Bones is another one of my old comfort shows. I know, crime drama isn't a healthy comfort show but what can I say? I like science and the macabre.
Bones is the show that is responsible for my branch out into history and archaeology. I wanted to be an anthropologist just like Brennan, but it wasn't as glamorous as the show makes out, nor was it an easy field to get into. In fact at the age I was trying to establish myself, it was so hard to get into the field that I gave up, but I retained the idea of wanting to know about ancient cultures and how a skeleton could tell you everything. Because of this, in my early twenties I went on to study ancient civilisations, Archaeology, and then branched off into the study of mythology within these cultures as I found their belief systems more interesting than their day to day life. With my background in literature it seemed like a natural step and so here I am five years later, still learning, but going on historical adventures trying to find credence to the Arthurian Legends.
I first started rewatching Bones when visiting a friend in Cheltenham last year. Once I got home I wanted to continue but had to restart again as Jamie decided he was interested too. Many months on as life got in the way, we finally managed to finish season 1 together and so here we are.
My favourite thing about this show is the dynamic between the characters. I adore how close Brennan and Angela are, I like the growing relationship between Brennan and Booth. I even like the friendship/rivalry between Zack and Hodgins and how ultimately they all look out for each other despite Brennan's social restrictions. She does seem very cold and very monotone, she's quite black and white but you need to remember that she spends more time with the dead than the living and the dead are very straight forward.
In this season we are introducing the characters which make the Jeffersonian tick. Brennan and her team all specialise in something and yet all of their skills are needed in order to solve both the cold and fresh cases brought into them. Dealing with bones, they do what normal CSIs cant, they use the remains to tell a story and that story leads them to the killer.
Unlike CSI, Bones rarely deals with any 'fresh' murder or death. It is usually a case of skeletal remains being found some time after the initial murder, or a body which is very important to the FBI but having been reduced to the bare skeleton. The episode where Brennan returns a very valuable coin to the family of a man who had been murdered 50+ years ago and was thought to have abandoned his soon-to-be-wife was very emotional. She undid all the doubt and hatred that the poor woman had lived with for half a century and brought meaning back into her life. It was a beautiful episode bringing justice to the dead like that.
The elephant in the room is of course the budding romance between our two main characters. Brennan and Booth start off on the wrong foot with each other but very quickly grow mutual respect for each other. It's clear there is an attraction between them despite their denial, but it makes the show watchable especially as Boreanaz plays booth so cooly. He's such an easy character you can't help but love him. Cool, calm, and collected. We are routing for Booth.
Bones is of course based on the books by Kathy Reichs which in turn is loosely based on her own life. This metaverse overview, as a book lover, is brilliant especially as Bones nods to her real life counterpart as if she's the fictional one. I love these little callbacks almost as much as I love the stories.
The characters are 100% what makes this series though. The plots are all unique don't get me wrong and they are very interesting, but it's the characters which bring the needed depth into why that is. We learnt more about each character within this season than we are likely to in the near future.
We know that Brennan's parents went missing when she was a teenager. She never knew what happened and she became estranged from her brother because of this. We find out near the end of the season that her mother is dead as it's her skull that ends up on Brennan's lab table. It's in this moment we see her life fall apart as everything she knew about her family was a lie including her name. We know that because of this she struggles with meaningful relationships and her only constant companion is Angela who loves her no matter what.
Angela is the daughter of ZZ Top star Billy Gibbons, or the fictionalised version of him, and an artist. She's a free spirit and very much lives as such with her many boyfriends and various expeditions. She's the calm and carefree that balances out Brennan's straight rod and through this they manage to make her more socially acceptable.
Jack Hodgins is the bugman, but we find out that he is absolutely loaded and actually sponsors the Jeffersonian so could rightfully be the boss. He rebuffs this however and hides his wealth from his team as wants to fit in and do what he loves. He also is a conspiracy theory nut and this shines through a lot during this season. It was sad to see during the Christmas episode where they were on lockdown that he only had an unnamed and previously unmentioned girlfriend who visited him meaning that his only intimate contacts were in fact his colleagues.
Zack Addy is Brennan's apprentice and is purposely holding himself back so that he can remain this way. He is a member of a huge family and clearly the smartest one of them despite being socially inadequate much like Brennan. Zack constantly seeks approval from his peers and just wants to fit in despite the fact he has skills which rival Brennans.
Booth, our beloved FBI agent has a dark past. A veteran and trained sniper, Booth went on to be an FBI agent to try and make up for the innocent lives he took by giving justice to others who had theirs taken. A single father we get to see Booth struggle to keep his private life from bleeding into his work life, but ultimately he uses this to gain the trust of the Jeffersonian team so they become a unit.
Goodman, the director seems to be a straight-laced man and we get the rare glimpse of compassion and knowledge in his field from the scenes where his character becomes important. He leaves at the end of this season never to be seen again so to be fair there isn't much point of going into this one, but he balances out Hodgins and his bias very well.
I enjoyed the tight and emotional storylines and how they each brought justice and respect to both the dead and their families. I liked the element of closure each case brought but I also liked the fact the show didn't take themselves too seriously. The episode about pirates comes to mind as the team is split between buried treasure pirates and the non stereotypical pirates, but all agreed pirates and to solve the case. The excitement as team sceptic and team believer tried to out do one another was great, it was a bonding experience for sure.
I give the first season of Bones an 8/10. It's fun, educational, and quite respectful. I like to compare it to CSI for obvious reasons, but I find that these shows are two sides of the same coin. They are balance within the crime drama world with one specialising in mostly current crime and the other in historical. Both shows respect the dead while also showing us behind the scenes of crime solving as well as the awful world we live in but in a fictional sense. It's an experience and a welcome one.
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