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August 2006 1. David Boreanaz in Bones 27th August 2006 A new season offers more twists on 'Bones' As season one of the Fox drama "Bones" concluded last spring, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) discovered that her long-missing parents were not who she believed they were; that her name was actually Joy Keenan; that her brother, Russ (Loren Dean), had long kept painful secrets; that her mother was, in fact, dead; and that her father was, in fact, not. As if all this weren't tangled enough, season two, which launches Wednesday, throws a wheelbarrow full of wrenches into Brennan's already complicated private life, her professional life at the Jeffersonian Institute (the show's fictional version of the Smithsonian) and her not-quite-romantic relationship with her partner in crime solving, FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz, the son of former Channel 7 personality Dave Thomas). To start with, Brennan and her "squints" (Booth's nickname for scientists) get a new boss, federal coroner Dr. Camille Saroyan (Tamara Taylor, signed on for at least six episodes), who matches Brennan's scientific skill with a more focused attention on crime. "Cam is a coroner," series creator Hart Hanson says. "She's been the coroner of New York. She makes cases. She has a cop's mentality. Temperance Brennan and her squints are all about finding the truth, and those are slightly different things." Also, it turns out that Cam and Booth have met before. "They have, in fact, slept together before," Hanson says. "They have a history, so that gives us a great triangle." "She's authoritative and straight to the point and really good at her job," Taylor says. "She's funny, not cold and impersonal. She's got a lightness about her as well. She's a fun-loving, brassy gal that also is completely professional. "We never really know what Cam and Booth's relationship was, but we know they had one." "So there's this competition," Deschanel says, "personal and professional, and jealousy that happens. It's fun to work with." As Booth juggles these two women, a third is thrown into the mix - the mother of Booth's child, played by Jessica Capshaw, who appears in the second episode. "I'm not saying who, but Booth does end up in the sack with someone. He's a loving, passionate man who's there to help women," Hanson says. "Is it the beginning of a downfall for Booth?" Boreanaz says. "Maybe. Will he encounter some anger management courses? Maybe. These women who come back in his life, they obviously represent something of his past that he was comfortable with at some times, uncomfortable at other times, and he has to deal with it. "He's got to deal with his son more because of her, and he's got to deal with this girl who is now coming in as an adversary at the Jeffersonian. So it makes for interesting drama." "Magnificent David," Hanson says. "When he faces Brennan, there's one kind of sexual chemistry. If he turns around and faces Cam, there's a different feel to it." "With Cam," Deschanel says, "Booth has to stand up for Brennan. It's sweet to see him do that. He's not always going to do that, but when it comes down to it, he's on her side, and she's on his side." With two ex-lovers and one not-quite-lover, Booth doesn't seem to be totally in tune with the idea of commitment. "No," Boreanaz says, "he's not. He's dancing around. Here's a guy who's trapped in this FBI outfit, and he wants to exercise some of that. Things start to crash around him a little bit. His gambling might sneak up again. Things like that might cause a bit of destruction to his character, to his relationship. "He holds his relationship with Brennan very dearly, so for something to mess that up, he'd have to go somewhere very dark. The whole show, for me, is my relationship with her. The show, to me, is the two of us, me taking care of her and being a gentleman and really holding that relationship close to my heart." And Brennan might need to lean on Booth, because Hanson promises the return of brother Russ and more revelations. "The cliffhanger from last season will play out all through this season, which is, where is Brennan's dad, what's he doing, and what happened back in the day," Hanson says. 10th August, 2006
Disc 1 side B: Disc 2 side A: Disc 2 side B: Disc 3 side A: Disc
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4 side B: August 7, 2006 Test of character
"This is struggle between the rationalist versus the humanist," executive producer Hart Hanson says. "Star Trek did it, Moonlighting did it, certainly The X Files did it. It's a time-honoured tradition in storytelling." Bones is set in the fictional Jeffersonian Institute (a thinly veiled take on the US's venerable Smithsonian) and focuses on the crime-solving work of top-of-her-field forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz). The series is based on the work of author and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, who was profiled in a TV documentary watched by Hanson (Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy) and his co-executive producer, Barry Josephson (The Tick). In a curious, complex homage, the fictional Brennan sidelines as an author of novels about a fictional (in her world) anthropologist named Kathy Reichs. Hanson concedes he was reluctant to produce a procedural drama. "It's heavily travelled territory. I really wondered what was I going to do differently. They're great shows - CSI, Cold Case, Without a Trace - they're just not my kind of show. "There is a certain kind of writer that likes a procedural, that likes doing the puzzle, and to me the puzzle is secondary to what the people go through - what is it like for someone to work with hideous remains and bones and what kind of person goes into that line of business?" Hanson and Josephson eventually settled on something with a different tone - a procedural structure with a lot of character emphasis. "We have a lot of digression, a lot of tangents," Hanson says. "These two different people, the FBI agent and the scientist, have very different approaches. And we wanted to put in a lighter touch because procedurals do not normally have much humour in them." Of
all the elements, the last was the most challenging. "It's risky," Hanson
admits. "The tonal shifts in our show are large; it's our strength and it's
our weakness. At every stage I have said this could fail because when you have
characters joking, even if they don't know they're being funny, if there's a light
sense of humour over a dead body, you run the risk of offending people. I don't
mean prudishly. I just mean in some human sense. Hanson and Josephson pitched the series to three networks but Fox eventually bit. Sitting in his office on the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City, Los Angeles, Hanson reveals one of the black arts of the TV trade - that each pitch was different. "Every network you go to you actually tailor the pitch for the character of that network," he says. "At [older-audience skewing] CBS, for example, the lead character would have been older and the tone would have been slightly more orthodox. For Fox, we needed someone younger and a tone that was a little edgier." Boreanaz was cast first. "We needed the qualities of an old-time Gary Cooper or Spencer Tracy, a guy to be the humanist so he wouldn't be weepy and New Age," Hanson says. Brennan needed to be "sexy, smart and funny and we constantly had two of the three come in. Emily had all three plus a gravitas that puts her beyond her years." Curiously, Bones reflects a broader trend in procedural dramas. Without a Trace has exploited character material, particularly the agonising divorce of Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), with great dramatic effect. Even CSI, the most clinical of the procedurals, is now dabbling in character stories. "If the audience is devoted, they will start recognising the rhythms of the show and get bored," Hanson says. "Character stories are a way of disrupting that rhythm and I think every writer and every actor wants to do character stories. They want to play more than 'this looks like a hair'." Bones begins on Seven on Thursday
at 9.30pm.
1st August 2006 'contains spoilers!'
“First and foremost the relationship is going to continue between her [Deschanel] and I, it’s only going to get better from where we left off," he says. "I think the way Hart [Hanson] left the show with the mafia being introduced and not knowing where her [Temperance’s] parents are; and Booth finding himself surrounded by (as far as his personal life is concerned) the women in his life coming back."
The new head of Forensics isn’t the only specter of the past that returns to haunt Booth next season, the mother of his child returns also too.
Of course all of this leads Boreanaz to surmise the direction this might take his character.
The
Skeleton Crew By Kathy
Blumenstock Along with other summertime visitors to the nation's capital, Emily Deschanel plans to stop by the Smithsonian Institution. But unlike most tourists, the star of Fox's "Bones" is driven by professional curiosity. "I'd love to just go and talk to someone who works with the bones there, about forensic anthropology and all of the things the artifacts can tell us," said Deschanel, who plays Temperance Brennan, a Washington forensic anthropologist tapped by the FBI to help crack baffling cases. "My character is passionate about finding out who did something and why." Nicknamed "Bones" for her ability to cull clues from the cuts, breaks, bruises and poisons present in skeletal remains, Brennan works at the fictitious Jeffersonian Institution, where she collaborates and clashes with FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz). The former Army sniper is skeptical of Brennan's exacting methods -- the opposite of his own crime-solving style, which involves shoe-leather investigating and interrogating the living. Boreanaz called his character "a hardball, out-on-the-street kind of guy" who "loves memorabilia and is mistrustful of science." And because of the characters' contrasting styles, "it makes the two of them like Bonnie and Clyde meets 'The Odd Couple,' " he said. Boreanaz believes some of the show's appeal comes from the give-and-take between Brennan and Booth, who are at odds professionally but are drawn to each other personally. The sexual tension between them is "something you don't want to do too much of," Boreanaz said. "You want to keep it at bay. That will be explored, but to what extent, I'm not sure." "Bones," returning for its second season this fall, is a procedural that also is "very much about the characters and their relationships with each other. It's true to life in its tone," Deschanel said. Show creator Hart Hanson wanted "Bones" to break out of the prime-time pack of forensic dramas with its own distinctive details. "We partnered her with a federal cop so she could go anywhere," he said. "The show is set in Washington, a grand and beautiful city, where there are secret places everywhere and there is something going on all over. And while the bodies are pretty gross, it is mostly bits of body or skeletons that she is working from, not recognizable humans, so we can have a dark sense of humor about it." In addition to doses of dry humor, the show includes a back story about the disappearance of Brennan's parents and a brother who's in and out of her life. "She is prickly about people, but you understand why she behaves as she does," Deschanel said. "She has put up a wall around her heart to protect herself because the people she loves have all left her." The program was inspired by the suspense novels of Kathy Reichs, a real-life forensic anthropologist (see box below). "The character on the show is not based on Temperance Brennan in the books, but on Kathy," Hanson said.
To avoid confusion, he initially gave Deschanel's character another name. But Reichs, a show consultant, wanted a connection for fans of her fiction. Another nod to the author: The television Brennan writes mystery novels, featuring a protagonist named Kathy Reichs. Deschanel has spoken with Reichs and other professionals in preparation for her role, but she's stopped short of visiting a morgue. "I did not want to be affected too much. Tempe has seen everything; she doesn't smell the smells or get emotional," Deschanel said. "She's a woman in a powerful position with two different careers, one that men would faint at." BONES Wednesdays 8 p.m. Fox Forensics By the Book For Kathy Reichs, seeing the fictional Tempe Brennan personified by Emily Deschanel is "like watching mirrors," she said. "It's like watching Emily play me playing Tempe." Reichs, whose latest book is "Break No Bones," likes the transition. "The TV Tempe is the prequel" to the print version, she said. "They are at two different places in her life. On TV she's in her 30s, not 40s. She's less sophisticated and is oblivious to what is going on in the world around her." Reichs, a graduate of American University, is a practicing forensic anthropologist who works for the medical examiner's offices in Charlotte and Montreal. She also has worked at the Smithsonian and is appreciative of the attention to detail in "Bones" episodes. "They have an interest in getting the science right," Reichs said. If the team is investigating bones found underground, for instance, "they'll ask me what kind of poison will show up in the bone, or about fractures that are pre- or postmortem."
Fox
lines up "Bones" for Season 2 ! LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox Broadcasting Co. said Thursday it ordered a second season of "Bones," a crime drama starring Emily Deschanel. "Bones" has bounced around the schedule this season but primarily aired in the Tuesday 8 p.m. slot until "American Idol" returned in January. It has averaged 8.4 million viewers so far this season, according to Nielsen Media Research. Deschanel plays a forensic anthropologist and part-time novelist whose specialty is identifying bodies and solving crimes based on clues left behind in victims' bones. David Boreanaz plays an FBI homicide investigative agent who often works with her on investigations. Reuters/Hollywood
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