Castle's unexpected cancellation nearly left fans and the creative team with nothing but a cliffhanger. What the heck happened and why?
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00:00Castle's unexpected cancellation nearly left fans and the creative team with nothing but
00:05a cliffhanger.
00:06What the heck happened, and why?
00:08The writers of Castle planned on getting the green light for Season 9.
00:12Because of this, they created a story where Beckett and Castle are attacked and gunned
00:15down in their home.
00:16The season was meant to end with both Castle and Beckett lying in a pool of their own blood,
00:21with their fate left up in the air.
00:23While that would have made for a good season finale, the fate of the cliffhanger was already
00:27revealed.
00:28Beckett would succumb to her injuries, as Stanna Caddick was not slated to return for
00:32Season 9.
00:33The actress had been unceremoniously fired.
00:35Good night, Castle.
00:38Keep me in a vacant lot in the Ivys.
00:42This came as a surprise.
00:43The entire premise of the series was built around the relationship between Castle and
00:47Beckett.
00:48I'm still amazed at the depths of your strength, your heart, and your hotness.
00:57It's because of her that there are murders to solve it all.
01:00Caddick's firing wasn't received positively by longtime Castle fans, as the entire point
01:04of the show would change with her death.
01:06You're the best that I've ever trained, maybe the best I've ever seen.
01:11But you weren't having any fun before you came along.
01:16Luckily or not so luckily, depending on whom you ask, Castle was canceled, so audiences
01:20never saw a season without Beckett.
01:23Before it was revealed that Season 8 would be the final season for Castle, the series
01:27was gearing up to go in an entirely new direction.
01:30With the death of Stanna Caddick's Detective Beckett, the premise of the show was going
01:33to shift.
01:34Season 8 had already laid groundwork for this change, as Castle stopped working with the
01:38NYPD Homicide Department.
01:39In order to appease his interest in all things murder, he opens his own P.I. business, where
01:44his daughter Alexis, played by Molly Quinn, works with him.
01:47Oh my God, this turned out so much cooler than I thought it would!
01:54He's also working with a new female protagonist, Hayley Shipton, played by Toks Olagundoye,
01:59a former MI6 operative who's moved into the security business.
02:02Oh, I hope you don't mind just giving her some P.I. lessons.
02:05Hayley was teaching me the art of manipulating men.
02:07She was clearly meant to be a Beckett replacement for the show if it continued into Season 9.
02:11According to Entertainment Weekly, had Castle been renewed, it would have revolved around
02:15Castle's P.I. business as he hunts his wife's killer.
02:18It's likely that Castle would have uncovered a large conspiracy revolving around Beckett's
02:23death.
02:24Castle 7 and the show would be out for blood, which would allow Castle to include all previous
02:27main characters, such as Detective Javier and Detective Ryan, in the reconfigured series.
02:33Season 9 could have shown how Castle's search for vengeance would take him down a dark path,
02:37but it's likely that by the end of the season, Castle would have found some form of closure.
02:41It's been suggested that Castle stars Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic didn't get along,
02:46and that friction is why Katic was fired.
02:48Yeah, well, your inspiration might strike you sooner than you think.
02:53An inside source spilled to Hello!
02:55Magazine just how bad the castmates' relationship was.
02:58The actors wouldn't speak to each other outside of filming, and Katic could often be found
03:02in tears in her dressing room.
03:04According to the insider, the crew encouraged the co-stars to go to therapy to resolve their
03:08intense dislike of one another.
03:09U.S. Weekly also reported the on-set tension.
03:12Another insider claimed that Fillion was horrible to his co-star, while Katic just wanted to
03:16get her job done without complications.
03:18Yeah, well, things have never been easy between you and me.
03:23While neither Katic nor Fillion has ever commented on these rumors, the fact that they haven't
03:27refuted the reports speaks volumes, especially in light of Katic's surprise firing from the
03:32series.
03:33Katic was reportedly blindsided by Castle's decision to terminate her contract.
03:37At the time, however, the actress remained professional and didn't comment on her relationship
03:40with co-star Nathan Fillion or the show's sudden ending.
03:44After some time had passed, Katic shared with News Corp that she was proud of her work on
03:48the show and how special her character Beckett was, and that she was hurt and confused by
03:52the way it all ended.
03:53She told the Daily Mail,
03:54"...it would be a disservice to the work that I did, which I feel partly contributed to
03:58the success of the show, if I looked back on it and was anything but grateful for the
04:02awesome run."
04:03Katic shared with Entertainment Weekly that she found her ending with the series harsh
04:07and that she was still unclear as to what happened between her and the network.
04:10However, she chose to look back fondly on her experience and on the people that she
04:14met while working on the set.
04:16Just tell us, Dana, what was the drama between you and Nathan Fillion?
04:19Spill the tea!
04:21Alexei Howley says they always had a contingency plan just in case the show didn't get renewed.
04:27While season 8 of Castle was airing, the network had yet to announce there would be a season
04:309.
04:31In fact, the cast and crew were not made aware of the network's decision to pull the plug
04:35until close to the season 8 finale.
04:37Howley told Entertainment Weekly,
04:39"...if we hear that we're not coming back, we have shot something that we can put at
04:42the end of the episode as a way to put a button on everything."
04:46It wasn't something the crew wanted to do.
04:48They were hopeful Castle would be renewed, which would allow the series to tackle the
04:51characters' pursuit of vengeance over Beckett's death.
04:54According to Howley, they shot a final time jump scene to appease fans, as they didn't
04:58want to leave them with questions, but co-showrunner Terrence Paul Winter shared with Entertainment
05:02Weekly that his hope was that it would never see the light of day.
05:06Sadly, it did.
05:07The clip jumps seven years in the future and features voiceovers from Castle and Beckett.
05:11The two are very much alive, thriving, and still in love.
05:14They even have a house full of kids, proving that they still make a great team.
05:19At the end of season 6, Castle's original showrunner, Andrew Marlowe, stepped down.
05:23"...we have a great lead producer, Andrew Marlowe, who loves women.
05:28And so I think he loved letting her shine as a woman in the end."
05:31Marlowe went out with a bang.
05:33The season 6 finale showed Castle being kidnapped on his wedding day.
05:36It was a punch to the gut.
05:38Audiences thought they were finally getting a happy ending, only to have the dream snatched
05:41away.
05:42Season 7 was the beginning of the end for Beckett and Castle's relationship, as they
05:46were constantly tested and pulled apart, almost as though the writers were no longer planning
05:50to have them end up together.
05:51Which, well, they weren't.
05:53The writers planned to kill Beckett off.
05:56Before leaving Castle, Marlowe described the series as a love story wrapped in a procedural.
06:00However, seasons 7 and 8 veered drastically from that concept.
06:04The show began to focus more on the characters of Castle and how he flourished without Beckett.
06:09Will-they-won't-they relationships are staples in television.
06:12Like The Vampire Diaries, Scandal, or even Friends, audiences yearned for these couples
06:16to wake up and get together.
06:18From the first moment of Castle, it was clear that Richard Castle was into Detective Kate Beckett.
06:22"...the guy is crazy about you.
06:25And despite your little act, you're crazy about him."
06:29Whether she was interested in him remained to be seen.
06:32While it was obvious that the two would be the endgame, their romance wasn't necessary.
06:36While Castle and Beckett were the glue holding the series together, their relationship didn't
06:40need to turn into Bones and Booth from another similar cop drama, Bones.
06:44They could have followed the Mulder and Scully model instead.
06:46The two didn't need to become a couple for the show to work, especially since they're
06:50separated by other romantic partners by the fear of admitting their feelings or by jobs
06:54in different cities.
06:56Beckett and Castle hardly ever share scenes in season 8, as Beckett's off taking part
07:00in a secret mission.
07:01And don't even get us started on that time Castle straight-up disappeared on their wedding
07:05day.
07:06"...why are you shutting me up?"
07:07"...Castle, I love you."
07:08"...Kate, Kate!"
07:14Because of all this drama, the couple's happy ending feels rushed.
07:17Audiences rarely saw them happy together over eight seasons, so it's hard to believe that
07:20seven years later, things are picture perfect.
07:23Maybe the writers had the right idea when they planned to kill Beckett off.
07:26The seven-year time jump tacked on at the end of season 8 meant to make fans happy.
07:30After everything Beckett and Castle go through, the show does a 180 and lets them live out
07:34their lives together happily ever after.
07:37"...Every writer needs inspiration, and I found mine."
07:41This was the original concept for Castle's first showrunner, Andrew Marlowe.
07:45Marlowe stepped down after season 1 through 6.
07:47He had some standout episodes during his time, but it's season 6, episode 5 that shines when
07:52considering the series' end.
07:54The episode is titled, Time Will Tell, and plays into one of Castle's fantastical ideas
07:58surrounding a case.
07:59He and Beckett encounter Simon Doyle, who claims he's a time traveler sent back to stop
08:04a terrible event from unfolding.
08:05"...Look, I'm a temporal anthropologist.
08:07What we do is we travel back in time and we study culturally significant errors."
08:11Naturally, Castle is all in when Beckett has no time to engage with Doyle's apparent delusions.
08:16By the end of the episode, Doyle shares with Castle that he and Beckett are married in
08:19the future with three kids.
08:21"...Real charmer, that one.
08:22Can't believe you marry her."
08:26Beckett is a senator, and Castle is now an author of serious literature.
08:30While this is a fun way to end the episode, the time jump in the series finale seemingly
08:33confirms Doyle's prediction — at least on the kid front, as Beckett is seen chasing
08:37around three kids in her home with Castle.
08:40Poor ratings are usually the biggest driver for giving a show the axe.
08:43If a series isn't bringing in enough viewers, it's not doing its job, and networks use that
08:47as an excuse to cut ties with a series.
08:49While this can sometimes happen too soon, as with Firefly, Castle is lucky enough to
08:53have run for eight successful seasons, even if some were praised more highly than others.
08:58According to CBR, the lower ratings from Castle season 8 heavily contributed to the series
09:02being canceled.
09:03In fact, viewership had been declining over the previous few seasons.
09:07It seems as though season 8 was the final straw for the network, as they no longer had
09:10faith that the show would bring in the big numbers that it used to.
09:14"...I thought that you would…"
09:16"...Just take you back, in spite of what you put me through."
09:22Season 8 of Castle was averaging under 10 million viewers per episode, and if that sounds
09:26like a lot, the highest viewership for the network at the same time was over 13 million.
09:31Season 8 saw the show's lowest-ever numbers, which had been dropping significantly since
09:35the new showrunners took over.
09:36This could be a direct result of the show moving away from the Castle-Beckett romance
09:40and more into a Castle-centric story.
09:42"...It is time to get back in the Richard Castle business."
09:46"...Oh, well, thank you, I'm flattered."
09:48Due to the decline in viewership, Castle was slated for major budget cuts if season 9 were
09:53to move forward.
09:54According to CBR, the only way another season of Castle would have been greenlit was if
09:58the show were able to significantly reduce the amount of money it was spending on production.
10:02"...A studio goes and casts the brawless coed in blood-soaked t-shirt from Knife 2?"
10:08This may have contributed to Stana Kaddik's dismissal from the show, as both Kaddik and
10:12co-star Tamela Jones, who played Dr. Laney Parrish, were asked not to return for season
10:169.
10:17According to CinemaBlend, in 2016, Kaddik was revealed to be one of the highest-paid
10:21actresses on television.
10:22This would have been right around the time season 8 of Castle was filming.
10:25Kaddik's negotiated salary landed her at approximately $12 million per season, based
10:29on the one-year contract she signed after filming wrapped on season 7.
10:34With budget cuts looming and plans on moving the story away from Castle and Beckett's romance,
10:38cutting out a $12 million-plus salary is one sure way to do it.
10:42Unfortunately for the crew, this wasn't enough, and Castle was still canceled.
10:45Luckily, Beckett and Castle got the ending they deserved, which happens to be the one
10:49that original showrunner Andrew Marleau always envisioned.
10:55And that's all for now.
10:56Thanks for watching.
10:57See you next time.