3 gibbles out of 5
Directors: Various
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a cuter serious show than ‘Bones.’ Every character is quirky cute and mostly likeable, all of the interactions have a winky-winky cute cuteness to them, and even the premise is one big bundle of ‘aw shucks.’ It makes for pretty fun stuff to watch, but with every nod to the audience and then the overly cool soundtrack, you sort of shake your head at yourself for liking it.
Ah well.
‘Bones’ is supposedly based on the life of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. How closely her life ties into the show I’m not bothered enough to research, but it’d be cool if it were true: One of the Deschanel sisters plays Dr. Temperance Brennan, nickname Bones, cause that’s what she studies, ya’ll. She works for the ‘Jefferson Institute,’ which I was all set to think was real but apparently is… not. And the Jefferson Institute partners with the FBI to help solve crimes where the evidence requires some anthropological specialty. Enter David Boreanaz to play special agent Seeley Booth, who has one of those cool covert-ops pasts where he knows how to do a whole bunch of tricksy stuff and has killed people in funky ways.
Brennan and her team form a group of soon-to-be familiar faces, all with specialized roles at the institute. Bones creator (Hart Hansen) and writing team do an excellent job of individualizing these characters and making them believable in their roles as scientists, breaking through the trend of shows to have your stock serious character, stock funny character, stock weirdo and etc. All of these roles are fulfilled, but perhaps to balance out having one lead based on a real person, everyone seems to get the full personality and background treatment. Some talking faces around the office do exist, but the core cast is very well defined and are the stars of the show.
Your topics are mysteries of the week. They hit a nice stance between violence and science that the over-gored CSI can only pretend to do. But I have my nits, as I often do. Namely: a lack of consequences in the show. There’s rarely any doubt of survival, or winning, or a last minute save, which I understand is part of TV in general, but the illusion of tension if difficult to muster and ‘Bones’ doesn’t always get there. This wouldn’t be as apparent (and I wouldn’t mind it, since it’s just a fun show) if they didn’t try to step out of bounds every now and then and do something wacky where suddenly it’s our principles who are being targeted or buried or stabbed or whatever. It’s an okay method for trying to break out of the procedural genre, by expanding your story lines to include plot elements which affect the leads, but it casts an odd shadow over things when something massive happens to a character in episode A and then episode B we’re just back on the case.
Secondly: the music KILLS me. I’ve hated the hip soundtrack since it started happening on WB shows, or wherever it began. But those were teen dramas, so okay, fine. When it started popping up on your 25-45 or whatever demographic shows -I first recall hearing it on Lost – I wanted to stab my TV. Maybe we’re the Dawson’s Creek crowd grown up and so we expect to hear the next big hit playing during ‘Bones,’ but it bugs the dingle out of me because it rarely fits the style of show and I’m not fucking buying your soundtrack.
*pant* *pant*
So that’s it. It’s fun stuff, with some interesting science (I think…) thrown in every now and then, and a premise that’s a win. It’s also stupid cute, though, so woe be to anyone who has a crush on Deschanel because this ain’t gonna help.
Lots o' good lookin' people in the science world.
vaguely-offensive 