Bones: Season 3

House meets The X Files in this fun US series about a misfit forensic genius and her team of kooky mavericks. Emily Deschanel stars as Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan, able to reconstruct crime scenes and finger the creepy culprits by examining their victims’ remains.

Her social naivety and lack of sense of humour provide some chuckles whilst exacerbating her awkward ‘will they-won’t they’ relationship with her no-nonsense FBI sidekick, ably played by Angel’s David Boreanaz. Matters aren’t helped by the latter’s recent arrest of her con-man father either.

This third season begins with a story arc about a ritualistic cannibalistic killer, but then continues in standard US drama style with an ‘issue of the episode’ approach. It’s entertaining stuff, lightened by dark or quirky humour from the various oddball characters and sprinkled with impressive subject knowledge ala House, but lacking that show’s realistic character interaction and cerebral approach. Instead it falls back on snappy banter, lazy explanatory dialogue and predictable plots. A sub-plot concerning the identity of one of the character’s old husbands is bafflingly dull also.

That said it’s an undemanding, fun watch and Boreanaz is a surprising treat as the jock foil to Deschanel’s po-faced ‘Bones’, doing his best with the dry material along with the rest of the cast. Credit is also due to its ambitious story arcs and twists, but some originality wouldn’t go amiss amongst the dusty old bones of the medium.



Released on DVD on 17th November 2008 by Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Simon Amphlett.