After last week’s show I thought this had major flaws, but some promise. But last night:
“the fingerprints have been decimated” …? maybe obliterated is the word you’re looking for.
The widow refers to her husband as an Arab. Afghanis aren’t Arabs.
The forensic anthropologists busy themselves examing chemical traces of the bomb, and reconstructing said device. Like the FBI doesn’t have people better qualified to do that?
Bones declines to do a DNA match on the victim, saying that it would be faster to have beetles eat away the flesh, and then look at the skeleton and guess at the identity. Faster…uh, maybe. More accurate…extremely unlikely. But not as cool.
Return of the magic hologram. And to what purpose, I don’t know…it’s not like they didn’t know what the victim looked like.
The big break comes when the team discovers that the bomb’s insulation was used by one particular architect who happened to build homes in one neighborhood in DC. There aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world for this plot point.
And a direction/stylistic point: instead of developing any real relationship or chemistry between our stars, just have them walk real fast and yell at each other. That’ll do.
I won’t even comment on the dioxin bomb plot points, as I gave up caring by that point. I quit.
It looks like the writers think viewers care more for the technology than the characters, and good writing. Maybe that’s CSI’s fault. CSI’s guilty of that too, aren’t they? Improbable, illogical, impossible?
I didn’t watch. I was okay with it until I looked at it critically, thanks to last week’s thread.
Does anybody else think Brennan’s a little too quick on the draw to identify people? [spoiler]You have skeleton that’s consistent with someone who grew up in Afghanistan and was tortured, and was about the same height and age of the victim. Ergo, it is him. It’s a “statistical match.” Uh, really? It’s impossible that it could be someone else of a similar size, age, and background? What “statistics” are you using to come up with this “statistical match”?
There’s a guy carrying a heavy object. He has a limp, ergo, he has dioxin poisoning, ergo he is the brother. Personally, I would be delighted if Boreanaz had drilled some poor guy who was in the wrong building with a sprained ankle on the wrong day.[/spoiler]But of course, she’s always right, because the writers make her always right.
Also, can we please have David Boreanaz keep his shirt on? We saw alllll we wanted to see of shirtless David Boreanaz during Buffy Season 3, m’kay?
But just so I’m not totally negative, I was intrigued the scene where Brennan was very blunt and brusque with the wife, while Booth kept trying to be diplomatic, but Brennan won over the wife by being honest (plus knowing a little bit about Islam.) It was interesting and unexpected. . . or maybe I’m being too charitable, and it’s really just a contrived attempt to justify Brennan’s abrupt attitude.
Oh, and since I’m back to being negative again, I hate her little sidekick (Angela?) too. What an awful actress. Totally unconvincing.
I must be totally out of touch with my feminine side because I reserve my sexy lace Victoria’s Secret bra for the weekend. We’ve now seen two pretty bras and some nice pecs. I don’t watch CSI, etc., but do these shows blatantly try to use sex in this way?
Oh, and what’s up with the make-up artist? Bones’ makeup was too dark for her complexion.
Hey. My criticism is as shallow as the plot, okay?
re: hologram goofiness, I think they’re going to combine a hasty match as stated above with a hologram and find out that the person doesn’t look anything like the guy they thought it was. We’ll all be real surprised when that happens.
If we’re still watching.
However, given the recent thread about how certain clothing styles carry the death penalty in some countries (if you are visibly profiled as a possible suicide bomber, security personnel have been carte blanche to kill you without giving a warning), I though the shooting scene was oddly accurate…
It’s not terribly well-written, but I don’t think it’s any more goofy-assed than CSI. Come to think of it, I don’t watch *CSI * mostly for that reason. It’s possible I’m only watching to see David Boreanaz, who was never even my favorite Buffyverse guy. Maybe I’m just bored on Tuesdays.
I noticed that, too. I think we’ve seen more bras in this show than a season’s worth of CSI – two episodes, 2 gratuitous bra shots. Maybe they’re trying to establish their own little “trademark”.
Maybe I’m just brainwashed by too many years of Bulletcam[sup]TM[/sup], but while they sometimes suffer from similarly silly premises (sibilance!) I think CSI has markedly better writing and acting. Flashy graphics, boobage, technobabble and gadgets cannot support a drama show over the long run. I keep watching CSI because I care about the characters.
After the pilot, my two main impressions were:[ul][li]Bones makes CSI: Miami look practically documentary as far as technical realism goes, which is really saying something.[*]The characters in Bones are unbearable. They’re supposed to be super-geniuses, but they come across as a bunch of college sophomore bimbos practicing how to “talk smart.”[/ul]The second episode was considerably worse than the pilot.[/li]
Come on-- the bomb’s trigger was connected to the odometer? Why? Even if there was some practical reason for someone to need the bomb to go off after the guy had travelled X number of clicks, and it was just a coincidence that it went off exactly when he reached his destination (or his projected course was known precisely,) it went off after he stopped. So there was an extra delay circuit? If the aim was just to blow him up, why not just use the ignition or a radio trigger? Why pick such a pointless and incredibly complicated technique? It’s not like it’s trivial to splice into the ECU.
Blah. Stupid show. Sloppy writing, crap acting. It’s like they took everything eye-rolling about Jerry Bruckheimer productions and exaggerated the hell out it, while tossing out everything that makes those shows watchable in spite of the cheese.
Larry mudd, as far as I am concerned, there is only one CSI, and it takes place in Las Vegas. Speak not to me of Miami, New York, or Albequerque or wherever there’re going to try it next. Otherwise, the rest of your post is spot on.
My roommate said he was hoping they’d depict the FBI accurately, rather than the FBI of twenty years ago. Rumor has it they have people working for them that can do all the things these people in the think tank can do (that is, all the things that can actually be done, can be done by FBI agents).
Yeah, I watched it last night and thought to myself, “Well, I don’t have to worry about taping this show any more.” It might have done better in the summer, with less competition – I would have been more inclined to keep watching, anyway – but there’s just too much other stuff on, including too many new shows that seem promising, for me to continue with this one. Which in a way is a shame, because a lot of shows take a while to get going (for example, I nearly bailed on NCIS when it premiered, but by mid-season I was hooked).
I agree with all of the objections already mentioned, but I think what kills me the most is how young the science people are – especially the one guy, the one she complimented, who looks even younger than he (probably) is. And don’t get me started on Bones herself: every time she said something cynical or tough I kept thinking “she’s way too young to be this way, I don’t care what she’s been through in life.” I just can’t buy tough cynicism from a pretty 24-year-old (or however old her character is supposed to be; the actress is 27 and barely looks it). She’s trying to sound like the loner career cop who has seen it all, but it doesn’t work.
I’m extremely happy to see David Boreanaz on TV again, but unless some of the other new shows turn out to be duds I’m going to have to pass on this one.
As someone who studied forensic anthropology in grad school, and worked with real forensic anthropologists, I didn’t watch this show because the ads were so cringe-worthy. From your remarks, it looks like my worst fears were realized, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time.
Did the writers ever talk to any real forensic anthropologists, for chrissakes? Wasn’t Kathy Reichs supposed to be a consultant or something?
They do. Lately they’ve been hiring fewer folks with military/police backgrounds and a lot of folks with scientific backgrounds(such as yours truely, if I can pass the fit test in 2 months). And that’s just special agents, they have a whole mess of support personel that are top of the line(the acceptance rate for hiring applicants in support services is something like .1%). They also have agents who are trained to do forensic work, such as my hiring coordinator. I think I’m at the wrong time in my life to give this show a pass.
