Bones: An Appreciation
Do you know what show I have been re-watching lately? Bones. Do you remember it? It stars former Buffy and Angel alum David Boreanaz (whose name I still have no idea how to actually pronounce) and Emily Deschanel, best known as Zooey Deschanel’s less annoying older sister. Fun fact about Emily: she is married to David Hornsby, AKA Rickety Cricket from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Yep, this guy…
Anyhoo. Bones first aired smack in the middle of the millennium, debuting on September 13, 2005. It was never a ratings monster and never placed within the top 25 and only once (season 6) cracked the top 30. It didn’t have a stable timeslot either, bouncing from Tuesdays to Mondays to Wednesdays to Thursdays and even Fridays for a bit. That probably didn’t help it. After 12 seasons, the show went off the air in 2017, which doesn’t seem like that long ago.
The show centers around the relationship between Dr. Temperance Brennan (Deschanel), a forensic anthropologist, and FBI agent Seely Booth (Boreanaz). There are some other characters in the show but honestly, most of their storylines stink and are not in any way why I watch the show. For me, it’s all about Booth and Brennan. The sexual tension between them was SOMETHING, baby.
Holy Toledo I need a glass of water.
Listen, this is not prestige TV. It’s not The Wire or Mad Men or Breaking Bad. But it’s a really good network procedural. Each week there’s a new victim whose murder needs solving. And guess what? The team at the Jeffersonian Institute (that’s where they work, a barely veiled reference to the Smithsonian) manages to solve pretty much every single one. The show is somewhat serialized, meaning events from one episode impact the following ones, but this was made back in the days of reruns and not streaming. With streaming, shows don’t have to worry about serializing impacting viewers who only tune in from time to time. There are a few story arcs that cross over (usually a serial killer) but it’s mostly made to be episodic.
The highlight of every episode is the performance Emily Deschanel gives as Dr. Brennan. It’s incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her act in anything else and honestly, it would be weird to see her play anyone else. She so completely embodies the role that if I ever met her IRL I might accidentally call her Bones (Booth’s nickname for her). There is so much to love about Deschanel’s characterization of Brennan that she really should have won some awards (the show has won 0).
Brennan is portrayed as fierce, intelligent, and self-sufficient. Yet she has these moments of incredible vulnerability. In some scenes, her eyes are wide and wild, like a caged animal. In others, tender and soft. Deschanel plays her as both a focused, accomplished woman and yet somewhat clueless as to how the world works. She understands reality and yet is withdrawn from it, finding refuge in academia and emotional isolation. It’s a terribly nuanced performance and I would recommend watching the show just for her.
There is plenty to dislike about the show. There’s this one character, Cam, who joins in season 2. She is absolutely the worst. If the writers were trying to get the audience to HATE this character then consider it a massive success. Other characters often produce many eye-rolling moments. Again, there’s a reason why the show was never a massive hit. There is often a Deus ex machina that solves the case for them, some new technology that couldn’t possibly exist. None of that matters. I don’t watch it to learn about real forensic science. I watch it for the interplay and romance between Booth and Brennan.
In all, the series produced 246 episodes (!!!) so there is going to be some rehashing and far-out plots. It is very much a creature of the time it was being made. One notable thing that seems to creep in around the 3rd season is the not-very-subtle product placements. The episode will be churning along and then you’ll find yourself in the middle of a Toyota commercial, learning about some exciting new features on the Prius. TV networks were concerned about time-shifting (using a DVR to record a show and then skip over the commercials) since most of their revenue came from ads. If viewers could just skip over ads, then what good are they to the products? To combat this, networks began experimenting with having commercials IN the show itself. It’s about as obvious as a boner in sweatpants when one of these starts. It pretty much ruins the scene.
Bones isn’t an amazing show. It’s not really even a great one, outside of the acting. But it’s a solid show, the perfect thing to put on and watch when there isn’t much else to do. It’s nice to escape into the will they/won’t they world of Booth and Brennan. What more could you ask for?