For many reasons, I really wanted to like the newest ABC crime drama, “Castle,” which has been promoted to death for several weeks and premieres at 9 p. m. Monday.

It replaces a manipulative reality show, “The Bachelor,” which this cycle ended with a disgusting stomach-turning twist that some reality show bloggers claim was scripted.

It co-stars two Canadians who deserve success. Stana Katic, whose roots are Croatian, is the sexy female lead who verbally spars with the handsome Nathan Fillion, late of “Desperate Housewives.”

One of the supporting actors is Lackawanna’s Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Finally, ABC deserves a scripted hit after audiences rejected two quality dramas, “Eli Stone” and “Life on Mars.”

But all you need to know about “Castle” has been played out in the enticing promos. It’s a show that is easy on the eyes and on the brain.

Fillion plays a wise-cracking, self-destructive, flirtatious, twice-divorced mystery novelist, Richard Castle. He think he is Lt. Colombo, “The Mentalist” or Tim Roth’s character in “Lie to Me” and can solve crimes better than the thin detective, Kate Beckett (Katic), he enjoys hitting on with his dry wit.

Castle has an advantage in Monday’s opener, since a series of murders are modeled after cases in his novels. He considers it an honor, which speaks to his political incorrectness. He is the kind of guy who solves crimes by looking for what would make the best story.

TV Reviews

“Castle”

Two and a half stars (Out of four)

Premieres at 9 p.m. Monday ABC

“Breaking Bad”

Three stars

10 p.m. Sunday AMC

The most amusing scene in the opener has Castle playing cards with real-life mystery novelists James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell (of “Rockford Files” fame) and discussing the incongruities of a case that was supposedly solved.

The rest of the hour is standard-issue stuff loaded with forced humor, forced sexual tension and forced family dialogue. Think “Moonlighting” with bad marriage jokes.

Santiago-Hudson is under-utilized as the one member of the force who believes Castle’s theories are worth hearing and teams Castle with a reluctant Beckett. Susan Sullivan also is aboard to chew the scenery as Castle’s diva mother, and Molly Quinn plays the obligatory advanced beyond-her-years teenage daughter, Alexis.

If “Castle” fails, there surely will be no mystery why. It is a formulaic comic-drama with a premise that was old when Angela Lansbury retired from “Murder, She Wrote.” By hour’s end, it makes last year’s ABC series from Patterson’s books, “Women’s Murder Club,” seem like an Emmy winner.

However, I still wanted to like it and tried a second episode available for review about the murder of a nanny. It would be a good story if I told you that it improved after clumsily establishing the premise in the pilot. Thankfully, it did. The episode had some decent twists to go along with the “Moonlighting”-like comedy and showed potential for improvement. Until it does, enjoy the scenery.

Drug money

Now on to something completely different — AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” which returns at 10 p.m. Sunday for a second season.

Bryan Cranston (“Malcolm in the Middle”) won last year’s Emmy as best dramatic actor for his role as the dying chemistry teacher, Walt White, who decides to become a producer of the addictive crystal meth to make enough money illegally for his pregnant wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), and teenage son, Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte), to live on after his death.

Walt is a good man doing an incredibly bad thing for a good reason, which makes rooting for him to succeed complicated to say the least. Of course, he and his young dumb former student and partner, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), aren’t exactly equipped to deal with the violent drug dealers they need to move the stuff. But Walt is a resourceful guy with chemistry skills that can overcome brute force.

Directed by Cranston, the opener is as dark, disturbing and violent as ever. It also finds Walt fearing for the safety of his pregnant wife and his son, who has cerebral palsy.

Meanwhile, Walt’s macho brother-in-law, Hank (Dean Norris), a DEA agent, has his own family problems with wife Marie (Betsy Brandt).

The season’s first three episodes have some extremely tense scenes that find Walt and Jesse’s lives in jeopardy. A hostage scene in the second episode is especially compelling. It manages to be both tense and humorous, thanks to an old relative of a violent drug dealer. He had a stroke and can’t speak but uses a bell to communicate and answer questions.

Hank is such an instinctive agent you can’t help but question why he isn’t on to Walt. But by the end of the third episode it appears that it is going to be increasingly difficult for Walt to continue to pull off his criminal charade.

It also is difficult to call “Bad” enjoyable entertainment because so many scenes in this beautifully filmed series are so disturbing that they overwhelm the occasional moments of dark humor.

But the performances—particularly by Cranston, Norris and Gunn, who plays Walt’s confused, concerned wife — make it interesting and intense viewing that is as hard to look away from as a tragic car accident.

Mystery solved

The recent hires by Time Warner’s 24-hour news channel don’t have any recognizable names, and there’s really no mystery why. Mike Igoe, who took a Channel 2 buyout recently, said he interviewed for a job at the channel, which premieres March 25. “Unfortunately,” said Igoe, “they wanted to pay me what I was making in 1983.”

To those who asked: Though ABC reportedly won’t renew “Life on Mars” for a second season, a network executive told a trade publication it plans to allow it to have an ending episode this spring.