ABC Orders Bonus Episode of CASTLE

As first reported on EWonline, ABC has ordered one additional episode of its hit drama CASTLE. This will bring the total number of episodes for the season to 23. 

The show is currently on hiatus after airing it's last original episode this past Monday.  It will return on January 9, 2012 with all new episodes.  During the second half of the season, guest stars will include Hilarie Burton as a reality star and Jamie Ray Newman, who will guest star on an episode involving the wedding of the show's character's Ryan and Jenny. 

When viewers first met Richard Castle -- a famous mystery novelist and divorced father raising his teenage daughter, while being kept grounded by his Broadway diva mother -- he was creatively blocked. But when the NYPD questioned him in connection with a series of murders staged to imitate crime scenes from his books, Castle found inspiration in NYPD Detective Kate Beckett, a bright and aggressive homicide detective with a fascination for odd and offbeat cases stemming from the years-old unsolved murder of her own mother. Though they instantly clashed, sparks of another sort began to fly, leading both to danger and a hint of romance as Castle stepped in to help find the copycat killer. Once that initial case was solved, Castle and Beckett continued to investigate strange homicides in New York, combining Castle's writer intuition and Beckett's creative detective work.

Now, after three seasons, Castle and Beckett's relationship has grown even stronger as they've dodged bullets, captured killers and solved countless murder cases in their unorthodox partnership. But in the explosive Season 3 finale, NYPD Captain Roy Montgomery -- who we learned had a connection to the unsolved murder of Beckett's mother -- was shot and killed by a man tied to that crime. As the episode came to a close, Beckett, who was speaking about her Captain at his funeral, took a bullet from a sniper's rifle and was last seen on the ground with life fading out of her. 

CASTLE stars Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, Stana Katic as Detective Kate Beckett, Tamala Jones as Medical Examiner Lanie Parish, Jon Huertas as NYPD Detective Javier Esposito, Seamus Dever as NYPD Detective Kevin Ryan, Molly Quinn as Alexis Castle, with Susan Sullivan as Martha Rodgers. Joining the series for Season 4 is Penny Johnson Jerald ("24") as Captain Victoria Gates - aka "Iron Gates" and as by-the-book as they come - who instantly has an issue with Castle.

Photo credit: Eric McCandless/ABC

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