Which TV dramedies do the best drama?

Image Credit: Adam Taylor/ABCThe first thing fans think of when they think of Castle is Nathan Fillion’s charm. The show wouldn’t have made it past season 1 without it. But after last night’s episode — in which Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (Nathan Fillion) dug deeper into her mother’s murder, and he not only watched a man die, but also pummeled the crap out of a guy before he could put a bullet in Beckett — you can’t deny Castle does good drama when it wants to. That two-parter last season with guest star Dana Delany and a serial killer obsessed with Nikki Heat was not a fluke. I would never suggest the series abandon its lighter side. It’s its trademark and fits Fillion as well as those button-down shirts do. But I can’t wait until the next time Beckett or he is a target. (SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t seen last night’s episode: Creator Andrew Marlowe confirms to EW the second kiss between Beckett and Castle was real. “And then the escalation of it, where you go right from that to Beckett being in danger and Castle having to do something extraordinary to save her. The depth of his emotion when he starts beating up on the bad guy — I think everybody in the audience will get what they’re silently communicating to each other,” he says. “It’s an extension of what they’ve been communicating to each other the whole time.” For more from the episode’s writers, read Sandra Gonzalez’s exclusive interview here.)

So, which TV dramedies do you think do the best drama? I’ll go ahead and vote for Bones, circa the “Aliens in a Spaceship” episode in which Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) were buried alive in Brennan’s car by the Gravedigger. As exec producer Stephan Nathan told me recently, “[The Gravedigger] was such an integral part of the show and such an integral part of allowing us to see aspects of our characters that we had never seen before. When they’re tested and put into a situation where their lives are in jeopardy, that’s when you really see the true character of these people. And we don’t have that all the time on Bones. We’re not 24. They’re not always in danger of being killed. We’re finding other killers.”

Your turn.