Hybridization between the police genre and comedy in American television fiction. ‘Castle’ case study

Abstract

This article aims to approach current ways for genre hybridization as basic premise for innovation in American TV series. Especially, it focuses on the recent successful experiment, which began just over a decade, consisting in hybridizing police drama with comedy and humor. Also, it aims to show how, through the creation of a new main character with a personal and multidimensional background, the seriousness and stiffness characteristics of the genre are abandoned, giving way to fun and entertainment, more typical of sitcoms than the detective genre. So, the main character —specifically Richard Castle, from ABC series— is going to be analyzed in depth as well as his way of acting, thinking and speaking with the aim of exposing his comic nature in a totally dramatic context such as death and crime.

Keywords

• series televisivas
• ficción
• drama policiaco
• comedia
• protagonista
• Castle.