Bones: Yanks In The UK [season premiere]
By fred | September 4, 2008
(S04E01-E02) Over the summer I didn’t really think about Bones, because it wasn’t as fun as it should have been, and as the show (usually) is. When thinking about it, it was feelings of sadness and anger that rushed into my brains. And it was all about the same thing, and that disastrous crap they pulled during last season’s finale.
Sadness over the way they treated Zack and assassinated a character surely unlike the rest of us, but oh so intriguing and loved, and of course anger at the writers and creator/showrunner Hart Hanson for coming up with this idea, not pressured by the network or anything, but because, well, I don’t really know why anyone would do that actually, I still don’t.
But because I’m a TVoholic and because this is Bones, I still obviously tuned in for this new two-hour season premiere. Well, sort of a two-hour season premiere…
I have nothing against making it special, trying to create some kind of “event” and do a two-hour special, but let’s call things what they really are : this was no two-hour anything, what that was was two independent episodes which happened to have aired back to back. Not to say it’s a bad thing or anything, but this was not one single story/plot spread over two hours, not at all, not even if Bones & Booth did spend all this time in England.
Two episodes, that’s what it was. Two uneven episodes in fact, because while the second one felt more like your usual Bones episode already, there was something special to them, something different, and I don’t mean that in a good way. There was something special due to the fact that they were in England, something that almost left me wondering whether or not this was really Bones.
I was worried because it sure felt like they, or at least Booth, was turning into somewhat of a parody of himself. He’s who he is, and that’s a special FBI agent, someone smart, and while he can loose his temper on occasion (unless shooting clowns is just a hobby) but this time, I often felt like this was not Booth, like writers had been trying to go through all the typical situations that could be funny; It felt forced, it felt trying too hard to be funny even when that meant not staying true to the character.
Might be me, but that whole scene of Booth not able to drive on the right side of the road, not getting what the signs meant and ending up screaming in the middle of the streets, that was of those times that didn’t really made me laughs, but got me to say to myself, “now that’s just a bit too much”. And it didn’t help that both cases were only “meh”, or that some obvious suspect weren’t actually suspected until the last minutes of the show.
Not to say it wasn’t fun to see Booth & Bones in England, with the UK version of themselves, Booth having fun shaking up the royalty. It was, and some things worked, but my overall feeling in the end isn’t all that good.
Of course, it might also be due to that horror that took place back in the Jeffersonian. Seriously, when that started to go down I got really angry, because after what they did to Zack I was under the impression that they were simply doing it again, the the happy couple this time.
Now of course they couldn’t just be happy, get married, and live together for ever and ever, that would made for some bad TV. We need drama, it’s nothing new, and I knew it would come eventually. But that’s the keyword here, “eventually”, not like that! I mean, they went from being all happy and trusting one another to some silly “you don’t, no you don’t, no you…” argument that really felt like it came out of nowhere. It had all been discussed already and put behind them, they moved on, why out of nowhere bring it back ? Oh, right, the drama…
Doesn’t help of course to have had Angela behave the way she did. I mean seriously, she’s happy & in love, she wants to get married, all she wants from that “husband” of hers she hasn’t seen and talked to in years is for him to sing the divorce papers, so what’s the first thing she does when she sees him ?? That’s right, jump him and kiss him! WTF!? Who does that ?
Still, some things did work. I’m not sure about that kid, Sweets. I never really liked him, I don’t get why he’s always hanging out in the lab like he doesn’t have a job, or a life, I’m not sure. But he had some funny lines, still. Also, “did he get off okay?” Now the look on Cam’s face on that one was just priceless!
So all in all it was good to see the show back, I do miss Zack and just for that I’m glad that new guy didn’t stick around, I’ll probably hate about anyone who tries to come to “replace” him for a while, and I sure hope that, once they’re back in the States, things will go back to normal — well, as much as they can that is.
