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Ellen Gray: ABC's 'Castle': 'Mentalist' lite

CASTLE. 10 tonight, Channel 6. WHO WOULDN'T want a piece of "The Mentalist"? CBS' latest hit police procedural, in which Simon Baker stars as a former fake psychic who now works with law enforcement, is personality-driven enough to attract even viewers who thought they couldn't look at another dead body.

CASTLE. 10 tonight, Channel 6.

WHO WOULDN'T want a piece of "The Mentalist"?

CBS' latest hit police procedural, in which Simon Baker stars as a former fake psychic who now works with law enforcement, is personality-driven enough to attract even viewers who thought they couldn't look at another dead body.

And then there's the charm of the talented outsider who uses his heightened skills of observation to teach the cops a thing or two, a tradition that goes all the way back to the considerably less glamorous Miss Marple.

Fox worked a bit of that into its latest drama, "Lie to Me," but invested star Tim Roth's character with a "House"-like grumpiness to match his truth-spotting brilliance. It hasn't hurt: "Lie to Me" is now one of only two new shows - the other being "The Mentalist" - to crack Nielsen's Top 20 among total viewers for the season to date.

But if you watch the CBS show more for Baker's sunny smile than for the way he always seems to know when people are lying, ABC's "Castle" might be more your style.

Nathan Fillion ("Firefly," "Desperate Housewives") plays best-selling mystery writer Richard Castle, whose grin is as wide as Baker's Patrick Jane and whose ability to get under the skin of the attractive police detective who finds herself working with him is, if anything, greater.

Stana Katic plays Detective Kate Beckett, who's been reading Castle's books for years, never dreaming that the guy who wrote them would someday become a thorn in her side.

They meet if not cute, then picturesquely, when Beckett's called to a scene where the body's covered with rose petals, sunflowers over the eyes, the way, she recalls, a victim had been decorated in one of Castle's books.

Hilarity and some crime-solving ensue.

Hilarity, mostly.

It helps that Castle's burdens are lighter than Jane's. Oh, he's killed off his main character, is fighting writer's block and is past deadline on his latest book. And, OK, his family isn't fully intact - he's divorced with a teenage daughter (Molly Quinn) and Susan Sullivan plays his eccentric actress mother, who lives with them - but at least said family hasn't been wiped out by a serial killer who likes to fingerpaint.

Not having to track a guy like that on the side leaves Castle with time for less-serious hobbies: womanizing, golf and playing poker with other best-selling writers (James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell sit in on tonight's game). Though Beckett doesn't know it, she's about to become one of those hobbies.

Katic is striking as the detective who's not so tired of dead bodies at the end of the day that she can't appreciate a good mystery, and she has chemistry with Fillion, who, like Baker, is the kind of actor who seems to have chemistry with anyone in possession of an XX chromosome.

(If you've only seen Fillion on "Desperate Housewives," you haven't really seen him.)

His character's far less of a grown-up, though, than Baker's, and so has been issued one of those Rory Gilmore-like offspring to remind him, for instance, that it's not actually appropriate to be offering champagne to a 15-year-old, much less regaling her with tales of his own misspent youth.

What is appropriate: That "Castle" is premiering right after "Dancing With the Stars."

Because this is one show that's very, very light on its feet. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.