Normally I wouldn’t allude to committing to writing a weekly blog about a TV show, but what I’m hoping to do is reflect on some of my favourite eps of random shows, so the titles won’t always be in order or anything. Last night was the season premiere of Bones, always delayed thanks to the World Series. If you’ve never watched the show and have any inclination, you should stop reading, go back to your knitting and catch me tomorrow in what I hope will be a thoughtful post about the 5th of November. SPOLIERS AHOY!
In this 7th season of Bones, we find our love-struck main protagonists, Dr. Brennan and Special Agent Booth, of the FBI, cohabitating in either of their places, the two having conceived before the end of the previous season. Only later in the episode to you realise whether the rest of the characters are aware of this or not, as the time it was revealed, it was not public knowledge.
Bones is a murder mystery show. It doesn’t deviate much from this premise from year-to-year. I myself didn’t get completely enamoured with the show until I started watching it for the male lead, David Boreanz, formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. I didn’t think much of the show at first, the idea is being duplicated by shows like Cold Case, CSI: Everywhere and Law & Order: Everything. What makes Bones so memorable, I learned, are the characters. I am sure that is a tired statement, but in all honesty, that is what really did it for me.
Dr. Brennan is very compartmentalised, she doesn’t allow her varying feelings to get in the way of her work. Booth isn’t just a tough guy, he has a soft side that he is always trying to convince Brennan with. The supporting characters are played by relatively unknown top-notch actors who embrace their roles. At first the romance between Hodgins and Angela seems destined to fail, but as the season closed last year, the two welcomed their first child. There is a rotating slot for different interns, each more eccentric or unusual as the last.
I wanted to provide some slight background before forging forward. The success for Bones also lies in one key element, the unrequited love between the two leads. So as the season started this year, I was concerned that it would go the way of X-Files and roll downhill from here, or as is sometimes stated, ‘jumped the shark.’ The show has always stayed true to its characters, showing them being true to form regardless of the varying situations. There is a great episode in Season 3 where Brennan and Booth are confronted with a court trial of Brennan’s father, and while you would think Booth would lie or refuse to testify, he gets on the stand and states she couldn’t commit murder but implicates her father, knowing the consequence of doing it.
In this season’s opener, we see the two characters together for much of the episode, and what follows is a curious dance, for a lack of a better word. What I didn’t expect was to see the characters develop themselves into a cohesive unit. When X-files did this, Scully and Mulder remained unchanged, holding to their true forms, but would it be unreasonable to assume that a romantic relationship would change that? Bones embraced this change, seemingly, having the two argue and fight over things that normal couples would fight over, staying true to form, but adjusting to the differing circumstances.
It is a strange thing to see the characters act like they are indeed in a relationship, when they’ve denied themselves the luxury for so long. While I can’t say it was an unmitigated success, I can have some slight hope that this won’t be the fat lady singing. The rest of the characters adjusted to the relationship, but there is a clear strain in all directions. I wonder if the shorter season will affect the overall show. I also hope that a dorsal fin isn’t on the horizon.
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