Castle - "Target"

Two not-quite Firefly references in tonight's episode. We had a reappearance of the "two by two, hands of blue", but in this case it was Ryan and Esposito in the blue gloves, so I'm not sure it counts.

And the look on Nathan Fillion's face as Castle gets ready to torture the information out of the injured driver was Mal all over.

 At some point I'll get around to updating the other page with last week's reference. Gina Torres appeared in the episode "Reality Star Struck" as Penelope. She also played second-in-command Zoe Washburne on Firefly. I was a little sad she had no scenes with Nathan Fillion. And I didn't spot any direct Firefly references in the episode. Except, perhaps, the flipping of the table as a reference to Zoe's fighting skills, but that's something of a stretch. Did I miss anything?

Circus Arts

I toured with a circus for nearly three years when I was in my twenties and I still have a huge soft spot for a really good act.

I've never seen this piece of equipment used before. It's similar to the German wheel, which is two of these hoops joined together. There is a simplicity and a grace in this act that I really loved.

 

This next one is just stunning. It's an adaptation of the Chinese poles - in this case there's just the one pole. It's called the Vertical Tango.

Welcome!

It seems my site got a little plug on the boards at ABC.com's official Castle site. So, welcome to anyone who has wandered over from there. Make yourselves at home.


I'm looking forward to a new episode of Castle on Monday. Finally! Also, according to ABC.com, where I poked around after checking out the message boards, there will be some live-tweeting with Seamus Deaver and one of the costume designers starting at 10pm ET on Monday. I'm not actually sure what I feel about that, though. I wonder if it's distracting? Maybe watch the episode and then catch up on the tweets? We'll see.

This will probably be followed by some ranting from me about how Castle and Beckett are both grown ups and there's plenty of drama to be had in an actual relationship, so why don't they just SAY IT OUT LOUD, ALREADY! But, I'll save that for Monday.

Quick reaction to Castle "Setup"

Another Firefly reference! That's two in, what, three weeks? Not that I'm complaining. They still make me ridiculously happy. And it went to Martha this time. Spreading the love around.

I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow, so I'm heading to bed now. I'll update the list sometime tomorrow evening.

Exciting news

In addition to this blog, I do some travel writing. I submitted a short piece to trazzler.com and today I got the following note:

Hey kithica,

Our editors selected your trip as a "Trazzler trip." What does this mean? Out of hundreds of submissions, yours caught our eye. While all writing submitted to Trazzler is published and available on the site, only the very best are cherry-picked to go into the public tripstream on trazzler.com.

If you entered a writing contest [I did] or applied for a freelance assignment, having your trip promoted means that you are on our short list of potential winners/freelancers.

I'm pretty excited about this! And I welcome you to take a peek at the piece - it's only about 150 words, so it will be nice and quick. If you like it, please click on "Save" and I'll have a chance of winning the People's Choice Award.

Castle - "Lucky Stiff"

"Lucky Stiff" is the first new episode of Castle since we had the kiss in "Knockdown." The kiss clearly had some kind of impact on Castle, so going into "Lucky Stiff" I was most curious to see how the dynamic between Castle and Beckett was going to play out.

It's interesting. For the most part, they're clearly choosing to ignore the kiss. But, something has shifted. It's subtle, which makes me wonder whether it's Nathan Fillion bringing his own bit of character development to the episode, or whther it's something that was scripted.

Castle "Lucky Stiff" - another Firefly reference?

It wasn't Castle this time who had the line, it was Beckett, which is why I'm not quite certain it was an intentional reference.