Castle

The epitome, along with Bones, of a show that just kind of blandly and inoffensively exists.

I briefly lived with a Craigslist roommate who had horrible taste in television. I learned that after ability-to-pay-rent, taste-in-tv is probably the second most important trait in a roommate. Fortunately a few weeks after I moved in, some apparently epic Star Wars PC game came out and he more or less became a hermit in his room. Anyway, Castle was the only show he watched that wasn't total garbage. Nice guy and otherwise decent roommate, but damn was taste terrible.

Was entertaining for the first few seasons, but then rapidly declined.

I was told this was much better than the usual "detective with some non-police 'expert' partner" show but I'd had enough after a couple.

Only made it through roughly two episodes. Very boring, couldn't connect with either lead and repeatedly found myself pausing it to do something else.

1x; Stopped after S2.

Entertaining, often laughed out loud. The characters are charming. Classic ebb and flow of romance and conflict. Main and side characters felt familiar and unique. The main plot for each season was intriguing but the writers segmented plot progress which lead to the show feeling rushed to resolve the big bad. The win though, 9/10 of the murders were creative and fresh.

Best crime show that actually has a plot line between main characters and the crime stays creative and fresh

Many of the worst television shows were once great. Like "NCIS," which sometime in season three broke from an A- to a C- in one episode, "Castle" melds "Scooby-Doo" and "Moonlighting" via the "Law and Order" format into a fun, relatively innocent, and interesting mystery series. They stumble in season two but by the end of season three it is the usual Hollywood churn i.e. interpersonal drama, Judeo-Christian moralizing, and characters without souls who react only to external stimulus.

As per the theme of every show like this one it describes one case per episode, with the ongoing investigation of every season. It is really well made to keep the audience hooked all the way through. However the way the cases are resolved is always the same.