Well, obviously this is up for debate (and I think it caused some drama last week when the interview showed up), but I would think she used curate in the sense that she looked after the show and wanted it to do well while she was a part of it.

That assumption is in part due to a tweet she responded to where she tried to clear up what she meant, and basically said she wanted to protect the show’s legacy.

“I’m not certain I communicated this very well.Ultimately I was aiming to say that I feel it is my responsibility to protect the legacy of a project that touched so many, that offered me so much,& on which I & many of my compatriots worked very hard.I hope that clarifies.“ (Tumblr doesn’t let you embed tweets, or I would have, but that quote above is Stana’s.)

If memory serves, Castle was picked up with the intention of being a midseason replacement and given a ten episode order. So what happened was that they filmed the pilot and waited to see if ABC would order the show to series. I can’t remember when they filmed the pilot, but I do remember Stana saying that she was told she got the part in May 2008.

Regardless, once ABC picked up the show, it was a ten episode order so they went into filming episode two (and padding out episode one) knowing what they had to work with. And, in knowing that, it was a much bigger deal (and victory) to be picked up, not only for a full second season, but to be picked up and moved from the midseason replacement slot to a full-blown Fall show.

Says who? That stuff is dreamed up by fans and has no basis in reality. I’m sure some people in the fandom are using that photo as some sort of proof that no one likes Stana and/or Stana doesn’t want to have anything to do with her former castmates, but the fact is that there’s no proof.

All Molly did was post a photo of herself with Nathan, Jon, Seamus, and Susan. Know who also isn’t in the photo? Tamala, Penny, and Rueben. But no one that I’ve seen upset about this is running around pulling their hair out and angry that they also weren’t invited/were invited and decided not to come.

For all you or I know, Stana wasn’t even in Los Angeles yesterday. Or, if she was, she could have had other plans that didn’t allow her to go see Seamus. And, even if she wasn’t invited or she was and elected not to go, it’s really not any of our business. The show’s over. They all can spend as much or as little time together as they want. 

No. That entire reaction over Hayley being introduced to the show was so ridiculous and unnecessary and prompted entirely by two things 1) TVLine stoking the fires of there being friction between Castle and Beckett in season eight (after releasing the easiest to solve Blind Item they’ve ever published) and 2) people jumping to conclusions that because there was going to be trouble in paradise that it automatically meant that a new character was going to claim Beckett’s turf.

As far as the show being Castle and Beckett working cases: I’m also gonna say no. Most people tuned in to see Castle and Beckett be in a relationship from season five onward. They could have sat in a room making googly eyes and kissy faces for 45 minutes every week and a large section of the fanbase would have been over the moon because their shipper dreams came true.

It’s not a coincidence that every time there was a non-Caskett focused episode that the whining kicked up a notch, just like people consistently whined and complained if they didn’t get enough shipper moments in case-heavy episodes.

The other thing you have to understand is that things change. Take out all the behind the scenes drama and the fact that the two leads acted like children for the last two years or so, and just consider this: Castle ran for eight seasons. I started this blog in season five and I spent seasons six and seven telling people that they better prepare themselves for the fact that things were going to change once contracts ran out. Nathan Fillion was always very vocal that he wished he could work fewer hours from season four onward, so there was no denying that getting that change would be a priority for him. Stana Katic might not have talked about it several times a year (in part because she largely stopped doing interviews related to Castle), but she also mentioned on social media a few times that the hours were intense and didn’t leave her much time to have a life. So, in the same vein, she was also going to ask for reduced work.

I’m not sure how anyone exactly expected the show to keep running as it did when the two leads were gunning for a maximum four-day work week. Most hour-long tv dramas have eight days to shoot an episode, if you are on network television you are going to film between 14-24 if you get a full season pick up and all that filming generally takes place from July to April. That is an insane schedule.

Likewise, because of that tight schedule, you can’t afford to start doubling your shooting days just because your lead actors want more time off. And even if the schedule wasn’t a factor, the amount of additional money and resources it would take to do that is ridiculous and absolutely not worth it (especially for an aging network drama). So what happens then? You still have to film up to 45 minutes of weekly television, but the availability of your lead actors essentially got cut by a third. What ends up happening is that the other characters have to fill the gaps.

If you watch season eight, Ryan and Esposito spend a lot more time working on their own without Castle and Beckett than any other season. Hayley and Alexis are around more/have their own storylines that they work on together and apart or with Castle. Ryan, Espo and Vikram regularly paired up with Beckett. That’s all an effort to pad the show and utilize the lead actors on the days that you had them. I know two days of shooting doesn’t seem like very much, but on average each shooting day nets about 5 to 10 minutes of footage for a 45-minute show. Two days equals a minimum of 10 minutes, sometimes 20, and that’s a quite a chunk of script/story.

I know people get all bent out of shape about Castle and Beckett being split up, and almost all of those reactions are directly tied to the contract stipulation that Nathan and Stana only worked together two days a week. But even without that clause, you would have seen them separated more in season eight because of that four day work week. Hell, the whole reason Beckett became Captain of the 12th Precinct was so that Stana’s workload could be reduced and that she could be contained largely to the precinct and the loft. Does anyone really think Castle would have been content to sit in her office and help her fill out paperwork? Even if they were separated for the first ten episodes or so, he would have still been out working cases with the boys and working with Hayley and Alexis. The only real difference would have been that you got a bookend pair of scenes with the two of them at the loft.

I’m not saying that the storyline for them wouldn’t have been interesting, I’ll always wonder what the plan might have been without that contract stipulation, but it wouldn’t have translated to Castle and Beckett pounding the pavement to investigate every single avenue of the investigation. As soon as the actors' contracts ended, those days were over.

Well, you do know that Castle is a gender-swapped Murder, She Wrote, right with a ‘will they/won’t they’ twist? Because it is, even if unintentionally.

But to answer your question, Hollywood, in general, is that unoriginal. Consider the revivals and reboots and remakes that seem to be popping up every time we turn around (though there are far fewer of them than new productions, which is a plus). Though that’s truly nothing new, Hollywood has been ripping off other things/remaking old things new since it began. That’s just how it goes.

That said, yeah, MilMar and ABC are betting that the Castle fanbase will follow them to this new show and love it just like they loved Castle. Will they? I’m sure some will but I, for one, am not remotely interested or excited and, if it weren’t summer, I probably wouldn’t watch it at all.

Take Two is pretty much a direct reboot of Remington Steele, which is whatever, but the chemistry between the two leads in the trailer has about as much sexual tension and intrigue as Stana Katic and Patrick Heusinger in Absentia; which is to say that it’s non-existent. And I think we all know by now that if a show with a ‘will they/won’t they’ couple/main storyline has no chemistry, it’s very hard for the show to sustain life (looking at you, Lucifer).

As far as the actors go, that’s a bit of a reach, Anon. Sure, there are similarities between Emily and Beckett, I’ve even talked about them before on this blog, but I sincerely doubt Stana took the role with the idea of trying to keep Beckett alive in the minds of fans. I don’t know why she took the role, though she’s certainly one of the few good things about that trainwreck of a show, but being typecast is generally the antithesis of what actors attempt to do in their careers. 

Nathan choosing The Rookie for his return to network tv falls in the same category as Stana and Absentia, though I’d also add that Castle wasn’t actually a cop, so while it’s still a light-hearted procedural format, it’s not like he’s playing a writer again. Maybe it’s a skip rather than the leap you want/were expecting him to make, but I wouldn’t say it’s the hop that Stana took, either. 

And, also, he’s done other work that definitely isn’t Castle or procedural adjacent since the show ended, albeit not on network television. Honestly, I still remained surprised that the first thing Stana decided to do was jump into another wounded, female cop role immediately after her most successful role to date. I expected her to do some supporting roles (though she did film a horror movie that none of us have yet to see, and therefore can’t comment on) and some indie movies first, but she saw something she liked and went after it.

It’s simple: Stana Katic hasn’t worked on anything owned by ABC since Castle ended and ABC uses the social media accounts of defunct shows (like Castle) to promote other shows on their roster to the people that still follow those accounts.

If ABC had broadcasting rights to Absentia, they’d be teasing it on the Castle twitter. It’s not an either/or situation. They also don’t promote Jon Huertas and This Is Us — they don’t own it, either, but people never seem to be bothered about that.

Anon, if Stana had been pregnant half the time that people thought she was, she could field an entire football team of just her kids. For me, I just don’t care that much? Not specifically about Stana being pregnant, but any celeb. That’s one of those things that is going to make itself known eventually unless you go full Kardashian and just don’t leave the house/employ sitcom tricks to hide it. And, you know, eventually there’s gonna be a kid, so unless you hide that for 18 years, people are gonna find out. 

But I took a quick look at her instagram to see if I saw what you see, and there’s nothing to me on her account that would indicate she’s trying to tell people she’s pregnant. That ‘yes’ photo includes a second photo (swipe left) that is her celebrating that it’s (or was) Friday. 

That said, I don’t know the status of her uterus and it’s none of my business anyway. If she is, congrats to her. If she’s not, we can give it a few months and she’ll wear something that hits her in the wrong place and we’ll start the conversation again. It always comes around when she gains a little weight/wears something unflattering/gets quiet on social. Part of being a female celeb. 

Exactly. Stana’s the bright spot. And, all in all, the acting from everyone isn’t bad. They all do a good job with what they are given. It’s just that everything else - from the writing, to the editing, to the lighting, to the sound mix -  is a mess and, for me, that made it a struggle to get through. 

I mean, I watched the first six episodes in a couple of days, waiting for the show to get to the point, to get better, to do anything but drag along and give me something interesting, or even someone to cheer for or care about. Didn’t happen. Watched episode seven, still waiting and then I got busy and just haven’t had the time or the inclination to watch episodes eight through ten. And that is pretty telling to me, because if I had enjoyed anything about the show, I  would have made the effort to watch those episodes, but it’s just not any good. So I’m spending my time watching other things that I enjoy. 

Now, I’ll watch all ten episode again when they start streaming on Amazon Prime next year and really give the show another shot, but it’s gonna be a hard sell. 

….she’s posting the same stuff she’s been doing since she started her Instagram? Sooooo….

Because Stana has a lot of fans who do care. Nathan’s show has an advantage of a straight to series order, but that’s far from making it a hit. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

Likewise, just because Absentia isn’t a runaway hit, it doesn’t mean her career is over or that she’ll go off into obscurity or whatever. She’s still got plenty of time to find her next big thing, and it’s silly to imply otherwise because she’s had one show that has under performed. Just look at Nathan’s resume and how many duds he’s been part of.

Castle also wasn’t successful just because of him, people are kidding themselves with that, just like people who think Stana was the only reason it was successful. Castle was successful because of the BOTH of them. It was a show about a writer and his muse, where everyone waited on the two characters to fall in love. So you tell me how that was supposed to happen without the both of them.

Also, I don’t generally like any message that implies one of them is better than the other/people should celebrate the others failures. Maybe that wasn’t your intention, but that’s how I read it. And, for me, I’d rather just hope Stana finds a project that brings her as much success as Castle, even if Absentia wasn’t my cup of tea.

There’s no way to know, Anon. I tend to think that Stana’s casting didn’t make or break the show either way because, like it or not, most of her fans are going to live in the US and Canada. 

I’m not saying she doesn’t have fans worldwide - she definitely does - but her fanbase in Poland, for example, isn’t going to be near what it would be in America. So, for the most part, I think Absentia is moreso trying to sell itself on the type of show it is than anything else. If (or when, depending on what you believe) the show comes to America, I think Stana being in it would be a large part of the driving force to get people to watch it. 

No, because that’s just fandom. That type of behavior definitely isn’t exclusive to Stana or her fans, pretty much every actor or musician, movie or film is going to have that type of devotion from someone. 

Sometimes, loving something or someone so much makes you lose your objectivity. You just see that person, that character, that show and you love it so much that the idea of it having faults or it maybe not being the best thing ever is unfathomable. In my experience, that type of devotion is because there’s something in that actor or singer or tv character that speaks to you, maybe it’s because the character has something within themselves that you aspire to or that you understand because you’ve experienced the same things, maybe it’s just that the music someone creates speaks to you, or you are just entranced by how a person can inhabit another character and transport you. Sometimes it's just flat out emulation that you hope for or because you can watch a show, listen to an album, or read a book and that work just lets you forget about everything else in your life. 

Whatever it is, people have every right and every reason to love whatever they love for whatever reason they are drawn to it. I don’t think it’s funny at all, but rather that it’s one of the best things about being in fandom. 

But, at the same time, I think that people also have to understand that not everyone loves an actor, or a character, or a musician, or a show, or a movie, or an album like they do. Being in a fandom is an amazing thing, loving something fiercely and with your whole self is equally as great, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a dick if someone comes along and isn’t as enthused. Different strokes for different folks. Just leave them be, stay in your happy fandom bubble, and don’t attack others for feeling differently than you. 

Cool. But my question to that answer is this: is she speaking about the narrative that the writers have in mind, or is this a “yeah, we’ve already been told there’s another season and I know what direction the show is going in, as well.” It’s just sort of a vague answer. 

But thanks, Anon. I appreciate you sending that!