'Castle' Season 8 News: Are We At 'Transitional' Point For Series, Possibly Nathan Fillion & Stana Katic?
ABC's Castle is in a transitional period, according to one of the new co-showrunners.
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Alexi Hawley, who now co-runs Castle with Terence Paul Winter, spoke at ABC's TCA party over the weekend about the future of the show. With contracts still on a one-year basis for both Nathan Fillion (who plays Castle) and Stana Katic (Beckett), there is still uncertainty regarding if either star will want to return for a hypothetical season 9.
"We're definitely getting to a point where we need to figure out what Episodes 21 and 22 are, which is why we are having these discussions now," Hawley said, via Deadline.
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With season 8 being relatively serialized compared to past seasons, Hawley said that the series would go back to a more case of the week format in season 9.
"This season was a little bit of a transition, getting Castle into the PI office and setting that world up for him to give him that drive," Hawley said. "We wanted to wrap up a lot of the threads of different conspiracies, Beckett's mother's murder, Castle's missing time. We wanted by the end of Season 8 to have gotten through all those - hopefully in a compelling and satisfying way - so Season 9 can be more about the case of the week, going back to the fun of solving the case of the week and not have the luggage of past conspiracies."
Of course, Hawley still wants Fillion and Katic to return for season 9.
"We feel like the show has a lot of life left in it, and we want it to be with the same cast going forward," he said.
ABC has yet to make a decision on whether to renew Castle for a ninth season.
Castle returns for the second half of season 8 on Monday, Feb. 1 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
