Castle: The Complete 2nd Season

****1/2 – Attempting to mix humor into a show in the mystery/thriller/procedural drama can be tricky business. One way to be sure that you are going to get it right is to hire the always hilarious Nathan Fillion as your lead actor. If you then surround him with a supporting cast that are almost equally as comically talented, and you have yourself a surefire winner. Having such a great cast of talented actors wins half the battle, but in order to be truly successful as a show, there still needs to be solid storylines and interesting mystery plots. “Castle” is about a mystery writer who follows detectives around the city on their investigations in order to do research for his upcoming books. The writers of the show are not only able to distill the basic plots of what could easily be an entire mystery novel into about 42 minutes, but they do it in a way that no other similarly themed show has done in the past. I can honestly say that the plots from this show’s episodes are as interesting and entertaining as any I have ever seen on a show like “Law & Order” or “CSI” or other like shows. Add in Fillion – and Stana Katic as his lovely (despite her series of bizarre ever-changing hairdos) and brilliant comic foil - to the rest of the cast of talented folks and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better show currently on TV