BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

In case you are unfamiliar with what I mean by that title, to Castle, or Castling, is a defensive strategy in chess, whereby the king moves two squares toward the rook that is to be castled with, (this can be the rook on either side, so long as it fits the rules below). The rook then moves past the king to the square on the opposite side and takes up a position there.

Yeah, that chess piece on each end isn’t called a castle, it’s called a rook. The move itself is called Castling… And, there are a handful of rules, as mentioned above, that go along with the move… Like not having any other pieces in between the rook and king and, neither the rook nor king having been moved from their original positions prior to Castling, yadda yadda…

But, since I don’t have anyone with whom to play chess, I don’t get to do it that much these days. Therefore, I’m not actually here to talk to you about defensive strategies in a board game that stems from 1400’s Europe, and even farther back than that if you want to get technical about it. If I was here to do that, I would probably ramble on about a much more arcane and little used move like, En Passant. But, let’s just not even get started with that…

And, I’m not even going to talk about heavily fortified medieval structures either… As amazing as it may seem, I am going to prattle on endlessly about television… Seriously. Yeah, I know… Kinda weird, eh? Especially coming from me…

So, on with this whole TV thing…

You see, last night, E K was surfing around the web, checking out clips from the Oscars, mainly because we don’t actually watch that stuff, but she had heard a couple of things on the grapevine and wanted to see the clips.  Probably so she could look at Hugh Jackman or something, who knows… Either way, in her searches and such, she ran across an advertisement for a new TV show…

Yeah, you guessed it, the name of the show is, Castle. Here is a little snippet about it from the ABC website:

“Wildly famous mystery novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is bored with his own success. Then he learns that a real-world copycat killer has started staging murder scenes depicted in his novels. Castle is questioned by NYPD Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a bright and aggressive detective who keeps her investigations under tight rein. Though they instantly clash, sparks of another sort also begin to fly, leading both to danger and a hint of romance as Castle steps in to help find the killer. And once that case is solved, he and Beckett build on their new relationship as they look to solve more strange homicides in New York – as much fun as one can have with death and murder.”

Now, obviously, the minute the Evil Redhead mentioned this to me, I turned my desk chair around, because, well, the way our shared office is set up we have our backs to one another. So, in order to see what she was talking about I pretty much had to turn around… But, of course, that’s not the only reason. First, there is the fact that she said Nathan Fillion was starring in the show. While I’m not a rabid celebrity chaser or anything, I happen to like Mister Fillion’s acting. And, after all, he’s one of our BDH’s. In case you don’t know what a BDH is, the beloved acronym stands for, Big Damn Heroes… Serenity… Firefly… Captain Tightpants… Malcolm Reynolds… Trust me, this is an important thing to know.

Of course, the second thing to capture my attention was something just as important as the fact that Mister Fillion was starring in the series, if not infinitely more so. Obviously, that would be the fact that he is playing the part of a mystery author. I mean, after all, that’s pretty much exactly what I do for a living, so it’s definitely going to spark my interest just a bit, don’tcha think?

But, since the wayback machine is always sitting in the corner of my office, just chugging away as it waits for a passenger or two, we might want to pay a bit of attention to it. We don’t have to take a trip or anything, but just for the sake of full disclosure, maybe we should poke our heads in through the hatch and have a look at the “Visio Temporal Doozy-what-zits Screen“…

Back in 1979 and 1980, there was a short lived TV series starring Dennis Weaver. The title was, “Stone“. (Funny, castles are made of stone, aren’t they? But, I digress…) Anyway, Mister Weaver played the part of Daniel Ellis Stone, a police detective who also happened to be a bestselling crime novelist. Hm… There’s your police procedural element, eh?

But, it doesn’t stop there…

Back in 2002 we had another short lived series about a writer, “Stark Raving Mad.” This one starred Tony Shalhoub, (of Wings and Monk fame), as Ian Stark, a King-esque horror author who was all about practical jokes and having a good time. Hm… There’s your comedic element, eh?

Of course, if we wanted to step all the way into the wayback machine, we could find many more examples of authors as main characters in movies and TV… Murder She Wrote, anyone? However, for a quick look on the “how do these things relate scale,” those are a couple of the more recent…

So, what I am saying here is that the premise behind Castle isn’t exactly new. But, let’s not take that as me being critical, because I’m definitely not. Any writer worth a damn will tell you that there is no such thing as a book or story that hasn’t been written, because it simply isn’t true. There are only so many plots and premises, and trust me, they’ve all been used. What we do, as writers, is put a different spin on those staples we have rattling around in our tool bags.  This show appears to do just that…

So, back to that turning around thing…

E K clicked on over to the ABC website, specifically to the page devoted to Castle, and there happened to be a couple of video excerpts embedded there for promotional purposes. Well, being the curious sorts we both are, she started them up and we sat back to watch.

Of course, as we all know, the excerpts are generally the best parts of the show, strung together in such a way as to get you to tune in to the whole thing, thereby watching the commercials, buying the advertised products, which in turn, causes the advertiser to buy more air time, thereby financing the network and show, and… Well, you get the picture. The other thing about excerpts is this… Very often they will imply things that not only don’t happen in the show proper, but they will even flat out lie about what is going to happen, and even use footage that came from the cutting room floor. Therefore, we have to take these excerpts for what they truly are, that being, promotional gimmicks, see above for more details.

That said, I have to admit I got a kick out of these particular clips.

Mister Fillion has great comic timing, and is a very versatile actor, to say the least. Still, there were a couple of things that bugged me… Just a little… And, while I am gearing up to mention them here, I am also truly reserving judgment until I see the full episodes, because, as I said, excerpts are just excerpts after all…

The things that caused me to raise an eyebrow:

1. Wildly successful authors: In the excerpt, Castle is playing poker with a stack of wildly successful author buddies – Patterson, King, etc… They are all flush with cash, and at one point there is a mention of a series/character keeping a particular author’s “private jet” fueled long after people have forgotten about Castle’s recently killed off character.
2. Me: What I mean by that is, I see a little too much of “me” in the character of Castle. (No, I don’t believe for a minute, nor am I claiming that someone is following me around and using me as a template for the character… see my explanation below…)

Point number one is the real kicker. I am hoping that after I see the actual episodes that some of these “private jet” oriented comments are intended as tongue-in-cheek. If they are, well then I can have a good laugh. Because, while there are a few wildly successful authors out there, few is the operative word. Better than 95% of the literature folks pick up to read and enjoy is written by mid-list and lower mid-list authors… Those of us who are basically pulling in a living somewhere between “poverty level” and “kinda okay average”.  I’m not complaining… It’s a career choice I made… But, I already have folks believing that I live on my own private island with servants and such. I can just see people watching this series and suddenly assuming that all authors are millionaires, just like they make ridiculous assumptions about cops, firemen, lawyers, and any other profession that has been “over-dramatized” on TV. (Remind me to tell you the story  sometime of the parent at my child’s school who made that exact assumption about me when he found out I am a published author of a series. I still haven’t been able to convince him otherwise.)

Point number two… Well, it’s not really a problem so much as an  amusing observation… While I am certainly nowhere near as good looking as Mister Fillion, nor am I anywhere near as successful as his character, Castle,  nor am I a skirt chaser, (although, I readily admit to being a major flirt), I do have something very much in common with him. That is, a tendency to toss silly witticisms out there, no matter what the situation, dire or otherwise. I suppose, like the character, humor is my relief valve / defense mechanism. So, I can easily see myself watching this show and mumbling, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I would have said,” or even literally knowing what he is going to say before he says it. I already found myself doing that with the clips…

In any event, I have high hopes for this one. It’s great to see Mister Fillion doing well, and I cannot say as that I am displeased by the idea of an author getting to be the main character of a TV show, because, well, I’d be lying. Truth is, I’m pretty excited about it.

According to ABC’s website, Castle premieres Monday, March 9th, at 10/9 Central. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ll definitely be tuning in. In fact, I already wrote it down on my calendar…

More to come…

Murv

… PS. Something I forgot to mention. The novel character Castle just killed off? His name was Storm. Ring any bells?

And, no. For those of you who are old enough to remember this, I am NOT about to break into a rousing chorus of  “I Do The Watusi” by Howie Mandel. If you are too young to remember, then click on the link above and have yourself a taste of post St. Elsewhere but pre Deal or No Deal Howie…

But, as usual, I digress…

MY questions aren’t about cottage cheese in shoes, or hamsters named Phil residing behind bars (again, see the above link). Mine are about this show called Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

I accidentally watched a couple of episodes of this thing. Primarily because I turned on the TV and there it was. I used to like watching stuff like This Old House and Hometime, so I gave it a go. In case you haven’t seen this thing, it basically revolves around that hyper guy who used to do the Sears commercials and a group of interior decorators/remodeler/contractor types. They roll into a town in a tour bus and right up to the door of the person selected for the home makeover (via an interesting application process I’ve now found out). They send the person and their family off on an all expense paid vacation for a week, then demolish their house and put a new one in its place. All good, correct? I mean, especially when you consider that the people who manage to run the gauntlet of the application process are usually in some way, shape, or form, nearly destitute. They can’t pay for even the simplest of repairs on their home, in some cases the home is being condemned by the city, they have a whole raft of kids, and are living hand to mouth, and it seems that a prerequisite is to also have one or more disabilities in the family unit. These people are desperately in need of help. So, this show is doing an incredibly good and charitable thing for these folks…or so it seems.

These TV personalities roll in and replace the existing home with a brand new, completely decked out, much larger “dream home” by almost anyone’s standards (except the unnaturally wealthy that is). I’m talking in terms of a 45K shack or even a  worthless piece of falling down condemned building being replaced by a 250K to 350K home (And I’m just talking about the “shell of the home” when I toss out that number, because it doesn’t end there…They end up with all of the redecorating amenities, all new furniture, plasma TV’s on damn near every wall, and a kitchen that would make Emeril scream BAM! at the top of his lungs…Not to mention added bonus stuff like expensive toys and/or sports memorabilia for the kids, etc…–and that is just naming a FEW of the niceties.)

Well, here is where my questions start popping up.

Now remember, like I said, most of these folks (the ones I’ve seen so far, at least) can barely make their mortgage and feed themselves too, so let’s keep that in mind, as that is what is prompting most of my questions…

1) Who is going to pay the taxes on this new house? They are going to be a hell of a lot higher than they were before.

2) How do the rest of the people in the neighborhood feel about this monstrosity sitting next to their smaller homes? This new home’s value is definitely going to affect the neighborhood standing, and therefore the values and taxes on their homes. One way or the other. Either THEIR taxes are going to go up, or if the neighborhood is REALLY depressed, suddenly the city is going to come in and start condemning everyone else’s home. Next thing you know eminent domain happens and developers get their fingers in the pie, and…well, you see where I am heading…

3) Since these “dream homes” are normally being plunked down in middle to lower class neighborhoods, what would happen if for some reason that home needed to be sold? You sure can’t get the dollars that went into it back out of it if the neighborhood won’t support it. Unless, of course, some permutation of the question number 2 scenarios occurs…

4) Why in all hell do these people need Plasma TV’s on almost every wall in the friggin house? That’s one I just can’t get my head around…

and finally…

5) Wouldn’t it be better for ABC and this program to build smaller, less opulent homes that are livable and solid, thereby being able to build MORE of them and actually HELP MORE PEOPLE who need it? Oh, I don’t know, like maybe in Mississippi and Louisiana? People who are living in ratty FEMA trailers and not knowing when or if they’ll ever manage to get their homes rebuilt?

Yes, I know. If they were to actually do number 5 then it wouldn’t be EXTREME, and they wouldn’t have a viable TV Show would they?

Well, sorry, I still see this as a rather ridiculous excess. But then, that’s just my opinion…and you know what they say. That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee (as long as you aren’t talking Starbucks. Nothing against Starbucks mind you…it’s just that you won’t get a cup of coffee there for a buck…)

MR