What Last Night's Eps of Castle and Hawaii Five-0 Taught Me

I have realized something about my two favorite shows and probably me in general. I think I love action driven stories more than relationship driven stories. I mean, when you look at things, there are a lot of similarities between Castle and Hawaii Five-O.

Both Hawaii Five-O and Castle have a lead who has had a parent murdered and there is an over-arching mystery surrounding it.

Both of them have leads with witty dialogue between them.

Both of them have a core team of four.

Both of them are trying to add new characters this season that audiences aren’t warming up to.

Both of the leads had bosses who were corrupt and killed off last season.

Both of them have co-workers who are getting married.

Both of them have partners who are dealing with being single fathers.

Both of them are set in recognizable locations.

However, as last night showed, they are also very different. Both eps were promo’d to be intense edge of your seat stuff, which I love. I waffled between which show to watch first and I was so excited.

I ended up watching Castle first and I have to say I was disappointed. For a relationship driven show, they sure didn’t show much relationship. The sniper story was very much in the background of Beckett’s PTSD, which was fine, except that I had seen the previews of Beckett losing it and I really thought that we would be able to see Castle at least giving her a hug in that hallway, or touchage of some sort. But all we got was Castle running to Esposito every five minutes to ask how to deal with a snapping Beckett.

There was hardly any interaction between the two main characters, and I’m getting weary of Beckett treating Castle badly and never apologizing really, just thanking him at the end and expecting him to come back for more the next day. It just seems like they’ve done the “always” thing and it’s losing its shine for me. *sigh*

I’m sorry. I still love the show, but I feel like it’s a relationship driven show that is now being drawn out in unnatural ways. Yeah, yeah, she has to solve her mother’s murder first, she has to see her shrink, she has a million reasons why she can’t move forward with Castle, but sometimes it just doesn’t seem like she has any feelings for Castle at all, she doesn’t let him in on anything she feels, and it’s all very one-sided so it bugs me.

Then I turned to Hawaii Five-O. Holy. Cow. From the very start we have the adrenaline going. Murder, mayhem, witty banter between the leads, secret mission to North Korea, shades of 24 running through my head with the torture scenes and knee pins being dug out of dead bodies, yet not over the top (no one could match Jack Bauer), rocket launchers blowing up bridges, and then the emotions of the rescue, the team pulling together in the face of betrayal and possible loss of their team leader. It was awesome from the get-go. And I know some were bugged by Lori hugging Steve at the end, but I don’t mind because I like the potential love-interest story.

Anyway, this is what I’ve learned from last night. I think I love action driven stuff better than relationship driven stuff. Both shows are great and I still love them both. But for now, Hawaii Five-O is really shining with the action and a side of potential romance. Castle is still there, but seems stalled with Beckett working on her issues and Castle waiting around. Hopefully something moves forward soon.

Have you ever thought that your TV choices reflected what kind of stories/books you like?