Bones Tv Series Review
Creator: Hart Hanson
Season: 12 (246 Episodes)
Genre: Crime Procedural Comedy-Drama
Streaming: Disney Hotstar
Synopsis:
Brilliant, but socially inept, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperence Brennan works at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington DC. After consulting for him on an FBI case, she is approached by cocky yet charming Former Army Ranger turned Special Agent, Seeley Booth to help the Bureau solve crimes by identifying human remains that are too far gone for standard FBI forensic investigations.
Brennan’s empirical, literal view of the world causes friction with Booth’s emotive, instinctive attitude creating a volatile relationship. However as their caseload increases the symbiotic partnership produces results and with the support of Brennan’s Squint Squad, murderers, past, and present should be on the lookout.
Review:
I don’t know how this series could go beyond 3 seasons. and I only watched 1 and a half, and couldn’t stand it anymore. I actually hate the series since the pilot and its next 2-3 episodes.
But since everyone seems to love it, I tried and watch on for a whole season, got halfway or maybe 5 episodes into season 2, and I think I have enough of this crappy, contrived show. I kept the show in the dark for weeks – I started watching the series again for to complete it and to through away.
A show about a woman whom the show spends more than a decade telling you is smarter than the entire room put together; with more PhDs than God…and all before she was 40.
Did we mention that she’s super rich and powerful? And a looker too? She travels around the world, works for powerful governments, has a totally hotter boyfriend…and writes books in her spare time in between solving crimes? Her coworkers?
They’re all either rich and powerful as well, or super smart, or total hottest, or all of these things…but not nearly so much as our protagonist of course! She drives cars that cost more than your house…paid for outright with just the ‘advance’ on just one of her amazingly popular books.
While pursuing her ninety PhDs, she also had time to become more highly trained in several styles of Martial arts, self-defense, and sword-fighting than most masters in the field.
And when crime fighting becomes too inconvenient and she needs to make a break for it? She has numerous connections in the criminal underworld to assist her in her quest to escape justice, thanks to her long-time fugitive father, convict brother, and connections to countless state, government, and law enforcement agencies/agents. She is…Bones: Government Agent, Fighter, Author, Doctor, World Traveler, Investigator, Millionaire, and Fugitive!
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I’ll admit I thought the show held a lot of promise in the beginning. Most of the first and second seasons went by without “too” much muss and fuss. But then things became very…surreal?
The situations and stories, and general actions began to require larger and longer suspensions of disbelief. I realize that television is not reality…but that doesn’t mean it can’t try.
I really hate “CSI Effect” shows, where you portray reality as one way and people begin to think it is actually that way. From the magic 3-D holographic projection computer that would require a massive supercomputer system just for that, let alone the complex mathematical calculations/projections it performs, to say nothing of its seemingly endless access to some phantom informational database (how many computers have access to sewer records from 50 years ago?!)
How did Angela invent this thing anyway? How does she make use of it? I know they say she’s an artist that specializes in computer art/graphics but that’s a whole other ball of wax compared to highly advanced computer design and programming.
I think the writers felt her character wasn’t being fully utilized with just having the ‘facial reconstruction’ aspect of her job, so she slowly just became the “Tech” expert, which made little sense with her back story.
Then we have the museum itself. How much is admission to this museum? Must be quite an admission price, since this museum has access to technology beyond that of NASA or MIT.
Computer labs, forensic labs, DNA labs, trace evidence labs, chemical labs, biohazard labs, metallurgic labs, x-rays/CAT scans/MRI machines, radiology labs, holographic computer labs, anthropology labs, pathology labs, morgue/cadaver labs, bone storage facilities…on and on. Most museums barely stay afloat; this one has a budget/funding that would make several countries’ gross income seem trite.
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The characters: Good lord these are awful people! In real life, practically every one of them would have been fired long ago, and a few would be serving prison sentences. The main character is unlikable, she’s simply annoying. For someone who is so smart, she is so dumb.
I don’t know this, and I don’t know that. Sure it works the first few times, but can’t she learn? She kept saying I know I’m socially inept and I’m trying to be better, and yet she fail to learn without people spelling things out for her.
And why does she have to act like a B to people to who she seems lesser intelligent? Being unsympathetic after a while is just irritating, irrational, and plain dumb. Seeing her dialog with a booth trying to explain social norms to her makes you feel like you should hit your head against the wall, and pass out so you don’t have to suffer this bad series.
And what’s worse, after 10mins of irritating you with her social ineptness and refusing to understand another way of thinking, you are being slapped with at least 10mins of her failing to do the normal social thing, + another 10 of apologies for failing to do so, + 10mins of cheesy you get it next time.
Just that she doesn’t, and the vicious circle repeats. Every episode, she mocks a human being, then she glares or hates you because you laugh at her failure to act accordingly, and she feels no pity for you when she nukes you down with her harsh words. I found her character is such a child, and it irritating that the child didn’t learn and didn’t grow up, and that makes it hard to swallow.
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And a lot of times, her character changes her personality 180 degrees so quickly, that you feel not genuine. Like, she dishes on your behavior to the ground with her whiny monotone for a good 3mins+, then within the 30s, she came and joins you and acts like it was really fun Cronyism and favoritism are keywords in this work environment.
People are always talking about sex with each other, talking about having sex WITH each other, having sex with each other, flirting with each other, making generally unacceptable overtures with each other, or making horrendous life choices involving sex. I’m pretty sure the FBI and the museum would frown on their top two employees/partners engaging in a sexual relationship with each other.
While I know it’s not a friable offense to have sexual relationships with your co-workers when it affects the job…it can be. The couples either engage openly and actively with each other in the workplace, or they distract the entire workplace with their arguments and petty sniping.
Bones is with Booth, Bones, and Booth cools it after a brain tumor; Bones and Booth are back together. Angela and Hodgins are together, Angela and Hodgins break up, and Angela is with her ex-husband, and they break up. And Angela is with a woman, they break up. Angela and Hodgins get back together.
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Daisy and Sweets are together, they break up…now they’re together…Oh, when will this roller coaster of emotions end?! Is this a crime show or Days of our Lives?
The stories: Too much bad, too little good. I won’t say there weren’t good episodes and good stories, there were more than a few, and that’s the sad part, the show really could have been more than it was. But it decided to opt for “Soap Opera” rather than good storytelling. The one where Booth puts the medal on the young man’s grave for trying to save a woman’s life.
When they were all trapped in the museum, the ending where the old grandma finds out her lover didn’t up and leave her but was murdered trying to arrange a life for them together. The murdered deaf kid trying to do the right
thing…all very powerful. Where it went wrong? Take a cue from another good episode where Bones’ trauma is used in court “I don’t matter! Only she matters! Only the victims matter!” if the show had taken that advice, it could have been something remarkable.
But instead, it turned into: “Who cares about that murdered 12 years old? I’ve got a date with a cutie-patootie!”. Another error on the part of the show is straight up ripping off CSI and introducing “Season Arc Villains”. While in theory, this could have worked…it didn’t, and I think the failure was in the timing.
They pulled a Star Trek: DS9 move and would go half a dozen episodes or more without mentioning the killer. In real-time that’s 6 weeks we’re expected to remember there’s something that’s supposed to be happening.
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Even with ‘previously on’, it doesn’t really help. Half the time their motivations were vague, or I completely forgot why they were killing. Gorgonzola (yeah I know it was Gormagon)…Cults? Secret Societies? Illuminati….who knows? The Gravedigger….buries people alive…for reasons? The sniper that killed the assistant…shoots people…for reasons?
The guy that had it in for Hodgins…killed people for…reasons. It’s rather hard to simultaneously concern yourself with the “big bad”, and wonder “Will Angela and Hodgins’ baby be born blind?” “Will Booth and Bones finally kiss?” The show really hampered itself by trying to get you to look in too many directions at once. The character stories, as I said; are bland, boring, and repetitive to the point of madness.
The really far-fetched stuff: Stewie Griffin…Stewie Griffin! Need I say more?! Doing something like that just completely takes me out of the show and I can’t take it seriously anymore.
Imagine if in Law and Order the murderer was SpongeBob and they seriously just animated him into the episode. Santa Clause is real, the Blair Witch is real, Chicken Man is real. Angela’s father….yeah cause that wouldn’t make the headlines….”Celebrity arrested on multiple counts of Kidnapping, Assault, Battery, Violation of Human Rights”.
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The worst example and where I dropped out of the show: Is bones the fugitive? You work for/with the FBI! Even though you were proven innocent and you were being framed…the simple fact is….you became a fugitive from justice!
You don’t get to go back to working for/with law enforcement after that…your credibility would be nonexistent. “Why should my client be charged and convicted of fleeing from police when the prosecution’s own witness wasn’t?”
Also, Caroline, the attorney is not the only prosecutor in the universe…she would not be the one dealing with cases that involve Bones personally…they have a personal relationship, and Bones has been her star witness in multiple court hearings. Helping Bones, handle her/father/brother’s cases would be a conflict of interest.
Are you really going to give 100 percent to tracking down and arresting your very good dear friend? Likewise, Booth, as her partner (and husband) would not be allowed to be her parole/probation officer. A: That’s not what FBI agents do! B: Conflict of interest!
C: Assaulting a woman would likewise ruin your credibility on the stand (“Why should my client get five years for assault when the prosecution’s own witness only got six months? Maybe it’s because she has a friend in the Prosecutor’s office?”).
Also, as a world-renowned anthropologist and author…how did she being a fugitive from the law not makes national attention? Wouldn’t that be the catch-22 of being so ridiculously well-known and beloved? Imagine J.K. Rowling being the number one suspect in a murder and going on the lam.
Verdict: Bones Tv Series Review
It could have done much better. There was some good stuff sprinkled about, but it was lost in a sea of Soap Opera storytelling, far-fetched concepts, bland villains, repetitive relationship storylines, and to me was far too much removed from reality to be enjoyable.
Can I also just say “Belch!” to all the blood, gore, and general grossness that were shown for no other purpose than to be gross and get a reaction?
