Castle Review: “The Lives of Others”

C: Episode 5×19, “The Lives of Others”, might not have had anything to do with the remarkable German film of the same name, but it was — to put it mildly — inspired by the movies. To be specific, Hitchcock movies.

E: To be more specific, one of my favorite movies ever — Hitchcock’s Rear Window, the Jimmy Stewart/Grace Kelly masterpiece about a photo-journalist laid up with a leg in a cast, who becomes a little too entranced with lives of his neighbors.

M: His neighbor Raymond “Perry Mason” Burr, no less. And where Hitchcock is one of my all time favorites, I was ecstatic at what they chose for the show’s 100th episode. Let’s get to it!

Green Light! What’s Your Perfect Veronica Mars Movie?

C: Wednesday around 9:00 p.m., the Veronica Mars movie project passed its $2 million goal on Kickstarter – after less than 11 hours! That, folks, is fan love made mighty. And Rob Thomas, show creator, reacted: “Today has exceeded the wildest pipe dream I let myself entertain. Holy cow. We better make a good movie. These amazing fans have stepped up. We better deliver.” Between the humility of this response, and the frickin’ fantastic video they made to advertise the Kickstarter funding drive, my hopes are soaring.

The Veronica Mars Movie: just a dream? Or just in need of a Kickstart?

C: For years they’ve talked about it. Every show that’s canceled before its time creates a buzz and a series of speculative articles in which the terms “movie” and “fan support” and “cast interest” get thrown around. The difference with Veronica Mars – the series whose first season is hands-down THE best season of television in my opinion, but which died an inglorious sputtering death, strangled nearly to death by its own network for a whole final season before being axed — is that the movie conversation keeps coming up.

M: To be fair, the killing of the show, while largely the CW’s fault, was a combined effort. Like many other highly successful shows, it lost its way in season three, as the writers ran out of really good ideas, recycled plots or parts of plots, and tried to introduce “fresh” new characters that didn’t work at all.

C: A lot of that had to do with budget cuts that limited even how many main actors they could use in a given episode.

M: Most importantly, Veronica Mars was no longer smarter than you. That said, like you I would completely trust them to make a great movie, and have hoped for it for years.

E: Yes, just shut up, because C is right — the first season of Veronica Mars was a triumph unrivaled anywhere on television — a perfectly realized vision from beginning to end.  It’s unmatched.  And surely the people responsible for those astounding 22 hours of television could craft a brilliant 2 hour movie.

C: They certainly crafted an amazing 5-minute sell… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Since the show went off the air in 2007, Kristen Bell, though she’s gone on to bigger if not better things, has still kept talking about wanting to do a movie. Rob Thomas, the showrunner, still kept talking about wanting to do it. They still met and talked about it every year or two, and every time they meet more articles come out to tantalize the longing, loving, unforgetting fans… but nothing happened. Until this morning.

M: Is this morning when you heard? I heard from you, so I have no clue when it actually started.

E: And I’m only catching up now, and so am just stunned!

C: It was around lunchtime, actually, when a friend on Facebook tagged me on this link. Go check it out NOW.

Castle Review: “Hunt”

C: No. No-no-no-no-no. You cannot do this to me. No! No no no! That’s Robin Scherbatsky, summing up my reaction to this episode. Guys… did Castle just jump the shark?

E: Er, no?  I will agree, though, it was a very disappointing conclusion to last week’s rather thrilling kidnapping episode.

M: As you guys know, I was out of town last week, and not only missed doing the recap with you guys, but didn’t see any TV. So I watched the two back to back, and while it was a disappointing second half, I didn’t think it was as bad as C is making it out to seem. It was HORRIBLY predictable, though.

Castle Review: “Target”

C: If you read us often, you’ll probably be expecting exclamations of horror at yet another serious episode – and Alexis Endangerment of all things. Yet somehow, I’m not horrified. In fact, it was a pretty well-written episode.

E: You’ll be more surprised to hear I’m not horrified either.  Maybe it’s because they don’t overplay the Alexis Endangerment card.  Maybe because I just don’t have any damn idea what’s going on.

C: Ha! Fair enough. It was a pretty confusing plotline.

E: Not necessarily in a bad way.  We just – have very few clues to go on, so far. To start the episode, we watch a young guy stand in an alley, facing down a charging van.  He shoots, emptying round after round into the van, which keeps coming.  He doesn’t turn away.  He loses the game of chicken.