TV Review :: Bones - Season 1

I used to make mix-tapes. Both when I was a kid and well into my early adulthood after mix-tapes underwent a small High Fidelity-inspired revival. I would spend countless hours trying to learn and develop the craft of making an excellent mix with flow, build, and a climax. These days I have smart-lists and the last of my tape-playing anything is in storage. I will vouch for the fact that making a good mix is somewhat of an art, provided that it's not just some crappy gift to a girlfriend to express how you feel. However, I can't recall a time I made a mix and thought "well.. I made an album." I hadn't created anything original, I just took some things and stuck them together like a collage.

Enter Bones. Quite possibly one of the most derivative shows ever put on television. It is, more or less, a mix-tape of many other things that were once fairly original. Think of it as, say, CSI: HOUSE FIL3S. Now, lifting from CSI isn't a huge deal since CSI put the procedural forensic science detective drama on the map as it's own genre. It's become so much of a TV hallmark that characters like Dexter, who's a forensic blood splatter analyst, don't even need their job explained that thoroughly to the audience. Forensic analyst now ranks with "Firefighter" or "Police Officer" as jobs that people recognize and understand by name. Not to mention that CSI eventually made sock a mockery out of itself that there's always room for improvement. I'm told by a chemistry-major friend of mine that the science involved with Bones is actually fairly accurate, so I can't fault them their concept. If the show's only plagiarism was being a post-CSI detective show, it'd be fine.

Unfortunately, it doesn't end there.
Aside from the individual cases the show, focuses on the adventures of and relationship between Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) who have the ol' science vs. instinct dynamic and romantic tension of, say, Dr. Dana Scully and FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder. Brennan herself is equal parts Scully (unrelentingly scientific), Dr. Gregory House (cold and uninterested in interpersonal relationships), and Mork (completely clueless about all things human.) I'd like to say Bones has at some point gone beyond those three archetypes, but... not really. There's nothing else to explain. She's a genius, science-driven space-alien without the slightest understanding of social nuances.

The rest of the team has some familiar dynamics as well. Dr. Jack Hodgins (T. J. Thyne) and Zack Addy (Eric Millegan) serve as the comic relief while pulling double-duty as the friendly-feuding back-up experts (think CSI's Nick Stokes and Warick Brown, but nerds.) Then there's Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin), who's the team's free-spirity facial recreation artists (over-emphasis on artist.) Montenegro serves as Bones' humanity adviser, as well as a foil to the geekiness of Hodgins and Addy. For the sake of grabbing another tv character for her... uh... lets go with Blanche Devereaux.


Impressively, the only character that isn't directly out of another series' playbook is Booth, who despite the fairly predictable introduction as old fashion tough-guy FBI agent, actually developed into something pretty unique over the first season. Booth never has the well-worn "oh he's a tough guy with a heart of gold" sudden moment of sensitivity moment, which is about the only thing in the show that's surprised me thus far (I have a good drinking game for the individual mysteries, but more on that later.) Perhaps as a huge credit to David Boreanaz who actually offers up the mildest degree of subtlety, Booth makes for a somewhat unique guy in the television landscape.

Most often with the jockish FBI agent, there comes some obvious turn where that's all a mask and deep down inside he's a sensitive guy with a heart of gold, not that Booth isn't, but there's no tacky "mask" element to it. We just come to understand the value of the jockish FBI agent instead of making it the two-dimensional facade of a three-dimensional character. Most shows focus too much on "the opposite being true" with a character. Big predictable moments where the tough-guy cries or the weak stand up for themselves against the more aggressive. Booth has moments of sensitivity, moments of heroism, moments of goofiness, and moments of Machiavellian cruelty, and none of them ever are an unveiling to some locked away personality, they're just aspects of a complicated character. Plus he wears silly socks.

He can also apparently hit a target with perfect accuracy via revolver at 75 yards... which is slightly less than realistic. But hey, sometimes people are TV are superheros. We just have to let it slide, right?

...no.

The individual stories are horrendous and the acting... my god.

Bones: The Drinking Game -

Every time Booth and Bones have an awkward, forced romantic moment, do a shot.
Every time a character mentions how Hodgins is a conspiracy theorist, do a shot.
Every time a character mentions how Montenegro is an artist, do a shot.
Every time there is unnatural exposition of the plot (as in, a character explains the plot to someone that should probably already know it,) do a shot.
and finally, wait ten minutes. for every minute AFTER minute ten you haven't figured out whodonit, do a shot and have someone punch you in the arm.

You'll find yourself drunk pretty quick. Well, except for on the last rule.

There show goes way, WAY, over the top in exposing who they want you to think the bad guy is, and without fail, that's never the murder. In a couple of episodes, the camera actually pans to someone with shifty eyes for several seconds and you're supposed to go "oh! it's them!" Then it comes as a surprise when the real killer is someone to whom you had no clues about. The reason it becomes so easy to guess, is that it's always the person with the least cause or evidence against them.

That's just poor storytelling. A good mystery is one in which you should be able to figure out the killer (or crook, whatever) by putting the picture together for yourself. You expose the reader/viewer to some clues or information that the protagonists aren't entitled to, maybe, thereby justifying why the reader figured it out but the good guys didn't get it as quickly, however you don't just make up some ass-backwards motive and spring it on everyone in the final scene.

In Bones this is more of a failure of the writing and directing than the acting I think. I mean, what's a guy supposed to do when they get the direction of "okay we're gonna pan to you. Look around all scared-like."

...shifty eyes, for god's sake.

Another issue is that we came to the goofy stuff way too early in the series. Within the first season, it's usually a bad sign if you've already gotten to lost pirate gold, voodoo magic, and ghosts. There's very little underlying serial storyline in the first season of Bones (this changes in subsequent season.) There's no main conflict other than that you get it drilled into your head how much you want Bones and Booth to knock boots.

In a good non-serial drama, there's always an element of serial to it. When the monster of the week is beaten, there's usually something bringing the viewer back. Something they want to know or see happen. House VS. the new head of the hospital. X-Files' entire myth arc. The serial-killer of the season in CSI.

In Bones, they think a (very) forced romantic angle is good enough. Brennan and Booth manage to cover all seven years of Mulder and Scully's tender moments into about a season, with nearly every episode concluding with either Bones or Booth doing something sweet for the other. The "will they or won't they" aspect of television has gotten to the point where it's almost expected. You scan through the cast of any pilot and go "okay, who am I supposed to hope bangs." And Bones is in no way subtle about the fact that you're supposed to be rooting for these two.

Part of what made the romantic aspects of The X-Files so perfect was that it evolved naturally. It took an entire season of the show for the main characters to even really warm up to eachother. There wasn't forced sexual tension because the characters didn't have to have an awkward conversation about sex every couple of episodes. Eventually they just loved eachother and we didn't have to have a scene explaining that they were together.

Bones (and many other shows) are like a clingy boyfriend that always need let you know where they stand. It always has to reinforce that the characters don't openly have romantic feelings about eachother while they exchange clumsy, cutesy glances.

The show gets slightly better later on, but I might have just invested so much time into the characters by this point that I've softened. Sort of like how if you listen to an album enough times, you'll eventually like it.

However, I wouldn't recommend you make the effort.

Nine out of a possible twenty-seven cubic centimeters.