CASTLE - Season 3 ["A Deadly Affair"] Premiere - Advance TV Review

"Castle" is predicated, like many of its predecessors, on the nature of the chemistry of its two leads. The key ideas revolve around how to keep the texture going without giving into it. Danger helps in spades in that it creates an upper register. The angle that tends to work is placing the characters outside their comfort zone. At the end of Season 2, that motif, with the lead characters intertwined in other relationships, seemed to satisfy that. In returning in the Season 3 opener ["A Deadly Affair"] the effect seems to be more castrating than anything. The intent, it would seem, at a certain point, would be to allow Beckett the ability to untangle herself from her own neurosis. This is a similar quandary that befits Mika and Pete on "Warehouse 13" but the inherent difference is that their drama seems to have mythology unfolding behind them on the aforementioned show. "Castle" needs to bring the problems of last season with unfettered consequences to bear allowing the emotions to spill at a certain point without consummating whatever connection is being made. It is a hard balance. The unraveling basis one should look to is "Northern Exposure" where a similar instance occurred between the lead characters of Joel and Maggie. Again, their chemistry was palpable and, for a while, they found a chance to save it in the texture that the lead female couldn't wrap her mind around the relationship because it affected her independence. That is inevitably the case here as well. Castle himself is broken in many ways. Beckett likes to fix things which inevitably will cause whatever puzzle they make together to smash into a wall. While the new season at the inset doesn't seem to answer these questions, it continues to show the boundaries being broken down but ignores others (like Castle's supposed Hamptons relationship). Life is fickle and especially with Castle's luck, it will come back to bite him.