When the drama moves behind the camera, tv shows sometimes fail to take their own advice. As Castle’s parting salvo is soured by off-screen controversy, what lessons do productions and their PR still need to learn?
So with a bang, a whimper and a shrug… Castle was caught in a ‘crossfire’ and bowed out from US schedules last night with a series finale that arguably had more drama off-screen than on.
For weeks the show had been in the headlines for the wrong reasons. It was announced in April that a return for a 2016/2017 season was not a done deal and even if it was, stars Stana Katic (playing Kate Beckett) and regular supporting player Tamala Jones (who played Lanie Parish), at the end of their current contracts, had not been invited back. The internet didn’t quite explode but it certainly lit up a tinderbox full of sparks and speculation. It WAS something of a shock. What did seem bizarre was the semi-official claim of the Castle situation being about saving money but by losing the series-long co-lead and keeping most of the supporting players? It may not have been attracting the same level of ratings as it was at is peak and had suffered from a range of inadvisable story-choices, but Castle was still no slouch in the ratings.
Nathan Fillion was already a cult-favourite. The cancellation of Firefly lives in infamy and Fillion had proven himself a witty and self-deprecating star. I’d met him on a couple of occasions and he’d never been less than charming. But he didn’t have the instant big-screen success than some had predicted and Castle was the next best thing – the lead in a mainstream network dramedy that played to his talents – playing an author who didn’t take anything but the work seriously. Rick Castle was the crime novelist who’d managed to worm his way into shadowing the real police, especially in Kate Beckett’s precinct. The detective hated his wilder style but couldn’t deny his deductive skills – and it slowly led from tolerance to full romance. The show may have been called Castle but it would be a fool not to accept that the series was anything less than the interweaving of the crime-fighting and romantic frisson between Rick and Kate. That was the raison d’être of the show from its opening salvo. If, yes, Katic had possibly been a ‘supporting player’ at the very start, the lesser known of the two main performers, it would be hard to argue she didn’t become an equal partner as the show progressed through over 170 episodes and eight seasons.
What had happened to lead to Katic’s depature? Had (…ready the drum-rolls…) the network / the production stiffed its star? Had Katic become a diva? Was the once-beloved Fillion edging his co-star out after rumours that their off-screen chemistry was much worse than their more convincing on-screen partnership? The speculating internet rubbed its chin and sharpened its omnipotent quill. Of course, there are a million and one different theories that can be flying around the internet at any given time – most of the propelled by the speed of keyboard rather than facts. Internet sites will extol any typist’s personal theory as if it were cast in stone rather than the musings of someone who’s never been within a mile of the set or any of the people involved. The National Enquirer can run massive headlines on the flimsiest of premises or information and has done so for years, but it’s still a poor relative to the mega-power of blogs. ABC released statements that wished Katic well.
“Kate Beckett has been a beloved character on our hit series Castle for the past 8 years. We are grateful for Stana Katic’s talent and dedication to the series and we hope to continue our relationship. Tamala Jones has also been an integral part of the series and we are grateful she was a part of Castle,” the network stated.
Co-stars, in the midst of negotiations themselves, spoke of the fact they’d miss her while hoping the series – which employed a large number of staff whose jobs were also in the mix – would continue. Katic’s official response was just as polite and short as any of the other statements that invite you to accept the decision and read between the lines as you see fit.
“Rather than distract from what was an amazing experience I would just like to say that I’m very grateful to ABC for giving me the opportunity to be a part of a much beloved show. Thank you to the fans,” she said.
Nathan Fillion’s response, when it came later, felt more like a promised job reference that wholehearted support:
“Castle has been one of the greatest joys of my creative life, and I hope the show continues on for years to come,” Fillion tweeted. “Stana has been my partner all this time, and I thank her for creating the character of Beckett who live on for all of us as one of the greatest police officers on television. I wish her well, and have no doubt she will succeed in everything she pursues. She will be missed.”
Everyone was talking but saying very little. No-one, short of the principal players and their immediate representatives, know the actual facts and it’s a brave or foolish player that would ever pick an open fight in a town with a long memory… the industry is littered with people who felt wronged in the short-term and then felt unemployable thereafter. And equally, there’s no real reason or duty to explain private details so just to appease curiousfans – sometimes a a failed, private negotiation between parties in a job situation is just that. One can ascribe all sorts of dark agendas, but it can often be an amicable, if less-than-ideal and unfortunate divorce rather than a crockery-throwing debacle.
But, creatively, the idea of Castle without Beckett was an extreme one. Losing the character or actor because of some unavoidable factor would have been difficult – but to lose them out of choice would be a massive gamble. Once you’ve had the relationship form a central pillar you can’t just wash it away in a single wave. If a series has been one long romance (at least on-screen), then a loved one’s departure is a creative headache. You can split the characters up for a while (Castle had, tellingly, done that already more than once and not always convincingly with characters going ‘missing’) before getting them back together… but permanently? Creatively, you can only end a romance with hate or tragedy – either a major split or death. Back in the 1980s, the series Beauty and the Beast – featuring Linda Hamilton’s romance with a feline Ron Perlman – was the ultimate romantic action outing. When Hamilton left, they decided to kill off her character, Catherine, and introduce a new female lead. ‘It’s not a fairy-tale any more…‘ was the campaign to excite the audience’s loyalty. It backfired. ‘Exactly. That’s why we’re leaving…‘ was the message as the audience headed for the exit in droves. The same appeared to be true when Katic’s exit was announced.Speculation aside, it was hard to find a positive reaction anywhere.
Top-rated show NCIS had had a similar problem when Cote de Pablo’s Ziva had exited that show in 2013. There were varying versions of the events that led up to that departure – some blaming CBS for not been willing to negotiate her contract more generously, others blaming the actress for playing last-minute hardball with a production that had every reason to expect her return. But despite some obvious, if politely-worded frustrations, such conjecture was left mainly to fester within factions of the fan-base rather than from official sources. There were rabid fans on either side of the equation – and there continue to be, especially with Ziva’ s name being sprinkled throughout Michael Weatherly’s own departure from NCIS this week – but the main players stayed relatively quiet or at least polite. It was a situation that was clearly ‘difficult’ but was handled tactfully: essentially with subtle shrugs and quiet grumbles at the source rather than moans and wailing.
But the lay of the land for Castle was different. NCIS‘s television’s most popular drama, shows no sign of losing its crown. Castle‘s future was never as strongly grounded. With Katic’s departure a foregone conclusion and then the show finally having its cancellation confirmed despite obvious attempts to keep it going, could ABC – caught between pillar and post – at least snatch some victory from the jaws of defeat and give fans an ending they’d appreciate and forgive if not actually embrace passionately? The screened ending of Castle will likely have satisfied no-one: stuck clumsily between ‘they all died’ and ‘they all lied happily ever after’ depending on how you view the thirty seconds (at most) given to both.
After solving the LocSat conspiracy case that has dogged them for so long, the couple are ambushed in their own home in the closing seconds. Rick is shot at point-blank range, Kate taking a hit to the chest as she fells presumed-dead bad guy Caleb Brown. The couple drag themselves across the floor to each other and lie, apparently bleeding out, but together. This is presumably where the season would have ended on a cliffhanger if the show was coming back. (The now given presumption: Rick would have survived, Kate’s fate was fatal.). Instead, the now full SERIES finale bafflingly slides away from that moment to seven years hence, showing that Castle and Beckett survived and went on to have three children (just as the goofy time-traveller episode hinted all that time ago). It’s a scene with no new dialogue, only comprised of audio-quotes captured from throughout the series run and with the kind of rushed editing that suggests it was short half-heartedly, never meant to be seen and with so little real interaction that you wonder if both actors were actually in the same room when most of it was filmed.
And ABC really only have themselves to blame for making a clearly awkward situation worse. In a fumble of the football,the announced departure of Katic pre-empted any potential season cliffhanger of its on-screen drama. ‘Who survives?‘ was redundant – we now knew it ended here for both characters or with Kate’s death and that ‘tragedy’ utterly changing any further run of the show for the surviving widower. If it were possible they could have waited to announce any firm decision until after the broadcast, at least there would have been some genuine drama. Instead, with Katic’s departure AND then the new that the series was officially cancelled, there was nothing to do but a) let the scale of the tragedy be ambiguous and a cut to credits or b) quickly tack on the abstract happy ending without any real explanation, simply to ensure the entire run didn’t end on such a dark note. A series-ending scene might be necessary, but was this the best they could throw at the screen in the last few days? It was almost literally a placebo band-aid on a gunshot wound. It couldn’t have felt more half-hearted if it had tried. (Given that, one theory, should you wish to go with it, is that the flash-forward is a dying glimpse at what might have been rather than what was. But that’s, perhaps, an unnecessarily dark interpretation…)
The question of whether Fillion and Katic liked or hated each other (if the latter, they proved better actors than anyone gave them credit for) is redundant with the show’s demise and the truth on that score is unlikely to ever be clear. But Castle‘s swansong is a lesson to ALL productions. If you’re going to end a show, try do it properly. If you can’t do it as you’d wish, for whatever reason (personalities, negotiations etc) as sometimes happens despite all efforts, at least get your ducks in a row in a way that suggests you’re TRYING to pull it together and not merely hand-waving as you treating the audience’s loyalty as a given. Perhaps Castle had a no-win situation. But if so, they ‘didn’t win’ spectacularly: Finales should seem like a satisfying climax not a bored last gasp.
Prime-time has plenty of examples of shows that annoyingly left us on a cliffhanger never to be resolved or with a downward spiral of quality and cast-changes that was more to do with syndication needs and profit-shares rather than peer-pressure. But it’s hard to think of a more blatant and public-baiting example than Castle collapsing like Camelot over fractures and fault-lines, some of which were quite clearly of its own making…
