Nathan Fillion is Richard Castle

There is only one show I will make time in my week to sit down and watch on TV, when it's originally aired, and that show is ABC's Castle. It's a light-hearted police drama/comedy that stars Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. Fillion plays the title character, Richard Castle, who is a Patterson-esque crime writer who can always come up with a one-liner. He gets involved with the police through Katic's character Beckett when a murderer is copycatting him, and through his connections, he gets the mayor to allow him to shadow Detective Beckett on her murder cases.

Castle is in its second season now, and we all know why - Richard Castle, the self-titled Ruggedly Handsome writer. Castle lives with his daughter and his mother (that's as of the most current episode - to go into more, there would be spoilers for the end of Season 2!) in New York City. He's introduced to us as a playboy, an immature trickster and a men who takes nothing seriously. He's been married twice; one ex is his editor, another is his daughter's mother. We see him date but never more. In the transition between the two seasons of Castle, though, the character has visibly matured. We see him starting to understand that these murders effect real people; they're not just stories. We also see him becoming an indispensable asset to Beckett - he helps solve the cases he shadows her on. We have seen Castle and Beckett beginning to understand each other as people, not just as a cool character inspiration for him and an annoyance to her. Castle has gotten into dangerous situations with Beckett by not listening to her when she says to stay in the car. Almost every episode of season one, he does that to her. Finally, she handcuffed him into the car- but it didn't help.

An interesting thing about this character is that while he's famous and a playboy, he also takes being a dad very seriously. His daughter, Alexis, is his grounding factor; she reminds him that he has responsibilities, but also takes care of herself most of the time. She's very mature, and that gives us an interesting father-daughter dichotomy.

Castle's mom is also a very influential person to him; she's a Tony Award winning actress whose work is a little slow these days. She is over the top, flamboyant, and she loves her son and granddaughter very much. Castle likes having her around, though sometimes he just has to smile and shake his head at her antics - though he does tend to take her advice.

Castle is played by Nathan Fillion, whose work on cult shows has given him serious status in some circles. He played the lead character, Mal, in Firefly (a show Fox canceled after less than a season), and appeared in a late season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He also played Captain Hammer in the wildly popular internet supervillain musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.