Right now, we're punch-drunk on dramas that slap us. Survive watching the final episodes of A Certain Show About Meth and it feels like you've been worked over by Mike Ehrmantraut in his prime. Homeland, at its best, twists up your insides until you can't breathe. Even simply trying to keep pace with every must-see series is an endless test of endurance.

It's brilliant that 21st century TV expects so much of the viewer, and takes so much out of us. But sometimes all you want is a show that's less of a tightrope and more of a hammock. Perhaps you find your screen laudanum in reality TV, or panel shows, or ITV2 (or ITV2+1).

Comfort-blanket shows tend to be a matter of personal preference, divorced from the breathless cultural conversation around the small-screen pantheon. Procedurals are perennial: I know people who could build a world-record Jenga tower out of their CSI box sets. Cultural gatekeepers ensconced in ivory towers have been known to champion cold-case quirkfest Bones. ITV2 has mythos-heavy, quip-laden Supernatural – admittedly, a show that inspires such breathless online devotion, it's probably more of a cult than a comfort blanket.

I'll put my cards on the table. After a hard day at the HBO coalface, I love to recline into Castle (Tuesdays, 10pm, Channel 5), a frictionless murder-and-patter delivery system starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. The premise is Moonlighting lite: Rick Castle (Fillion) is a moneybags thriller writer who engineers a perpetual NYPD ride-along thanks to his friendship with the mayor. Kate Beckett (Katic) is his exasperated babysitter, a by-the-book homicide detective who routinely kicks ass while looking amazing in trouser suits. Castle is divorced and loves lightsabers; Beckett is single and loves rolling her eyes at his man-child enthusiasm. Sparks fly (and not just from the lightsabers). In the US – where Castle generates respectable ratings for the ABC network – they've just started season six. Over here, we've barely dipped a toe into season three.

Perhaps that anti-buzz feeds into why I enjoy it so much, though there probably should be more of an online frisson about a forthcoming guest appearance by Lyle Lovett. Shows like Law & Order make a point of lifting plot ideas from sensational news stories; Castle's writers seem more interested in the magazine section, picking emerging trends to embroider each case of the week.

Castle is generally best enjoyed on its own in-jokey terms. In a nod to Fillion's early acting days on long-running US serial One Life To Live, Castle and Beckett investigate a murder on the set of a soap opera. There have also been multiple references to Fillion's signature role as bumptious space pirate Mal Reynolds in Firefly, including a Halloween episode where they just straight up let him put his old costume back on.

It's a TV show that knows it's a TV show, although I'm willing to concede that it might have a special appeal for the freelance writer – we rarely see Castle knuckling down over the keyboard. All his murder-solving with a sexy ladycop is a displacement activity twice over; once for him, and once for the viewer.

In any case, Castle will forever hold a special place in my heart because in the early running, it featured legendary TV producer Stephen J Cannell as part of Castle's regular poker night. Cannell, alongside other real-life masters of imagined murder such as James Patterson, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, would critique Castle's wackadoodle theories over hands of Texas hold 'em.

Cannell died in 2010, but during his long-running career, he was responsible for creating successful series like 21 Jump Street, The A-Team and – perhaps the ultimate amenable hangout show, The Rockford Files. Castle proudly continues that tradition, and I'll be there with my hot-water bottle for season six when it screens on Channel 5. Sometime in 2018.

• Is there a series that you watch for comfort food rather than cultural cachet? Let us know below.