's statement.
And Castle did his own vocal dramatic sting just before a commercial, and it was the show's theme! (such as it is). How meta! (and a little too silly).
Christopher makes a lot of good points, and they could have done the whole documentary thing a lot better, but I enjoyed it for what it was, an excuse for the main cast to goof around with the camera.
I'm so behind. I've been sick and busy and have missed I think four episodes, including the last two. I have to catch up!
Exactly. As a "documentary episode," it gets pretty poor marks for all the technical stuff he laid out above. (Maybe I'm wrong, but I still think the gold standard was that live episode of ER.) But it was so fun watching everyone go at the fourth wall with a battering ram, it's easy to forgive the episode's shortcomings.
Yeah well.. not exactly their best episode. At one point it got tiring of some characters who got so camera focused.. especially Esposito was a bit annoying and came off as very childish. The idea is nice but somehow it didn't fire that well in Castle.. bits and pieces were funny and a nice way to get some angst into the episode when the camera caught Castle and Beckett in a personal moment which threatened to expose them to Gates. Other than that the weakest episode of the season this far.. watchable but not in the same league as the other episodes so far.. however that's a pretty good cut i think.. 1 mediocre episode out of 7. Really liked the jam session at the end though and Beckett's prank.
There was nothing remotely documentary-style about this last episode. Other than the mugging for the camera, they basically shot it like an episode of NYPD Blue.
I thought that all the competing for camera time was very out of character for everyone except Castle. I would have expected them all to treat the cameras the way Beckett did. And even Beckett had a few moments where she seemed to be playing it up a bit. Still, it had its moments and I enjoyed it for the most part. I'm just glad we don't have episodes like this all the time.