TVSquad

Despite the fact it is tossed around the FOX primetime schedule like a hot potato, Bones remains one of the most popular properties on the network. With its mix of mystery, mayhem, romance, humor, and scientifically big words, the show caters to a broad audience. Some of the success can be attributed to the stars of the show, who have a great on-screen chemistry.

The rest of the drama's success can be placed upon the shoulders of creator Hart Hanson. Hart took the concept of the murder mystery and bent it to his own desires, focusing more on the interactions between the characters rather than the long-dead murder victims. With that, he turned a show that could have been another copy of CSI into something goofy and romantic in nature. Which means something fresh and unique in a world of cookie-cutter series.

With the season finale of Bones coming up on Monday, May 19th (8:00 PM), Hart took time to discuss the ending to the Gormogon saga, what was coming up for next season, and the never ending schedule changes. Highlights of the conversation can be found after the jump.

(S03E10) Rejoice! New episodes of Bones have finally returned to the FOX schedule. And, despite what others think, this guy, this dude, this muchacho, is very glad for its return. Not happy that FOX is screwing with the schedules of this show and House, mind you, but glad there are new episodes nevertheless.

For those of you new to the series, Bones is one of those unique dramas that can mix gruesome, terrible death with humor and light-heartedness. It is really a story about relationships, friendly or romantic, and the connections that are established by two totally opposite sets of people.

Plus, you get to see maggots crawling around a person's skull. So, it's all good.

Gallery: Bones: The Man in the Mud

(S02E21) I am giving you all fair warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!!!

Great orbs of rapid oxidation that create heat, light and smoke! I go away for one week and all of a sudden everyone is jumping into these shotgun weddings. Last week Luka and Abby got hitched in a last-minute ceremony on ER, and now it seems like Hodgins and Angela are going to be tying the knot very quickly as well. Yes, you read right. Angela finally accepted Jack's proposal for marriage. Funny thing is Jack wasn't even trying to ask her. He was just being his quirky, romantic self. But, it hit the right chord in the lovely Ms. Montenegro. So, a wedding is afoot.

(S02E18) Organized crime in West Virginia? Who'd of thunk it! Oh, and cement is actually an ingredient in concrete. That's good to know.

A satisfying episode all around, especially after some of the soap opera that seeped into last week's show. It was Booth's turn to be abducted this time (Bones was kidnapped way back in 'Aliens in a Spaceship', which aired earlier this season.). Nothing as drastic as being buried alive, like Bones and Jack were. Just your normal, everyday abduction and torture. It was good to get away from the usual 'mystery of the week' format, particularly when many of you out there were solving the crimes halfway through the program.

(S02E17) It was forced. The tension that Booth and Bones exhibited during the episode didn't seem natural at all. Yes, it was explained that their differences had increased since Sully hopped a yacht down to the warm oceans of the Caribbean, but it just didn't seem convincing to me. Especially when Booth kept saying to Temperance that they should go talk to Seely's shrink about this all. It was like he was stirring the pot just to get Bones to come along with him.

With that being said, there were some real tension-filled moments. The one that stands out for me is during one of the interrogation scenes with Bones, Booth and Father William. Bones being Bones she mentioned something about not worshiping Loki anymore or something like that, and then chuckled. Not only did the Father glare at her, but Booth gave her one of the angriest looks I've seen him give her on this show.

Now, the scenes with our two detectives speaking with Gordon Wyatt made up for that real and imaginary tension. I particularly liked how he spoke to both of them away from their natural habitats -- Booth in the labs of the Jeffersonian Institution and Bones in the interrogation room at the FBI offices. Those scenes helped add a layer of depth onto Bones and Booth that we hadn't noticed before, or hadn't realized until Gordon mentioned it. I point out Temperance in this because Wyatt hit the nail on the head about Bones' frustration that she couldn't capture the essence of Booth's 'sixth sense'

(S02E16) Here's the first thing I thought of when Seely Booth was chasing down that potential suspect, the one who paid for the Chinese bride whose skeleton was forcibly removed from her skin: 'Gee, Angel would have caught him in a second!' This came to mind because the scene was so reminiscent of something you would have seen on Angel, with people running, flipping and jumping across buildings. The difference here is that Booth isn't as agile as Angel was. Well that, and the fact that Booth isn't an immortal vampire with a soul. Still it would have been cool to see.

Good episode this week, with a lighter tone than normal. Not too light, though, because it's fairly hard to be light-hearted when your show features as much gore as this show does. It just seemed that everyone was a bit more amusing than normal. .

(S02E15) I just want to thank FOX and the producers of American Idol for interrupting their 80 hours of programming to slip in a new episode of Bones. I know that it's hard to do this when the ratings and advertising revenues are just skyrocketing, so I appreciate it. Perhaps, in the near future, you'll consider putting shows like House and Bones on starting in the summer so their season's end by Christmas. That way you'll have the 2nd half of the season to air nothing but 24 and Idol.

And yes, I am angry at FOX's idiotic programming schedule.

Enough of this! Let's plow ahead with a review of this week's episode.

(S02E14) A bottle of fine wine. A candlelit dinner. A three-week old decomposing body surrounded by flies. What better way to conclude another St. Valentine's Day? Don't get me wrong, I love a decomposing body, but this one was particularly gruesome. I can usually handle Bones' corps de la semaine (that's 'body of the week' in French, you Anglophiles), but I actually had to look away this time. Luckily, the body was stripped of all its needless soft tissue at the Jeffersonian Institution and we were left the usual broken down skeletal structure that Bones and her squints use for their investigations.

Moving on now. I liked this episode . . . kind of. I say this because the episode had a different tone to it, almost like an episode of Law & Order (the original, not the ones with all of the letters.). Being one who didn't watch a single episode of the show last year I don't know if this was something unique or if it appeared early in the show's run. I enjoyed it, I just wasn't used to it.

(S02E13) That was not good. -- Bones to Booth after he shoots an innocent clown head.

Hey, it's Bill!

Did you recognize the actor who portrayed sleazebag Monte Gold? It was none other than Alex Winter, the man who played Bill S. Preston, Esq. in the Bill and Ted movie duology (is it a word? I don't know, but I'm using it anyway). You don't remember him? Let's see if this jogs your memory . . . he was the friend of Ted Logan, played by the much more successful Keanu Reeves. Ah, now you remember! Nice bit of casting there by the producers of Bones.

(S02E12) Forty-nine days. That's how long we've waited for Bones to return to the schedule with new episodes. It would have been 42 days, but that big bully known as American Idol pushed the show out of last week's schedule so viewers could watch Simon berate another bunch of poor singers. Hopefully, FOX is done with that little stunt; however, as we are now entering February sweeps I highly doubt it. So, let's just be happy that we get to see the return of FBI Agent Seely Booth, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, and the squints of the Jeffersonian Institution. At least for this week, that is.

All right, enough griping! Time to get to the review.

Hiya, kids! Schedule Boy here, nearly fully recovered after a bout of stomach virus that hit the S.B. home. Thanks for all the flowers, candy, and $100 bills.

Anyway, I just stopped by the TV Squad offices (in the palatial studios that once housed the Krofft Supershow) to let you all know about the return of a number of fan favorite shows to the prime time line-up. Most of these have not had a first-run episode since the beginning of December. So, their return is eagerly anticipated (or feared, in some cases).

It begins tonight with the return of Prison Break on FOX, Everybody Hates Chris on the CW, and Heroes on NBC. Out of all three of these Heroes is probably the most anticipated. This has been the surprise hit of the season and has already been renewed for a second by the network. Also returning to the NBC schedule tonight is the love-it-or-hate-it Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. This show seemed to pick up a bit of steam right before it took its holiday break. Here's hoping that it continues in the upcoming weeks.

(S02E11) Whenever a show features a guest writer or director it sometimes distracts from the story. For example, when Quentin Tarantino directed an early episode of ER you could tell it was being done differently from what we had seen previously that season. Same thing can be said when Ricky Gervais wrote an episode of NBC's The Office (which I didn't think was funny, but I digress). So, when I read that former X-Files and Red Shoe Diaries star David Duchovny was directing this week's episode of Bones I became a bit leery because I knew some things would be different.

And they were. Just by watching the first minute of the episode you could tell. The camera angles were slightly different, there were more close-ups of the actors, we actually got to see the actual murder of the victim. Even some of the characterizations were different. Heck, this is most human I've seen Bones act in awhile, which I will discuss in a bit. Luckily, Duchovny's directing stint didn't distract me too much because I was hooked into the story. If anything, Duchovny's style helped move the story along a bit more.

(S02E10) We go the horror route this week as Bones returns from its Thanksgiving recess. This time around Booth, Bones and the squints over at the Jeffersonian Institution investigate the body of a decapitated film student. Along the way they delve into some ghost stories, share a brief romance or two, and tip their hats to a recent horror classic.

That classic would be the 1999 low-budget hit The Blair Witch Project. For those who never saw the movie it was a fictional account about three film students who get lost in the woods while filming a documentary about a local legend. They are terrorized throughout their trip by an unknown source and all eventually disappear, yet their film equipment remains intact. The only difference between Blair Witch and the video on Bones was that someone actually died here.

(S02E09) Now, before you get excited, this was not a X-Files themed show where Booth and Bones discover an alien skeletons and then go all Mulder and Scully to find the spaceship that they came in. No sir, the spaceship in this episode is a beer vat that holds the skeletons of two twins who died at the hands of the Grave Digger. This is where this week's very well done episode of Bones begins.

(S02E08) We're eight episodes into the second season of Bones and we finally hit one that wasn't really that good. Oh, it was watchable, and it did give actors David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel a little more scene time together than in previous episodes. It just seemed, I don't know, a tad flat and out of sync.

Perhaps it was because Bones and Booth weren't really interacting with the rest of the "squints" of the Jeffersonian Institution, since their investigation led them to Las Vegas. When they all get together they mesh extremely well. I just didn't see it in this episode. Even the scenes of the squints working solo were a bit monotone. In the end, I guess you could say the episode was a bit dull.

At least we had a maggot and beetle-infested body rotting in the Nevada desert.