Take Two (2018)

Take Two is honest advertising. It’s the second grab at a winning premise, for the same network, no less. You deserve more.

Take Two is a lighter proposition than "Castle" eventually became--but Bilson and Cibrian are airier presences than their predecessors, and a lack of gravitas suits them. ... Take Two promises to be just that sort of enjoyable show, and if it brings nothing new to the table, that is the meal we have come for. To make too great claims for it would be in a way to insult its not-untasty flavor.

Created by the producers of "Castle" -- and conceptually just birthed from its rib -- Take Two is the slightest of crime procedurals, one that will live or die on the appeal of its stars. Fortunately, they're both adorable, which might not be enough to sustain an ABC series that might as well have been titled "Castle 2."

Light as air, not much more substance, "Take Two" is a genial "Castle" redo.

Take Two is Castle in a blender, but not a very efficient blender, so it's just big, gloppy, easily recognizable chunks of Castle, genders reversed.

As with Castle, this one will sink or swim on the banter and appeal of the two leads. Bllson grades a bit higher on these curves while Cibrian sucks it up and regularly swallows hard. ... Take Two comes nowhere close to matching the glories of ABC’s Moonlighting or NBC’s Remington Steele, both of whose odd couple crime solvers really rocked. Castle also fell well short of those two, but did pass ABC’s endurance test.

Take Two is a light crime procedural that's here to give you some pretty people to look at, some quips to chuckle at and a mystery to solve in a tidy 43 minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. It's weird that something so familiar and formulaic can feel like a breath of fresh air, but here we are.