Plonk your bones down on a chair and watch this! (Bones - TV Series)

Member Name: IzzyS

Product:	Bones - TV Series
Date:	05/12/08 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting characters, good stories/writing

Disadvantages: None really

Bones is an American science/drama show somewhat similar to CSI, in that its mainly about forensics, being based on the novels written by Kathy Reichs, who is herself a forensic anthropologist. The twist with this show is that the main character is a lady called doctor Temperance Brennan (played by Emily Deschanel), a forensic anthropologist, who, in her spare time, writes fictitious novels about a character called Kathy Reichs, ie its the opposite of real life, whereby Kathy Reichs' novels are about the fictitious character Temperance Brennan.

Back to the show and every episode involves Temperance and her team analysing the bones or often full skeletons, that are discovered, as Temperance is a specialist in identifying people from even the smallest, most unrecognisable remains, such as severely burned or scarred remains and using these remains to also help identify how the person died, as well as clues to who may have been involved in the death.

Temperance is employed by the Jeffersonian institute in Washington, where she has a team of forensics experts to help her out, including her best friend Angela Montenegro (played by Michaela Conlin), who specialises in what I'd say is humanising the victims they find. She has a fancy projector type machine which allows her to show images of what the person looked like before they died. She represents the more emotional side of the story, as most episodes act as a story of one person, or person(s) remains being found and the team having to figure out who it was and what happened to them, by whom.

As well as Angela, there's also doctor Jack Hodgins (played by T.J. Thyne), a conspiracy theorist who sometimes rocks the boat a bit by bringing forward quite 'far out' suggestions and he isn't always keen on following his bosses orders at times. The other main member of the team (at least for the first few series) is doctor Zack Addy (played by Eric Millegan), a rather geeky (but cute!) young man who is very keen to get as much experience as he can and who has quite a mathematical mind but finds social things a bit more difficult.

Of course I can't not mention the other main character who appears in this show, who works closely with Temperance Brennan and that is FBI special agent Seeley Booth (played by David Boreanaz, who'll be better known as Angel from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who also had his own spin off show called Angel). At the start of the first series, we see Temperance being teamed up with Seeley to help the FBI solve a crime and they stay a pretty close team, with Seeley appreciating her (and her teams) ability to identify even the smallest and most indistinguishable remains and Temperance (I think!) appreciating Seeleys ability to fast talk and to protect her against some of the worst criminals, with Seeley having the backing of the FBI and able to carry around a gun, unlike Temperance who applied for one but was turned down, so they work together as partners to help each other out.

This is one of my favourite TV shows, along with Law & Order SVU and 24 and lately (well since we got Sky1 back on Virgin Media, which is the channel that shows this program) ive been trying to catch up with it. I had given up watching it after losing Sky1, so when it came back I realised I had alot of catching up to do, anyway I've seen quite a few episodes now and I feel I know a fair bit about it. There have been 3 full seasons shown on cable so far, with the first 10 episodes of season 4 been shown, although its taking a break until around about March next year, as far as showing new episodes is concerned. Which is great for me, that gives me time to catch up with the rest of season 2 that I haven't seen, as well as all of season 3 and the first few episodes of season 4, wish me luck catching up with all of that by next March! lol

Anyway back to the show and what I particularly like about it is the character development. All of the main characters, including Temperance, Hodgins, Angela, Zack and even Seeley, their all quite complicated characters who show their weaker sides at times and you do feel quite close to them, as a viewer, if you get sucked into the world of Bones. As the series/seasons continue, we learn a little more about each of the characters, their backgrounds, their weaknesses and worries and we see their reactions to some of the situations that are uncovered.

Temperance herself is, rather like Zack, quite socially-challenged and in the start Seeley would crack jokes relating to popular culture catchphrases/sayings, or for example one time he compared the two of them to Scully and Mulder from X Files and Temperance simply said 'I don't understand', as she is so engrossed in her work that she doesn't have much knowledge about popular TV shows, actors or singers and so on. She seems quite cold and possibly even uncaring at first but as the show continues, we see her more vulnerable side, as with the others and indeed we learn more about her troubled past and family problems, which plays quite a big part in the later seasons of the show (seasons two and three).

Of course this isn't for the particularly squeamish, with some pretty gory crime scenes being shown, there is blood and guts and, of course, bones and skeletons, including some pretty grisly burned and scarred skeletons/bones clearly shown in episodes, as well as autopsy scenes. Some episodes aren't too bad but others can be particularly grisly and I think as the show has continued, for me the second season seems to have more gory/grisly footage than the first season had. There is also some violence as well, so the 15 rating the DVD boxsets have, seems about right to me.

I particularly enjoy this show because of the characters, Temperance I find is a particularly interesting character, with her quite cold exterior but the more you find out about her, the more interesting she gets and also Angela as Temperances best friend, who tries to get Temperance to get out and enjoy herself more and such like, plus Zack is a quite a sweet character too. Others like Seeley of course, anyone who was a fan of Angel from Buffy may well be keen on this in as much as the actor David still plays quite a charming character, although im not so bothered by him personally (I think the actor is a bit too smug for me but what do I know? each to their own).

There are some particularly touching episodes, one that sticks in my mind involved Angela helping a young girl who was dying of cancer, painting images of Paris, where the girl dreamed of going but couldn't, being terminally ill and Angela was able to project these images in the hospital room, to help her feel as if she really was in Paris, which was quite touching (I think thats what happened, I apologise if this is a bit off but thats what I remember anyway). Angela is quite an emotional character and she found this quite touching too.

There is quite a good amount of action in this show too, its not all science or gore but there are some good car chase scenes and action/drama elements too, in one episode Temperance and Hodgins find themselves buried underground in a car (ie buried alive) and everyone else has to find their whereabouts and soon before they end up using all the available oxygen, so it is quite suspenseful at times too.

The more of this show I watch, the better it gets, it seems, with more intricate stories and with more involvement with the characters.

I have seen a couple of season four episodes, before realising I really needed to catch up with seasons two and three before I could make full sense of season four (because I missed out on those series due to not having access to Sky1 for over a year and a half) and I know that there are some changes on the way, season four is quite a bit different to where I left the show in season two, though I wouldn't like to give away too much but so far its been worth catching up with the show, I can say that much.

I really enjoy this show for the characters and the stories. The writing seems pretty good, there aren't many (if any) weak stories and there's a good mix of action/drama/suspense and science or forensic science. There is also some humour in the show as well, at times it might make you laugh a bit, which proves there is a more light hearted side to the show as well, this is often between Temperance and Seeley (or Brennan and Booth, as their more often referred to), although it can be between Angela and Zack and Angela and Temperance at times too.

For anyone who enjoys shows such as CSI, you should give this show a try. Its currently being shown on Sky1 (and Sky2 sometimes for repeats I think) on Thursdays at 10pm, with repeats of the first few season 4 episodes being shown and new episodes of season 4 should be broadcast again around about next March.

If you don't have Sky, then you can still watch the show by buying the DVD boxsets, I managed to buy the season 2 DVD boxset from Zavvi for only £15.99 including free postage, which I thought was really quite good, especially as it originally retailed for £39.99, so check that out (I only just got that boxset a couple of days ago). The reason for the drop in price is probably because the season 3 boxset has just been released late last month and that retails at around about £30 or just under that. I'm planning to treat myself to that boxset too for around Christmas time with a voucher im waiting to get through email, so I hope I get that soon to have it for Christmas toime... there are around 21 episodes per season and the boxsets also feature not lots but a few bonus features, such as some selected episodes have commentaries and a couple of featurettes, plus the usual scene selection options and that sort of thing.

So, all in all, I find this a really interesting and at times fairly exciting show, with curious characters and good stories, so I would definitely recommend it. Give it a shot, it may sound a bit cliched but it really is quite a good show...

I hope this review has been helpful to you and thanks for reading it. Thanks for all r/r/c's and be aware that this review is posted both on DooYoo and Ciao UK under my name, which is the same on both sites, IzzyS.

Summary: A forensic anthropologist and her team work alongisde a hot shot FBI agent to solve grisly crimes