Bones, 4/21/2011 - "The Finder"

Booth and Brennan hire an old military buddy of Booth’s, a pscho named Walter, who despite some shaky personality traits is a bona-fide “finder” - someone with an uncanny mojo for finding things. The plot revolves around lost Spanish treasure, and Walter’s work at helping to locate it.

But the interesting thing is that the story mostly abandons our intrepid FBI and Jeffersonian friends, and focuses on The Finder and his motley band of colleagues - Saffron Burrows doing a dubious Cockney accent, and Michael Clark Duncan as a combo platter of legal adviser and bodyguard.

This episode had a strong feel of a pilot for a new show. Does anyone know if there are plans to spin off The Finder into its own show? Based on this episode, I’d probably give it a few viewings if that were the case.

It definitely had the feel of a pilot. I enjoyed this episode more than the last several Bones episodes, so I would absolutely tune in to The Finder. Hell, half the show could just be that main guy walking around in just his shorts and I’d watch, lol.

I looked up the Brit (I’m a sucker for a cute girl with a British accent) on IMDB and her listings have her down as being in an “untitled-Bones spin-off” so I would say that yes, the plan is to make it into its own show.

It tried a little too hard, (“I’ll risk it”) but I liked it enough that I will try the spin-off.

I’m surprised to see that she is really British! That accent she was doing in the show was so thick it reminded me of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

…with the same character name. Not much doubt there. :slight_smile:

I’ll watch it just for the sake of Michael Clark Duncan and what he’s apt to do or say next. I’m all in favor of some shared episodes as well. I just wish they could settle on one (two at most) apprentice/intern types.

I fully agree with

In fact, I could get on board with Bones and the new guy getting it on before Bones and Booth do. That thread is about threadbare by now, as I see it.

I turned it off halfway through. Worst episode of Bones since the Booth-in-coma-dream episode.

It was barely a Bones episode, but I did enjoy it as an episode of The Finder. I agree that Bones and Walter had chemistry. It’s almost a shame if it gets spun off just because I’d love to see those two crazy kids try to hit it off. Key scene: Walter explaining the significance of pyramids to Bones in a way she could buy.

Duncan’s character needs some work and the bartender pilot needs some fleshing out but I’d watch the spinoff just for Walter in his dorkaluscious glasses. I was surprised when they killed off tattoo chick. Seemed like they were grooming her to be number four or recurring mythology.

Argh, I’ve known for most of the season that they’d be doing a back-door pilot for the spinoff, but I didn’t think the new show was going to be this stupid. Oh well, at least the “new” characters will be on their own show from now on.

Question: How will “The Finder” be a spin-off if they were just thrown into this one episode simply to introduce them for their own show? Or are they going to be recurring characters? (God I hope not! I couldn’t stand any of them.)

It’s a great premise for a new show - god, anything is better than Lawyer Cop, M.D. This could be the modern equivalent of some of the old PI shows. You have a main character who has all sorts of unlikely connections for when they are needed - like knowing the head of Homeland Security (or whoever’s son he found). You have the observational powers of a modern Sherlock Holmes.

It has potential to be a great show if they don’t slather on the shtick too heavily. Although if this “pilot” is any indication, that may be a vain hope at best.

Ditto this. The Finder characters were the love-children of “Mod Squad” and “Burn Notice.” I’ll pass on the new show.

Disagree completely! The coma episode was really good, IMHO.

I can see that (although I generally liked the “Finder Characters”) the new show will have to bring a lot more to the table than we saw in the Bones episode.

Also I guess I get why they did it but it still seems weird to introduce three characters for one episode just so they can call the new show a ‘spin-off’. So this is where we’ve come with product placement?

Isn’t this essentially how NCIS was introduced? Gibbs and his team made an appearance on JAG to solve a murder (was it Lt. Singer’s?), then were never seen on that show again, but had their own show the next fall. It may not technically be a spin-off, but there must be some advantage in introducing a potential new show in this way. Perhaps the audiences for the two shows are seen as overlapping, and by introducing the new characters on the existing show, it is hoped that audience will be more likely to tune into the new show since they’ve already seen a “preview” of it (and, hopefully, enjoyed it).

As much as I like Saffron Burrows, I found her character very annoying in the extreme!

This happened all the time in the 80’s, usually on sitcoms. And it goes back even further than that. That weird Brady Bunch episode about the friends of the family (never seen before or after that ep) adopting three children, each from a different race?

Why? As TBG said, it’s a time honored tradition to have characters appear for only an episode or two before whisking off to their own shows. For example, Melrose Place had one character appear on a pair of Beverly Hills 90210 episodes at the end of the season before Melrose premiered.

Wow, I see a lot of dislike for this show. I really liked it. It was a nice change of pace, especially after the previous episode where Bones just seemed like a super arrogant bitch.

It’s the Gary Seven of Bones!

And *Married With Children *did it to spin off a show called *Top of the Heap *with Joe Bologna and Matt LeBlanc, in the early nineties.