Boner Candidate

There are really only so many sharks a show can jump before you really stop expecting anything of substance... For Bones, that was at least 27 sharks ago-- about a dozen of which were in last night's finale alone.

**SPOILER ALERT** (although I'm doubting there's anyone out there who really cares enough about this show to worry about me spoiling anything...)

Bones has never been a show that takes itself very seriously, but the past couple of seasons, it seems to be having a hard time even being competent. As you may recall from last year's assessment of this show, I've never been particularly invested in this one, but it made for a decent rainy day show, floating around my second and third tiers. Season three was irksome on dozens of levels, but went above and beyond its usual lack of decent writing when Zach was revealed as Gormogon's apprentice. I'm utterly incredulous that a show that's this successful could have such a half-assed, no-talent writing staff (until I saw The Mentalist, that is). Anyway, I bitched and moaned about season 3 last year, so I was going to try to keep this discussion specific to season 4, but so many of the problems begun by last season's incompetence spilled over into the current season and helped rot the the poorly-made barrell.

Taking Zach out of the equation was a terrible move. It would have been one thing if his character had been subtly and slowly built up over the course of the season as a possible candidate for Gormogon, but the authors were either too lazy or too talentless to handle such a basic task. As such, revealing him as the bad guy and taking him off the show wasn't so much powerful story telling as pathetic and annoying. The fans of the show were pissed and season 4 did nothing to ameliorate the situation. Rather than casting a new character to fill Zach's role, they instead opted to cycle through different potential replacements week-to-week, most of whom were more annoying than the last. The audience didn't have a chance to become fond of any of them, really, because they were gone the next week. Unlike when Cam was introduced (and completely loathed) and held in place long enough for her to become at least tolerable, no new Zach stuck around long enough to become enjoyable, thereby making Zach's absence even more disconcerting. It also served to remind the audience of why he wasn't there (you know, what with him being a criminal mastermind and whatnot), which brings the audience back to pissed off again. Oy.

Sadly that wasn't the only area of contention for this season. Now, I realize that this show has always had an easier-going, more fun-loving approach to procedural crime solving (which was one of its best assets, to be sure), but the past season, they don't seem to even have real jobs anymore. More and more, Booth and Bones simply threw themselves into some wacky situation where they ultimately solved a murder in their spare time. The wackiest episodes were enjoyable on a certain level, but the basis for the show got muddled and the supporting players became increasingly useless and their methods increasingly ridiculous (seriously, the phlebotinum used on Bones makes other shows look down-right plausible). The long-running dichotomy between the clinical science of lab and the brash humanism of the field became entirely obscured as everyone on the show started acting out of character more often than in character, and various Ret Cons threw the whole show out of balance. Yeah, turns out Zach wasn't actually a killer (you know, because that was a total mess and the writers decided they needed to at least kind of clean up such a stupid, implausible storyline). Cam has a long lost, adored daughter no one has ever heard of (in spite of her continual assertions that she has no desire or tolerance for children). Blah, blah, blah...

Speaking of acting completely out of character and developing a sudden desire for children, the show decided to delve into one of the worst possible shark jumps with Bones spontaneously deciding to procreate. They did a fair job hanging a lantern on the situation to mask the irrational, spur of the moment change of heart, but for someone as completely rational as Bones to make such a sudden and unexamined decision, it fell flat. She (and every other woman on the planet) would have put in much more than 38 seconds worth of consideration into such a decision, but rational beyond rational Bones just decides to go with it, basically undermining three seasons of evidence to the contrary. Aside from the lazy story writing (by a writing team which simply has to be comprised largely of men), it makes for an incredibly painful and embarrassing story path that viewers only have to hope won't pan out. Seriously, when rumors started swirling about that Bones had suddenly decided her "clock was ticking" as showrunner Hart Hanson put it, the response was overwhelmingly negative. Children hinder just about any show in my estimation, but particularly for a show like this? It's going to make a bad show even worse. I can just see the writers' room patting themselves on the back for this idea though. "Won't it be wacky to watch Bones with a baby!? You know, the baby she never wanted until ten minutes ago? It'll be like Booth in the UK! A real fish-out-of-water spectacular! Don't worry about it going completely against her character profile, all women want babies, right! I don't actually know any women, or any scientists for that matter, but that's just how it is, right!?"

Ugh. Bad. Grr... (You see what you've done, show? Reduced me to caveman criticisms... Beer bad.)

All these wacky and completely unsupported elements came together with a heavy dollop of soap opera-ishness in the closing episodes of the season. Along with an alarming number of characters on other shows, Booth began hallucinating in wacky ways and was later diagnosed with... wait for it... a brain tumor! Which brings us to the season finale...

Yeah, so unlike other shows that did the whole alt verse reveal in awesome and often shocking ways (see: House season finale, Fringe season finale, Newhart, if you want to go old school), Bones' alt verse shenanigans were so obvious that it wasn't fun or surprising. The best "things aren't really what they seemed" episodes (or entire story arcs) have the audience unsure of what's going on at first, and only slightly suspecting that something isn't right. The most successful and exhilarating reveals happen in such a way that with one sudden reveal, all the pieces fall into place and the alternate reality is exposed. With Bones? It's apparent from the very first moments that we're in an alternate reality and that it's more than likely as a result of Booth's tumor. To the show's credit, they at least made it ambiguous as to whether or not the events of the finale were happening in Bones' novel or in Booth's head (or both), but ultimately, who really cares? The events of the alt verse were not pertinent or pivotal to anything in the real world, so the entire storyline is dismissed as just another wacky outing for the Bones crew.

There are those that might argue that the ways in which the regular characters were transformed in the dream/novel/who the hell cares illuminate Bones' and Booths' perceptions and desires, but I just can't bring myself to think long and hard enough about such fluff to make it meaningful. As far as I'm concerned, the writers just wanted a means of getting Bones and Booth in bed together without actually having them hook up (again). (Not that I'm saying they should hook-up, but all the teasing gets real old real fast.) Don't get me wrong, in and of itself, the episode was kind a fun little lark, but it ultimately doesn't carry much weight and didn't have the audience guessing throughout.

When it's revealed that Bones had been writing the story, the first thought went through my head was, "Lame." If I'm forced to give the writers more credit than they deserve, I'd say that the events of the finale were of Bones writing as a coping mechanism, and allowing her sudden desire to have a child to come to fruition in a more romanticized, theatrical way (rather than artificial insemination, or whatever her current plan is). This would explain why she deleted it upon Booth's waking up--i.e., she no longer needs to cope. That would help explain why she used everyone's real names, rather than in a real novel, where she would have made up new ones. It's intentionally unclear if Booth had the same kind of dream experience or if parts of the narrative were Bones' writing and parts were Booth's dream, but again, ultimately, I don't really care. It just felt like a throw away storyline.

Certain elements of the finale were charming in their own right, and it's on that level that I was able appreciate any of it. It was fun to see some old characters return, and Dr. Sweets saying that some people think he's Gormogon, but he isn't, was a particularly nice touch. I also found myself liking the temporary ducklings a hell of a lot more in alt verse than I do on the regular show, so I don't know what that says about them as regular characters... It was light and fanciful and all that jazz, but it mostly felt self-indulgent, and for a finale, I really would have preferred something with a lot more impact...

Oh, wait, the impact comes at the very end. A real cliffhanger, this one! Tapping into The Young and the Restless once again... Booth has amnesia! There's the impact you've been waiting for! Huzahh! Nothing is what it seems! Or whatever...

Yep, I mostly don't care. This show has devolved (from already mediocre beginnings) into lame parlor tricks and hackneyed storylines that don't even make sense most of the time. Oy.

I'm honestly not sure why I keep watching... I think The Mentalist has lowered the bar just enough that I can withstand just about anything these days...

In related news, the craptacularity that is Bones has been renewed for the next two seasons. At the rate we're going, Bones and Booth will be revealed as long lost siblings in no time.

(God I hope none of the writers of the show read this blog, because they'll surely think I've struck a gold mine for next season! "Come on, guys! It worked for Star Wars, right? It'll work for us!)

Ugh.