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My brother warned me not to eat and watch Bones at the same time— because they show some gruesome stuff in each episode. One night, though, I found myself laughing, as I munched on potato chips and a barbecue sandwich, while watching forensic anthropologists examine a body that had been tied up at an old warehouse. Hungry dogs had been allowed to feast on her, and the body was mostly decomposed. I guess I’m not as squeamish as I thought.
Bones is based on real-life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. Though the episodes are fictional, the state-of-the-art criminal investigation procedures aren’t, and you get to learn all kinds of neat things—if you can understand what they mean.
David Boreanaz stars as Seely Booth, an FBI Agent who teams up with forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) of the Jeffersonian Institute to solve bizarre murder cases. Often, all that’s left of the victims is their skeletons, but Dr. Brennan can find clues left behind in their bones. She can determine if they were athletic, a dancer, had been sick, had broken a wrist on a playground twenty years ago, and so much more.
Booth gets his clues from suspects and witnesses. He knows how to deal with the living and relate to them on an emotional level. His investigative methods clash with Dr. Brennan’s on a daily basis—she relies on facts, while Booth relies on a combination of facts and his gut. He’s the liaison between the squints (super intelligent people) and the average viewer—because just about the time he’s giving Dr. Brennan a blank stare or asking, “What does that mean?” I’m thinking, What in the heck did she just say?
I really love Booth. He believes in letting go and having fun whenever appropriate. Everything about life doesn’t have to be clinical or wrapped up in a neat box of rationality. He believes some things can’t be solved or explained with just the facts. He’s warm-hearted, but tough, and passionate about putting murders behind bars.
I find it very hard to like Dr. Brennan, though. She doesn’t believe in anything extraordinary. If it can’t be weighed and measured or put under a microscope to study, it’s not real. She’s cold, aggressive, and fearless to the point of stupidity. Whenever someone makes a reference to a movie in a joking manner, she says, “I don’t know what that means.” At first I thought it was funny, but then it got annoying. How can anyone be that personality deficient? She doesn’t work well with people, and Booth is constantly clearing his throat to warn her not to give out too much information. A victim’s family doesn’t need to know—and probably doesn’t want to know—the grisly details of their loved one’s death.
Bones doesn’t really have an ongoing plot, so episodes can be watched at any time, in any order. The cases are bizarre, making each episode an absorbing watch. In one episode, Dr. Brennan wakes up on her bathroom floor, beaten and bleeding, with no recollection of what she did the day before. When they find a fellow doctor skinned and hanging from the wall cross-like, she becomes a suspect in a murder investigation and has to use her expertise as a forensic anthropologist to clear her name.
Other episodes of interest include: a human hand found inside a bear’s stomach in a town where tourists go missing on a regular basis, artifacts from the Civil War believed to be hidden in the city’s sewer system, and an airplane crash where some of the bones found at the site don’t match any of the victims.
I probably wouldn’t like Bones if it weren’t for Booth, since Dr. Brennan often ruins the show for me. I do realize she has to be somewhat cold to distance herself from the victims in order to do her job, but couldn’t they have at least given her a better personality? However, I enjoyed the first season of Bones because of the fascinating cases they solve, and you will, too, if you can overlook some of the members of the team—and if your stomach can handle some of the more macabre aspects of the show.
