Bones: The X in the File and the Crap in the Writing
January 16, 2010 by Cameron Cubbison
Filed under Feature, feature overlay, Television
What was touted as a fun Bones venture into potential X-Files territory instead turned out to be an excruciatingly stupid episode that focused not on Booth and Brennan but on yet more pointless Angela relationship drivel. Booth and Bones felt like side characters in their own show. At least when Moonlighting did the occasional episode focusing on the supporting characters they were more creative about it. The stuff on this show just sucks now. Bones has officially jumped the shark.
A dead, strangely extraterrestrial-looking body is found in the desert in Roswell, New Mexico, by a nutjob named Marvin who spends his life looking for aliens. Alas, Brennan quickly determines that the body is indeed human and belonged to a female in her 30s. But I always love(d) when the show took Booth and Brennan out of D.C. and into a special location, and Roswell—being full of all the kooks and alien lore—could have been a great setting for the all-science, all-logic Brennan to make fun of and play off. There are a couple of fun moments where Brennan insults the locals in her own special way, but not enough.
The majority of the show consists of showing us how Angela and intern Wendell are now an item, and focuses on them getting up the initiative to tell Hodgins that they are fornicating like the clueless morons they are. That’s what this whole episode is about. The murder investigation is a sidebar. It’s all about sex and relationship woes between pointless supporting characters. Why do the writers insist on doing this? Is it because they’re running out of ways to build the relationship between Booth and Bones and thus need to focus on pointless subplots to cover up their failings? Maybe that’s it. All I know is that any scene that doesn’t have Booth and/or Brennan in it sucks, because the supporting cast members, likable as some of them may be, are not interesting enough to watch solo. I’m sure people will disagree with me on that, but I just hate this show when it’s not focusing on Booth and Brennan. I think the only way the show can be saved is if the entire writing staff is fired and/or Angela and Sweets get blown up in a nuclear fire.
Another thing: Bones is not a comedy. It can be very funny, and should be funny, but it is not a comedy. The humor is supposed to clash with the dark situations and emotional trauma. But the writers are really trying to make it into a comedy. The music is always telling us “Laugh! It’s funny!” The problem is that Bones is not funny enough to work solely as a comedy. The humor has to be a contrasting factor with the rest of the show. We’re talking about murder and dead bodies here, it shouldn’t be that funny. The tonal balance was perfect in seasons one and two, then Hart Hanson and his writing staff started losing their way (and probably ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms) and they’ve been doing it ever since.
I’m not going to even get into summarizing any of the details about the murder investigation. The writers didn’t care about it, so why should I? Or you? Or anyone? In fact, I’ve already completely forgotten what the murder was about. That’s how forgettable it was.
Season 5, Episode 11: The X in the File (originally aired January 14, 2010)
For more on Bones, click here.
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And PS: The MRI scene was pure win. Anyone who disagrees is just wrong.
Wow, this is the first negative review of this episode I’ve seen. Everyone else (including me) absolutely loved this one. Weird. Lol.
Sadly, I must agree with a lot of what’s being said here. The writing for the past few years has been brilliant. If “Bones” needs new writers, for Pete’s sake get some new writers. I hate to treat Hart this way, but I’m sure he will take to heart what viewers are saying. In my opinion the last two or three minutes of the “Alien” show was really funny. Booth can play Brennen with a look. And he did just that.
I noticed in the last (4th) season things were getting a bit weak with less meat for Booth and Brennen to get their teeth into. I wondered at the time if it was just me, but soon realized I was right. The 4th season finale was a real “stopper”, and a couple of the shows that followed into the 5th season were pretty good. But this last show did leave a lot to be desired.
While the show’s concept is for an ensemble cast, it shouldn’t involve the other members of the cast with individual, in-depth story lines. This detracts from the essence of both Booth and Brennen. I dearly love “Bones”, and have told everyone I know they should watch the show. And it kills my soul to say all of this, but being a died-in-the-wool fan, I feel compelled. I’m a frustrated writer myself, and I know good stuff when I hear and see it.
About Brennan. I wonder if anyone agrees with me that her single-mindedness is becoming a bit dusty. Of course this is the whole premise of her character, so it won’t go away very soon. However, in an effort to slowly counteract her solid belief that she doesn’t “need” to embrace any part of the rest of the world, perhaps gentle and repeated references to the narrow Scientific/Martial Arts “alley” she has confined herself to, doesn’t really amount to that much in the scheme of things universal. In other words, bring her down a peg or two, and show her a wider “alley”.
I think you’re dead on on this one. I agree, the writers are doing a lazy job of coming up with character development or building relationships. While the storyline previews for upcoming episodes look promising, I’m afraid the “supporting drivel” is going to get in the way of what could be some good stories. In discussions about the 100th episode Hart Hanson says the B&B relationship is going to take a completely different turn. Sounds like desperation in trying to avoid jumping the shark since they’ve been renewed for a sixth season, but it’s getting too late…
Why Bones has given us on one hand wonderfully intriguing main characters, and then caricatures when it comes to supporting cast? You are absolutely right on in your review. The morphing of Angela into a sex driven machine is an insult to women who have been fighting stereotypes and simply bores me to death. And David Boreanz has seen his character whittled down into a love addled moron. Bring back the guy who shot the clown off the ice cream truck!
While I admit I was pretty disappointed in most of season four ….I think in season five the show redeemed itself…fairy well.
However I completely agree that the character of Jack is completely unused….I like Angela but I liked her a lot more in season 1, 2 and 3.
The humor is off. I agree sometimes it seems a little forced ….it was always funny to watch Booth in the lab on the platform …trying to understand something …. Begging the squints to speak English …..That seemed to be more natural.
But then again we hardly ever see Brennan in the lab anymore …so why would we see Booth there?? …
Nevertheless …I am a true blue fan and I’ll watch even when there are episodes like double trouble in the pan handle…or the X in the file…But I won’t love them.
I think Cameron raises some valid points. I still love the show Bones having watched every episode, and a big part of that is Emily Deschanel and her chemistry with David Boreanaz. I sort of agree the rest of the cast are peripheral compared to these two main characters, which is one of the things I really like about Bones.
Some shows have too many characters and too many storylines, none of them really develop fully, I’m talking about the train smash that is One Tree Hill, its so bad, its good. It like guilty watching pleasure, because the writing is sub-par, the storylines are all over the place, and well the guys have nice abs one could stare at all day. Its a show full of pretty people basically.
With Bones, the focus is mainly on Bones and Booth, and it is much less a procedural show as it is a dramedy, in my view the show has always been about the main relationship more so than cases. Cameron did like some recent episodes this season so I think the point of this article was merely to point out Bones the show has the potential to be a top show, if the quality of the writing was a little more consistent.
I didn’t mind this episode, Dr Brennan was funny in her socially clueless ways, but Angela-Wendall-Hodgins story plot hogged way too much time here. I prefer it when the support cast stuck to being support cast, not major storylines that diverts from the main purpose of the show which is 1. Bones and Booth’s relationshop, 2. the case they are working on for the week.
I liked it when the squint squad are there to aid the end goal, rather than go off on some weird tangent with affairs and something that smacks of Days of our Lives.
I’ll still keep watching because 5 minutes of Bones and Booth is better than 30 minutes of drivel on a lot of other shows. I have faith Hart Hanson will right the ship before the end of the season.
If I really think about it and let the anger subside, I realize that I don’t hate the supporting cast per se. I really like TJ Thyne and Tamara Taylor has her moments. What I hate is how the supporting cast is used. Hodgins only comes into play to help with the investigation or to have some tired interaction with Angela.
The writers don’t treat him as a full character, he’s a device. I am so sick of the Angela/Hodgins thing. We were never given a legitimate or believable reason for them to break up in the first place…it was only done to create more artificial conflict for the show. So now I just hate seeing the “will they get back together?” crap. I just feel like it is a ploy. Hodgins used to get out of the lab a lot more and get into adventures with Booth and Brennan. Remember the episode where he submerges hundreds of feet in a dive suit looking for pirate treasure? That was cool. Now he just stays in the lab. Plus with Zack gone, he has no one to really play off. The revolving intern thing means that Hodgins can’t start developing a relationship with another lab worker. They need to pick an intern permanently and go from there. We should see more of Hodgins dealing with his best friend Zack turning out to be a murderous freak. He seemed bothered by it for like two seconds in the show. If your best friend turns out to be insane, that changes you, I’m sorry.
Angela has nothing to do except talk about and have sex and to call people “Sweetie” and occasionally lecture Brennan. Cam has nothing to do either, except for the irregular periods when we get to see a brief glimpse of her trying to raise her stepdaughter. My quarrel is that if the writers are going to take away from Booth and Brennan, there ought to be something compelling to take their place.
Remember in the second season I believe, there was that episode where Hodgins knew the murder victim and used to be engaged to the victim’s widow, and he lied about it and almost compromised the investigation so he could work the case? That was interesting. And when he got buried alive with Brennan by the Gravedigger, that was interesting. But ever since those things, his character only exists in relation to Angela. Why don’t we get to learn more about him? Why don’t we get to see his home life or something? The writers are just too lazy to really try to develop the supporting characters, so whenever they are onscreen, we just see a minute variation on the same thing we’ve seen with them time and time again.
So everyone who called me on not being fair to the supporting cast, you’re right. Realistically, the show can’t just be about Booth and Brennan and indeed, maybe it shouldn’t. But the supporting cast is being cheated and therefore so are we.
I am excited to see the upcoming 100th episode that will be a flashback to how Brennan and Booth met. That should be great. The show is still fixable, that’s what bugs me. The writers and Hart Hanson just need to reassess their priorities and start trying to drive the characters into new territory instead of just giving us the same tired repetition over an over again.
Thanks to everyone for reading.
I’m a huge fan of Bones, and I think you’re absolutely right. I would never post these thoughts on a fansite because I would be pummeled, but you hit the nail on the head. In the first few seasons, the writers through in jokes that turned out a lot funnier than they’d anticipated. Now they seem to know they can make us laugh, and are pulling out all the stops. Now things that were supposed to make us laugh, do not. The show has fallen to cliche writing. We know where the gags will be and we know how they’ll set it up. You know exactly when Brennan is going to pull out logic and point out how ridiculous something is, and you know when Booth and Brennan are going to be having their typical shipper moment. The body getting stuck against the MRI was ridiculous. In any other episode, Brennan would have noticed the ball bearings beforehand, and Booth has become a clown. This is supposed to be a highly respected special agent who has witnessed and lived through terrible times. Where is the former sniper who struggled to deal with his killer past every day? His character has become inconsistent, and boy, it’s not changing for the better.
This show needs to find its footing again. The writers wanted this sort of show in the first place, but don’t they see that by taking the crimes more seriously they get more credible episodes? Fan favorites have always been the more weighty episodes, and that should be a big clue for the writers. Without them, fans are now clinging to the Booth/Brennan relationship, because that is all the hope we have left.
Wow, so much hate for the supporting cast. Honestly, if it weren’t for the supporting cast, you wouldn’t have “Bones”. This isn’t The X-Files where there were only two leads in the opening credits. The two leads and the supporting cast are all in the opening credits on “Bones”. It’s not a show about Booth and Brennan, only. It’s a show about ALL the characters. I’m sure you know this, though. Maybe, if the writers still new how to write good scripts, this wouldn’t be a problem for you? I’m not a Booth/Brennan shipper so, I like it when Booth/Brennan aren’t shoved down our throats every week. For example, seasons 1 and 2 didn’t shove Booth/Brennan down our throats. Then, season 3 rolled around and the whole format of the show changed, and they started piling on the whole “will they/won’t they crap in every episode. It’s part of the reason I don’t watch every week, anymore.
I have to agree with you that the show has gone downhill after season 2. Back then, the show had an amazing balance. Now, it’s all over the place, too many damn inconsistencies and the over-the-top comedy is ridiculous. I’ve been a David Boreanaz fan since 1997 but he couldn’t even keep me from changing the channel on “Bones”. It’s a shame. The show was once, SO good.
We may disagree on the supporting cast(I love TJ and Tamara, the most. And, I loved Zack and Goodman) but I’m so glad I wasn’t the only once noticing the significant change in the writing of the show and how BAD the comedy is. So, thank you for not kissing the show’s ass like some media outlets do and speaking the truth.
“You seem to be in a bad mood if a successful show that has been on 5 years has to return to the first season to succeed.”
I don’t know what you mean by that. If you’re saying that the new season is returning to the tone and consistency of the first season then I think you’re absolutely wrong. The first two seasons were some of the best network tv I’ve seen in years. I loved them.
The plots were better and the humor wasn’t as broad. It was skillful and carefully-placed. Brennan was a more fascinating character. She was angrier, she was more forceful…ever since they solved the mystery of what happened to her parents, Brennan hasn’t had much to play with. Emily Deschanel is too good of an actress not to have more conflict to work with.
In the first season there was the great episode where she had to go on trial against her former teacher and lover, there was the great episode where we learned more about Booth’s time in the Rangers. I loved the episode where they had to go to Vegas and pretend to be married. How about the one where she was an amnesiac murder suspect in New Orleans and Booth had to come down and help her? That one was great. There was also a great adversarial relationship between Brennan and Cam in season two that has completely dissipated. None of the recent stuff can hold a candle to those early episodes.
I just don’t think that the writers are providing enough conflict for Booth and Brennan. They seem too safe and too comfortable with each other…but not comfortable to the point where they are really together. It was great for a while when Booth arrested Brennan’s father Max and was worried that in so doing he had ruined their relationship. There just hasn’t been a real spark between them lately I feel. Brennan is a funny character because she doesn’t try to be. She is just set in her very clinical and detached ways, and seeing her react unemotionally to everyday life situations can be hilarious. That’s where the humor should come and indeed used to come in. But now everyone is consciously trying to push the show into comedy territory and that’s not where it belongs if you ask me.
I hated the season four finale but I loved the premiere of this season. I loved the James Bond episode…I have liked several episodes this season and you can read that in my reviews, but I truly believe that the show Bones currently is does not compare with the way it was out of the gate. I also think the consistency is really out of whack…for every decent episode there is a mediocre one.
I still watch the show because I love Emily and I really like David Boreanaz. I think they’re a great team and still play off each other very well. Chemistry at a level they have is exceedingly rare. I just wish the writers were as good as they are. I also still watch the show because I’m hopeful it can recover. I’m critical because I feel disappointed, I feel let down. But you don’t turn your back on your puppy just because it crapped all over the carpet.
At any rate, thank you for reading and for speaking your mind. Hope to hear from you next week.
Sorry, think you are dead wrong on this one. My spouse and I watched it together and had an absolute blast. It was a true tribute to the x-files that wasn’t over the top but subtle. As a long time ex-phile, I truly appreciated that. Booth and Brennan were doing their own version of subtle as well and their small intimate moments interwoven throughout the episode were lovely and spot on for where they are heading in their growing relationship. The other character plot revolving around the super squints was funny and heartbreaking. Lastly, the case was interesting and believable. Bones is the most entertaining hour on television today and a true gem among the masses of messes.
I think you are completely wrong. There have been many fine episodes of Bones in which comedy was very successful. I loved the Double Death of the Dearly Departed and the undercover circus episode.
This last episode about aliens was very entertaining. I thought the subplot about Angela, Wendell and Hodgins was endearing and TJ Thynes stood out.
Of course, I do want Booth and Brennan center stage most of the time. They were important in this case. I did see a lack of UST though but it could have been because my dinner was delayed an hour and I was in a bad mood yesterday.
You seem to be in a bad mood if a successful show that has been on 5 years has to return to the first season to succeed.
I love this season for the most part. And Booth and Brennan are moving closer in more ways and in their willingness to compromise with each other.
I don’t know why you watch the show if you haven’t like it for so many years.