Fox // 2005 // 946 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Judge Cynthia Boris (Retired) // December 4th, 2006
"I don't know what that means."
-- Brennan in nearly every
episode, in response to any one of a hundred pop culture references.
Fifteen years ago, TV viewers didn't have a clue, nor did they want one, when it came to the science of forensics. They preferred to see their cops solve crimes the old-fashioned way, with clever questions, fanciful disguises, and car chases. C.S.I. changed all of that and Bones changed it again. This isn't your mother's forensic detective show; this is one with humor and heart.
Based on the books of Kathy Reichs, Bones is actually the lovely but socially lacking Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel, Glory Road). A forensic anthropologist, she lends her skills to wildly creative FBI agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz, Angel) and helps solve crimes that begin with particularly mangled or decomposed corpses. Brennan has a team of brilliant but quirky "squints" (Booth's nickname for the science geeks), which includes young, socially inept Zack Addy (Eric Millegan), paranoid bug and slime expert Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne), and the one bright bulb in the box, forensic artist Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin).
In the first season, Brennan's boss is played by Jonathan Adams (American Dreams) and Booth's boss is John M. Jackson (JAG).
Though the show is named for Deschanel's character, it's truly a dual star show, with she and Boreanaz sharing the screen time and that -- right there is the joy of the series. Come, let me tempt you to Fox side.
To get the feel for Bones, you need to simply listen to the music they play. Like the show, the music has a dual signature. There's the techno, which is used for the theme as well as in the episodic soundtrack, and there is the emo rock, which is often used under "discovery" montages. Techno-Emo. That describes the show quite well. It's an interesting mix of detective work and pure human emotion.
Each week Booth delivers a new set of bones for Bones to examine. You gotta give creativity points to the writers for coming up with odd ways to present skeletal remains as well as situations that require the assistance of the FBI. Some of the crime scenes are gruesome and some viewers may have trouble with the shots of bugs, rotting flesh, and detailed murder descriptions. To keep the show from going to a dark place, these scenes are usually softened with comedic banter. For example, while Bones examines the remains of a young woman who was tied up, sliced open, then left to be mauled by vicious dogs, Booth carries on about her new interest in online dating. The incongruity of it makes the scene so much more real and that, I believe is the key to this show. These people are real, quirky, true, but I like them as people.
While Booth and Bones are passionately invested in what they do, they both hide their emotions under the guise of, "I'm just doing my job." The character of Angela (the forensic artist and Brennan's best friend) is the emotional center for the group. She laughs, cries, flirts, she draws a smile on the sketch of the victim because the woman was pregnant and starting a new life in a new country so she should have been happy. She's the balance point between Booth and Bones and she's the only person who truly understands both sides of every story.
Emotions. That's what I keep coming back to as I write about this show. There's a heck of a lot of 'em here, and I cry like an idiot at the end of one out of every four episodes. Bones isn't just about solving the mystery. It's about people. Why people kill. How survivors survive. How the family of the victims cope with the loss. It's about people trying to make a difference in the world and people paying penance for what they did wrong. The weekly mysteries are only half of the story. Booth and Bones are both puzzles in themselves, and over the course of the season so many secrets are revealed (and so many are left uncovered).
I was a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I was very familiar with David Boreanez's work. When I heard he was playing an FBI agent in an emotional crime drama, I didn't think he had it in him. I was wrong. He rocks the role of Seely Booth, giving him depths of character that constantly surprise me. He's funny. He's charming. He's goofy and then...wham...he's got a dark side that you don't want to mess with. Yeah, the show is called Bones, but Booth and Bones would have been more accurate.
Take at look at what you get in this box set.
Disc One
* "Pilot"
It may not be unusual to find a body in Arlington
Cemetery, but this one was weighted down at the bottom of a pond. Quick
introductions to all of the leads set the tone of this pilot episode, which has
overtones of the Chandra Levy case.
Grade: B+
* "The Man in the SUV"
What looks like terrorism might
actually be a lover's revenge...or maybe it is terrorism...or maybe not. A bit
too complicated, but the last few minutes are tense and exciting.
Grade:
B-
* "A Boy in a Tree"
Lots of twists and turns in this story
of a student found hanged in a tree at a prestigious private school. Suicide or
murder?
Grade: B
* "The Man in the Bear"
Booth and Bones travel to the other
Washington to investigate skeletal remains that turned up inside of a bear. The
town's cast of quirky characters makes this one fun to watch, but the quick
wrap-up left me with some unanswered questions.
Grade: B
* "A Boy in a Bush"
This one was hard for me to watch for
all the right reasons. As the team investigates the murder of a young boy, they
all have to come to terms with the emotional impact of dealing with their
youngest victim to date. Booth has some difficult decisions to make in this one,
and Boreanaz plays all the levels just right. Sad and moody, it gets an
A.
* "The Man in the Wall"
Trouble follows Bones wherever she
goes, even to a nightclub where she finds a mummified body and a stash of drugs
behind a wall. The highlight here is seeing the usually cold and factual Bones
high from accidentally inhaling cocaine. Beyond that, the plot is a bit too
convoluted.
Grade: B-
Disc Two
* "The Man on Death Row"
This hard-hitting episode has Booth
second-guessing himself when a man he sent to death row is about to be executed.
The man claims he's innocent, and Bones and her crew give up their weekend to
give Booth some peace of mind. The ticking clock at the bottom of the screen
adds an extra dimension of tension to this episode, and the last fifteen minutes
is full of surprises.
Grade: A+
* "The Girl in the Fridge"
The forensic plot is to discover
the whodunit and why when they find the remains of a teenage girl in an old
refrigerator. The larger plot deals with Brennan's ex-teacher/lover who wants to
prove her wrong in front of a courtroom full of people. Lots of nice touches in
this one.
Grade: B+
* "The Man in the Fallout Shelter"
Merry Christmas? The
entire group is quarantined in the lab over the holidays when Booth brings in an
old corpse (nice gift) for Bones. Sappy and sentimental, the mystery takes a
back seat to the characters as Angela tries to make merry and Brennan slips into
a deep holiday depression. I cried like an idiot.
Grade: A+
* "The Woman at the Airport"
Boring tale that is one big
Hollywood joke when Booth and Bones fly to Los Angeles to discover the identity
of a woman who was addicted to plastic surgery. Penny Marshall cameos in an
annoying subplot about Bones' book being made into a movie. The only saving
grace here is some incredibly artistic camera shots with inventive use of
lights, colors, and shapes. The visuals are much more interesting than the story
being told.
Grade: C
* "The Woman in the Car"
A woman is killed and her son
kidnapped presumably to stop the boy's father from testifying in a federal case.
The crew has plenty of hurtles to jump in order to find the boy, not the least
of which is an agent doing security screening interviews with Bones' people. The
last twenty minutes takes hold and wow -- David Boreanaz just steals the
show.
Grade: A-
* "The Superhero in the Alley"
Bones and Booth investigate
the suicide or murder of a comic book writing teen who dies wearing his
superhero costume. Some interesting twists on the whodunit end and another
touching ending. (They slay me with these, over and over and over.)
Grade:
B
Disc Three
* "The Woman in the Garden"
Why did the Salvadorian gang
member dig up a dead body or two? There are a couple of thrilling moments here,
but overall this is a slow-moving tale.
Grade: C
* "The Man on the Fairway"
Unusual story that begins with a
small plane crash involving foreign dignitaries, but turns into a mystery about
a man long missing and his son who has made a living out of finding out the
truth. Connections to Bones' past and the squints' clumsy attempts to
smokescreen the boss are interesting, but it's the pig in the woodchipper that
really takes the cake.
Grade: B
* "Two Bodies in the Lab"
Adam Baldwin (Firefly)
guests in this story that has a gunman after Brennan. But is the Mafia victim on
the slab, the grisly remains of a serial killer's victim, or her new boyfriend
that has a target on her back? Boreanaz and Deschanel do the commentary on this
one and it's a hoot, but be sure to watch the episode first before switching on
their talk track.
Grade: B+
* "The Woman in the Tunnel"
This unusual story deals with
the shadow society that lives in the tunnels beneath Washington DC. A
documentary filmmaker turns up dead but is it her film or something much more
valuable that caused her to take the ultimate fall?
Grade: B
* "The Skull in the Desert"
Angela takes the lead in the
story of her boyfriend gone missing in the desert. Some nice bonding moments
between Angela, Brennan, and Booth, and the ending with its emo music overlay is
both lovely and sad.
Grade: B+
* "The Man with the Bone"
Argh! It's pirates, matie! Hodgins
and Booth bond over this tale about possible pirate treasure and the murder of
the treasure hunter. Some nice twists, but one large one is just too much of a
coincidence for me.
Grade: B-
Disc Four
* "The Man in the Morgue"
Brennan is in New Orleans helping
identify Katrina victims when she wakes up covered in blood. She can't remember
the last two days, but it looks like she may have murdered a man thanks to a
voodoo curse. Quite gruesome in spots, the highlight of this one is Brennan's
comparisons of Booth's Catholic beliefs with the beliefs of the voodoo
followers. "Jesus was not a zombie."
Grade: B+
* "The Graft in the Girl"
An excellent episode that I just
can't watch. The daughter of Booth's boss is dying of cancer and Brennan
discovers that the cancer may be the result of a contaminated bone graft. There
are no happy endings in this one, as Angela helps the dying girl see the world
through her art, while Booth tries to put the negligent tissue lab out of
business.
Grade: A
* "The Soldier on the Grave"
Get out the tissues again. This
one is about a soldier found burned to death in Arlington Cemetery. What looks
like a war protest turns out to be a cover-up. What really happened in Iraq hits
a bit too close to home for Booth in another very poignant episode.
Grade:
B+
* "Woman in Limbo"
The season finale begins with an unlikely
coincidence. The skull the team is working to identify belongs to Brennan's
mother, who disappeared when Brennan was a young teen. Once you get past that
unlikely scenario, there are plenty of interesting twists as Booth begins to
solve the mystery of the missing parents. There is a slight cliff-hanger at the
end, but nothing that made me want to throw a shoe at the TV, so no reason to
hold off watching it.
Grade: B
The special features on this disc aren't really all that special. There are two commentaries, Hart Hanson and Barry Josephson on the pilot and David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel on "Two Bodies in the Lab." Both are interesting for different reasons. The actors have more fun (are they drinking?) and it's nice to hear a more natural Deschanel. And she and I were both amazed by Boreanaz's powers of recall as he recalled detail after detail about that particular shoot.
The featurette "Bones -- Inspired by the Life of Forensic Anthropologist & Author Kathy Reichs" is a fast-paced look at how Kathy Reichs influenced the show and the character of Brennan. Though there are episode clips, it's pretty much spoiler free.
"Character Profiles" are nothing but static screens with bullet point lists of the facts we know about each of the characters. Boring.
The "Squints" featurette is another fast-paced montage that takes a closer look at the people on Bones' team. Well edited and fun, but there are a few spoilers if you haven't watched all the episodes.
"The Real Definition" featurette seems like a good idea, but in reality it doesn't work all that well. The feature takes several complicated terms from the series, defines them, shows their usage in the real world, then how they relate to the crimes on the show. Lots of spoilers here and not very interesting to watch.
There is really nothing to dislike here, except maybe double-sided discs that had a tendency to freeze and pixelate. If you're a first time viewer, don't be put off by Brennan's early coldness and overly inflated self-defense skills. Her character evens out after a bit and it's worth the wait.
Bones makes me cry on a regular basis and when was the last time you heard that about a forensic crime drama? What this series does exceptionally well is change gears. If the scene is too grisly, we switch to funny. If the scene is light, throw 'em a killer curve. Cold and clinical, time for a emotional and poignant moment. It's not just the weekly mystery that will keep you guessing. The show is full of surprises, and the biggest surprise is the chemistry between Boreanez and Deschanel -- they're Tracy and Hepburn as modern crime fighters and the subtleties, the layers -- they slay me every time.
Booth is ready to declare this series not guilty, but Bones says that's pure speculation on his part. She's waiting for Angela's sketch, Hodgins' bug report, and Zack thinks he found an anomaly on the third disc that could be significant.
Review content copyright © 2006 Cynthia Boris; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2008 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Video: 90
Audio: 90
Extras: 90
Acting: 95
Story: 95
Judgment: 92
Perp Profile
Studio: Fox
Video Formats:
* 1.78:1 Anamorphic
Audio Formats:
* Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (English)
Subtitles:
* English
* French
* Spanish
Running Time: 946 Minutes
Release Year: 2005
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Marks
* Commentary by: David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Hart Hanson, Barry Josephson
* "Bones -- Inspired by the Life of Forensic Anthropologist & Author Kathy Reichs" Featurette
* "Squints" Featurette
* "The Real Definition" Featurette
* Character Profiles
Accomplices
* IMDb
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0460627/combined
* Official Site
http://www.fox.com/bones/
* Kathy Reichs' Official Site
http://www.kathyreichs.com/welcome.htm