http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/television/07castle.html
The minute the two get together in the room, we know where this is going. Or not.
“You’ve got quite a rap sheet for a best-selling author,” Detective Kate Beckett says, slapping a thick file on the table. She mentions dropped charges for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Richard Castle, the author, fires back: “What can I say? The mayor’s a fan. But if it makes you feel any better, I’d be happy to let you spank me.”
In “Castle,” a new drama having its premiere on Monday night on ABC, Castle (Nathan Fillion) is a flirty, famous crime novelist who is paired with Beckett (Stana Katic), a no-nonsense New York City Police Department type, to nab a killer whose crimes are based on scenes from Castle’s books. It’s the newest twist on a television recipe that was popularized in the 1980s by the hit detective show “Moonlighting”: an oil-and-water male-female duo crack cases amid dollops of unresolved sexual tension — let’s call it UST for short — and witty banter. They complement each other professionally but resist the attraction for various reasons.
This formula has plenty of company on television these days. The crime drama “Bones,” on Fox, has a by-the-book anthropologist helping her loosey-goosey F.B.I. agent partner solve homicides. The police procedural “Life,” on NBC, has a serene, Zen-practicing Los Angeles detective helping his tense, moody partner solve homicides. “The Mentalist,” on CBS, has a self-confessed fraud of a former television psychic helping his by-the-book partner solve homicides, too.