You hit the nail on the head, Marlowe and Co had a golden opportunity to reacquire the die hard fans interest but the failure to answer the who or why of his abduction and brainwashing and treating it as completely insignificant lost many a viewer.
For someone who once seemed to have his finger on the pulse of the fan base, to have completely misread two consecutive opportunities, maybe it is time to put this series to bed.
You make good points of the advancing of Becketts career and their future beyond the precinct would be a good way to wrap things up.

Let’s look at back stories for a moment. Solving Beckett’s mother’s murder was the backbone of the series and responsible for the fan support. Same is true for the Bracken story. The Casket love story was great except that the fans grew bored and left support of the series due to the time length of resolution. Same is true of the Castle disappearance. If Castle’s disappearance was important he could have resolved it in any one of several episodes. The whole issue defies logic. We accept people as they are without detailed explanation of their past – it is none of our business anyway. So why shoul I continue to watch the series to find resolution of a problem to which I have no interest. There are many more possible back stories out there such as Beckett advancing her career and becoming captain of her own precinct (which would also make for a safer life for her) so that she could have children and be around to care for them. Get with it team – find something that will grasp our attention and support by touching on it in nearly every episode as in the first two that I mentioned.

The first sweeps week were down, the second in Feb were lower. And I still believe had they had the gonads to serialize the first eight episodes and gone full throttle to solve RC’s abduction and brain washing the second sweeps would have at least matched the first, and that would’ve been much better in numbers and keeping with Castle Canon while satisfying the faithful. We have yet to see the effect the second sweep numbers have on this series.

let’s return to the bottom, this is compounding my mistake and making me crazy.

If a studio was interested in his idea and asked him to develop it, that makes things different. Many actors/actresses develop things on their own and then want someone to buy their idea or help them develop it. You didn’t tell me someone asked him to develop it. I have no problem that he wants to take advantage of his own marketability. I happen to like the other people in the show(and their characters) and the show would probably be over if he left. That’s the sad part.

The point of mentioning all the names is because a lot people not only want the show to come back, They want ALL the actors and actresses in the show to come back, which would be impossible without a humungous budget.

I didn’t Morena was in Gotham. Christina Hendricks was still in Mad Men(last I checked) and I know Jewel Staite is in something. I listed all those names because they were all in the original FIREFLY.

Micheal, my reply is at the top, I answered on my cell phone and failed to us the reply icon.