Dechanel was nice, and her character wasn’t…terrible. (Anyone else notice that “strong heroines” seem to come in two flavors—“single working mother from a Lifetime movie” and “grumpy and kicks people a lot”?)
Well, I see from the preview that ol’ “Bones” is pretty much branching off into all the other areas of forensic science, not just anthropology. (People say we need a “puking smiley.” I say we need a “slamming head into wall” smiley, too.)
So, I dunno…maybe I’ll watch it next week. Maybe it’ll get better—heck, I thought Firefly was kinda lame until the last couple of minutes if it’s pilot. (True, there wasn’t any big redeeming moment in Bones, but…)
I thought Deschanel was pretty awful. Her line delivery at the end (and what horrible lines: “I can’t let you destroy evidence”) was so flat it was almost a parody.
As soon as she said diatomaceous earth I turned to my husband and said, “Someone has a fishtank!”
And isn’t it rude for a person to be speaking to a friend and to say they have no friends?
Boreanaz is back to his fighting weight. Woo hoo! (Wish the same could be said for me.)
I thought “Bones” was much better than a lot of shows. However. They do have to do something with the writing and huge plot holes:
I can see why they would have thought the senator was involved, but for the life of me, why would they assume that he’d have committed the murder in his own basement, in the house where his wife lives? (“Honey, is that brain matter on your suit?” “Maria, would you please give the wine cellar a good cleaning. There’s blood and someone’s bloody fingerpads all over the floor.”)
What judge would have issued a search warrant against a U.S. Senator, when a) the FBI admittedly had no evidence to support the rumor that Cleo and the Senator were sexually involved; and b) there was insufficient fetal material to do a DNA test? What probable cause did they have to issue a search warrant?
There are actual anthropological signs of pregnancy, including the widening of the hips and ribs that a bone expert would have quickly picked up on. This fact, combined with the facts that no one realized that Cleo was pregnant and she was experiencing morning sickness, leads me to believe that she was in her first trimester. At six weeks gestation, the baby is the size of a raspberry. A tiny fetal ear bone would never have made it past the sorting process, even if it somehow survived the retrieval process.
The murderer knows that they are eyeing the Senator for the murder. He knows they will find the claw hammer murder weapon, because he planted it there. Why then, knowing that the FBI is sniffing around for a crime scene, would he burn down his house, thus drawing attention to himself?
Let’s assume he’s smart enough to know what “diatomaceous earth” means and how this may somehow implicate him. He has no reason to believe that Bones or Booth knew about his tropical fish hobby; he wasn’t in the room when the stalker divulged that little tidbit.
I also disliked the ex-hubby (see, see, she CAN get a guy, it’s not like she’s a virgin or lezzie or anything, but she just can’t hold onto 'em!)
The insistence on standing soooo close together in the niche at the firing range, and the way the whole thing was shot.
The fact that you can wrestle to the ground an aide right in the rotunda of a Senate Office Building and can waltz right out without any security guard in sight. Good to know. And I’d wish they’d start using the lobby of that same art museum with the three female carayatids–it was cool when I first saw MAX HEADROOM use it in 1986, but…
Of course the Jeffersonian institute is low on cash–they pay it all out to Indesign and Architectural Digest.
Assembling a skull starting with just fragments overnight I can accept. Using Elmer’s Glue? Sorry, no. That stuff takes hours to dry, and it’d probably end up looking all smooshed. She would have had to use Superglue to make it work like that.
And she didn’t flinch when it was getting kicked around the lobby.
But why did she expect to sneak it past customs anyway?
And if she was really just “loaned like a temp to the FBI”, why conspire to trap her at the airport? Why not just introduce yourself and say her boss sent you?
Well, he does make a fairly impressive slab o’ beef cop, and I always enjoyed watching him getting his ass kicked, particularly by Spike… maybe Marsters is looking for work as a recurring villain…
I was more surprised that the Senator was even chewing gum. How many public officials have you ever seen chewing gum in public? Let alone just tossing it in the trash.
Senators are very polished people for the most part and I doubt they would meet with anyone while doing that. Let alone meet with someone in law enforcement out in the open instead of in an office.
That was my point exactly. It looked so odd to see the senator chewing gum, that I immediately knew it was about to become a DNA sample. This show seems perfectly willing to have people do things out of character, just to provide a plot point.
Sheesh – the whole show made CSI: Miami seem almost documentary. My favourite detail about the holograph was that it was accomplished as a software solution. Neat. Not to mention the way it produced involved reconstructed animations of the actual crime.
And I gotta say, the victim must have been an unusually devout catholic if she was still holding tightly to a photocopied leaflet on The Lives of the Saints, after her flesh and clothes had completely decomposed.
Still, I could forgive the silly “science” if the dialogue, acting, and casting wasn’t so bad.
All of the super-bright “squints,” including the main character, talk like nobody so much as empty-headed sophomores practicing how to “talk smart.” They’re trying to sell “hyper-intelligent” and they come across as a collection of vapid bimbos.
The attempts to establish sexual tension between Bones and FBI guy were particularly inept.
I liked the art design, wardrobe, and sound, though. Kudos to those people for going a long way towards making a stylish series. Too bad the rest of the show is a big pile of banality.
I got the impression that Evil Boyfriend had put it in her corpse-hand to frame Stalker Guy.
Was it ever settled if the baby had been EB’s or Senators? Kind of takes the sheen off the saintlike victim if she’d been sleeping with her married, middle-aged boss (disclaimer: nobody deserves to be the victim of a crime for this, etc., altho if I was EB I’d sure yell a little).
It was actually a little book. In the beginning they said there were traces of “celluloid” in her hands, similar to a booklet that stalker man passed out to strangers.
Booth threw a copy of the book to Bones when they confronted the stalker in his apartment. It was this book that the Squints were leafing through, arguing about who the Patron Saint of Fish was, when Bones had her “Aha” moment re tropical fish/diatomaceous earth.
I apologize for knowing this. I had to watch it twice in order to summarize my “Plot Holes” post above.
Oh, I disagree. I love the books! And to support my disagreement, let me point out:
The show began with Tempe returning from Guatemala where she had investigated genocide. That was the plotline GRAVE SECRETS.
Tempe does have troubles dealing with live people in the books.
But I don’t think she has authored books. I think that’s strickly Kathy Reichs.
I agree with everything on your Hate list (except for the Hologram thingie which I thought was pretty cool). Add to that these things:
-the fetal ear bones that somebody else pointed out
-the fact that the pregnant lady was apparently taking loads of anti-depressant drugs. I thought pregnant ladies only took vitamins. Period.
-and most of all. . . the constant walking around D.C. Come on, we know the show is set in D. C. Let these folks work in their offices. And have their offices look more like regular bureaucratic bare bones (pun intended) offices. The glitzy lab is just hysterical in the context of government or the Smithsonian or almost anything else these days!
Well, you thought wrong. It’s widely accepted that while it would be better for mom not to take most meds, the potential danger of them must be balanced with the need for treatment. If she has a condition which is severe enough, they’ll continue to medicate. Plus, you’re assuming she had gone to the doctor and following orders you don’t know she was given.
And there *are *medications which are known to be safe to take while pregnant. Pregnant women still take insulin, or anti-psychotic meds, or even those for depression all the time. (I don’t remember the list she was on, or if they are, but if not, see above.)
I think I liked it just because I like the leads, and it was so much better than The Inside. I.e., it’s dumb but fun, rather than dumb and boring.
I think it has potential, but they need to iron out a lot of things. Most have been mentioned, but here’s my contribution.
Bones is amusingly ignorant of psychology and predominant cultural and media subjects. Yet she managed to write a bestselling book, instantly recognized the murder victim, and immediately twigged to the FBI setting her up in the opening sequence. They need to be a tiny bit consistent.
This made me want to throw something at the TV: Bones says the victim’s bone structure shows she’s “African-American.” AAAAAAH! I had no idea your skeleton could identify your country of birth as well as race! Soon after, she uses the word “Caucasian.” I object, and demand that the writers use “European-American” in the future.
Still, I’m going to watch for a while to see if they make improvements.
: Yep, that’s it. I’m an ignorant slut.