Mass Media- TV Show - Essay Example

Mass Media - TV Show Television programming these days is proliferated by various incarnations of the Crime Drama genre. Everything from the police procedural shows such as Law and Order all the way to the crime comedies such as ABC televisions Castle grace our television screens once a week in order to entertain us and quite possibly, share a bit of legal education with the viewers whenever possible. For this particular paper, I shall focus my attention on discussing the television show Castle which airs on Monday nights at 9 PM on ABC.

I shall try to answer the question “What makes Castle special to its viewers?” Castle falls under the genre of a crime comedy. The show follows the unorthodox way that Richard Castle, the titular character observing female detective Kate Beckett on the job, solves cases using movie plots, hilarious dialogues, and physical comedy. The show mostly focuses on the incompetence of criminals which leads to comedic situations or punchlines. Although Castle is regarded as one of the top crime comedies of our decade, it was not the first nor the trendsetter of the genre on television.

The true trendsetter of the crime comedy is 1982s show Remington Steele, from which Castle constantly borrows story plots and dialogue from. Therefore, Castle is the copycat in this situation. Poor copycat that is. What made Remington Steele memorable for its viewers was the fact that although it dealt with serious cases, they never took the story and the situations too seriously. Which is the exact opposite of Castle, whose take on murder often borders on the dark side. The dialogue as written by the able and talented writers of Remington Steele was witty, timeless, and snappy.

Castle on the other hand have writers that have a limited imagination and as such, sprinkle the comedic dialogue on the show so far between. Castle does however represent all the American races, from Latino to Asian, in their show. Their main cast is composed of a mix of African Americans and Latinos strewn into the mix with the Whites. Every so often, an Asian or other ethnicity guest will pop in on the show to stir things up for comedic effect. And, they never box a certain ethnic character into any situation that the race is known for.

Rather, the writers often work to show the best of the race being represented. To be more specific, the main characters Kate Beckett and Richard Castle are clearly White, coroner Lanie Parish and Capt. Gates are both portrayed as strong willed and successful African Americans, Det. Esposito represents the Latino community, and Det. Ryan represents the Irish immigrant section. In the end, Castle is one of those shows that becomes a guilty comfort for its viewers. It isnt that well a written show and there is a doubt as the originality of its content sometimes due to the stark similarities with Remington Steele but none of those shortcomings prevents viewers from enjoying the show.