TV is the New Reading

Where are they now?

Second-season premiere of ‘Castle’

prompts trip down Memory Lane

I’ve been aware of the cast of “Firefly” for a few years now, Joss Whedon’s tiny space western that didn’t last half a season.

I’ve stayed aware of it not simply because they spun a brilliant yarn, nor because the skinny little DVD set made the top 25 top-sellers nor the fact that series that are canceled in their first season rarely get movies based on them that feature the entire cast and open at No. 2 in the box office.

What I’m saying is that there’s something there. Something beyond the story. The storytellers are a huge part of that. The cast was talented and they were fearless.

Sadly they also seem practically unemployable.

Apart from “Firefly” and “Serenity,” I’ve only seen ship’s engineer Jewel Staite in the Bryan Fuller series “Wonderfalls,” which was canceled even faster than “Firefly.” I think mysterious pastor Ron Glass returned to retirement -- of course, he’d appeared in eight seasons of “Barney Miller,” and this project was merely the most recent series he was in since then to be canceled within a season.

Continuing down the line, the impossibly beautiful Morena Baccarrin has appeared here and there and looks to have a starring role in an upcoming midseason replacement, itself a remake of the 1980s project “V.” Ship’s pilot Alan Tudyk has been in “Spamalot,” the Whedon production of “Dollhouse” and is also set to appear in “V.” His wife in the series, Gina Torres, has appeared in many things once including “Angel,” “Alias” and “The Shield.” And ship’s doctor Sean Maher has appeared as himself in a fan-made movie about the making of “Serenity.”

The actors who have gone on to multi-season work in any other project are ship’s crazy person Summer Glau as crazy android Cameron in the FOX project “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” which lasted exactly two seasons, and ship’s enforcer Adam Baldwin who had a recurring role on “Angel,” made an appearance on “Bones,” had a starring role in the edgy but too quickly canceled crime drama “The Inside,” and broke into the big time with a starring role in NBC’s “Chuck,” which has been picked up for a third season, set to air in March.

The most successful actor from a Joss Whedon series appears to be David Boreanaz who starred and recurred all the way through seven seasons of Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” carried the title role in every episode of five seasons of “Angel” and last week opened his fifth season as Special Agent Seeley Booth in the FOX project “Bones.”

‘Castle’

By contrast, ship’s captain Nathan Fillion had a recurring role as a villain in the final season of “Buffy,” a starring role in “Drive” -- a project FOX canceled in eight days -- a random flashback on ABC’s “Lost,” random Wisterian Adam Mayfair on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” and a cartoonish hero, Captain Hammer, on a strike-era internet project you might have seen highlighted during Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards, “Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

After all of these little walk-ons and one-shots, Fillion last year signed on as a larger-than-life crime novelist Richard Castle. So this must have been such a new experience for him.

“Hey,” I imagine him saying as he walks onto a set with Stana Katic, his “Castle” co-star, who plays the young, beautiful NYPD homicide detective Kate Beckett. “I know you! We were in ‘Castle’ last year!”

Looking around, he sees most of the same actors and crew. “Wow, you’re in this? And you too? This is so wild! And wow this set looks familiar. Has anyone seen a script? So what show are we doing? ... Second season? Wait a minute ... you're saying shows ... return?”

Yes, little Nathan Fillion from Edmonton, Alb., you of the shining eyes, expressive features and great, great hair, with Monday’s second season premiere, you would appear to have washed yourself clean of the curse of having ever worked on “Firefly”! Well done!

The premiere itself was an outstanding return for the series. Castle is ready to premiere his first novel featuring Nikki Heat, a character he based on his observation of Det. Beckett. Beckett, for her part, is deeply annoyed with him for having looked into her mother’s murder when she’d specifically asked him not to. The mayor’s office, however, still wants the publicity that comes with a world-famous author’s consult so Beckett isn’t allowed to banish him from the department.

She doesn’t have to like him, though, and she makes it clear throughout that she does not. She reluctantly allows him to ride along while the team investigates a homicide victim discovered in a tree. When the body is stolen, Castle turns to his fellow mystery writers who guide him to the Russian mob and a floating poker game in Chinatown. The whole thing plays out like the most delicious detective fiction, and when Castle gets in too deep, Beckett relies on her bottomless well of feminine mystique to save the day and make arrests.

One beautiful aspect of this show is Castle’s relationship with his daughter, who prompts him to apologize for overstepping his bounds with Beckett. Beckett accepts his apology, setting the dynamic for a prickly truce heading into the second season.

“Castle” is one of those shows like “Remington Steele” or “Moonlighting” where the dynamic between the leads is way more important than the cases they pursue. Fillion and Katic have near perfect chemistry and spark, and in a grid saturated with detective fiction, that level of humor and energy make “Castle” -- 9 p.m. Mondays on ABC -- well worth a look.

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