Happy news for the empire, because it’s happy news for me! After reaching its highest ratings yet this past Monday (14.5 million), Castle was tagged for renewal. EW reported on Tuesday that ABC has ordered a complete 22-episode season 3 for the show. This is after high ratings coming off the Christmas break won the show an extra two episodes for the current season.
Castle is one of my favorite shows, and I am beyond pleased that it’s catching on. I think a lot of it has to do with the show really finding its stride at the end of the first season/start of the second. I watched the first season primarily because Cap’n Tightpants, Nathan Fillion as he will ever be known to me, was the star. The combination of crime drama and witty banter wasn’t ground-breaking (and the banter was sometimes frankly bad), but Fillion made it special, so I kept watching. I think that was probably the same for a lot of his fans, who could see the potential for the show to be great if it could just hang on long enough.
Thumbs up, guys, because it has. Somewhere in the middle of season 2, I realized I was no longer watching it just for Fillion, that I was watching it for the whole show. I also noticed that instead of being surprised when an episode was really good, I was finding myself surprised when an episode wasn’t. The second half of season 2 has had some of the best episodes yet, with no expectation that the trend won’t continue; the show really does just keep getting better.
All I know is, I’m thrilled that ABC is giving the show its due. Also, I had to watch this new promo about three times because it is HILARIOUS.
This news bit made my week! Glad that Castle is getting the attention (and time to grow) that it deserves. Now, if it would just air not opposite CSI: Miami…