Yeah, the early 2000 was a weird time. It looked like the popular students at high school playing at being clever at the lab and streetwise in the slums, all the while looking fabulous. I enjoyed Castle, though, maybe because I'm very partial to Nathan Fillion
(I have to admit that the romance subplot was a bit tiring after some while), but only until season 7. Season 8 doesn't exist to me.
Ah, yes, I'm familiar with that show-induced existential crisis. Once upon a time I wanted to delve into the post-nuclear themed literature as a writer and decided to document myself. Watched a film called Threads (1984), which triggered some sort of a depression crisis on me. I though afterwards that I was a damn softie, and then I discovered that said film is one of the hardest ones to stomach ever, even after being hardened with other post-apocalyptic works, and that it still scares the hell out of people who watched it back in the day. Only recomend it if you trully want to see the raw horror of a post-nuclear event and what happens during a nuclear winter in the course of the following 13 years after the detonation (spoiler: is nightmare inducing and without a single spot for hope of any kind. Ever).
Long story short, I abandoned that genre altogether and never looked back. I prefer fantasy and happy endings, thank you very much.
Will start the series probably during these days. Lately only the Mandalorian has been able to keep me glued to the screen from start to finish on each episode, and I had to limit the watching because I didn't want it to end that quicky. Then I only have enough attention span for meme videos and fail compilations. In prior months it was because of tiredness, now it's because my brain is a mess.