- Network: FOX
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 13, 2005
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Critic Reviews
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An engaging crime show that borrows plenty from the ''CSI" franchise but adds a layer of light character drama.
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Boreanaz and Deschanel stir good chemistry as a crime-fighting duo.
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The scientific setup may be intriguing... But the dialogue, including the contrived sexual tension between Temperance and Seeley, is strictly canned and cutesy.
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There's a fine line between clever and labored, and "Bones" sometimes strays over that line with one-liners about skull fragments, blood samples, X-rays and microbes. That's where "see how cleverly we can banter" writing creeps into the otherwise crisp proceedings.
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Besides the nifty, repressed romantic dynamic between Brennan and Booth, "Bones" has some fun with snazzy hologram visualizations of the murder victims in each case.
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If Bones holds up, it'll be because that old Sam-and-Diane, Maddie-and-David, Mulder-and-Scully opposites-attract stuff never feels standard when it's done right.
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While "Bones" has too much "X-Files" and "CSI" going in the pilot to feel completely original, it's nonetheless a taut, well-constructed, character-rich procedural with genuine potential.
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Like CSI and its offshoots, Bones will take viewers to dark and sometimes disgusting places. So, in one sense, Fox may have come up with a format that will reach both men, who love unappetizing scenes, and women, because of the female heroine.
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A flimsy little procedural that uses logical and technological leaps of faith to hide its central problem: lack of co-star chemistry.
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Rather too slick for its own good.
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The show's witty, inventive writing would be fun even in the hands of a less capable cast.
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The quality of the mystery in the pilot, no better than mediocre, is what keeps this series from starting off with a wider lead at the opening gun.
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As science and as detection, Bones has a way to go before it's more than a bug in Grissom's Vegas eye. But the screwball romance is promising.
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In tonight's premiere of "Bones," for example, super-sleuth Temperance concludes from the young victim's bones that she was probably a tennis player -- a nifty conclusion, but one that has no bearing on the case. It's a factoid that leads nowhere, which is kind of where "Bones" goes in its premiere episode.
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It's as if we've all passed this way (many times) before and could write the dialogue, act the scenes, predict the outcome all in our sleep.
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Deschanel exudes a luminous quality that elevates this grim, conventional show.
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Emily Deschanel is well cast as Brennan--she has the right sort of drained, remote presence, as if still working off last night's sleeping pill--and she's also well cast against David Boreanaz. [19 Sep 2005, p.45]
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It could use a little more dramatic meat on its predictable framework.
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It's an (occasionally) frothy mix -- comedic moments tumble into serious scenes of forensic examination -- that's not altogether terrible, but neither does it beg to be watched on a regular basis.
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Bones is a very poor cross between the X-Files and CSI with characters stolen from NCIS, plot devices from Veronica Mars, and topicality from Law & Order.
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Deschanel, who's believable either serious or perplexed -- and adorable in her quirkiness -- immediately becomes this series' most important ingredient.
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"Bones" probably will remind more viewers of a cross between "CSI" and "The X-Files," except with more humorous banter than the first, and more romantic heat than the latter.
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Memo to network execs planning an all-forensics programming slate for fall: Watching attractive people poke at skull fragments is not inherently interesting.
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Clings to proven formulas.
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Bones isn't the riskiest or most ambitious series coming your way this season. But it may turn out to be one of the most satisfying and entertaining.
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Deschanel comes off a little too much like a sorority girl rather than a scientist with missing-parent issues.
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The heroine, unlikely in every detail including her name, Temperance Brennan, goes about reassembling corpses and then divining how they got to be that way. It's precise, tedious work and so is watching this show.
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Boreanaz and Deschanel have nice chemistry... but the script also tends to undermine its brighter moments with dialogue that repeats the exposition and the characters' defining traits over and over again.
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You might think you can't possibly fit one more crime-solving procedural onto an overcrowded calendar, but consider giving Bones a break.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 211 out of 294
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Mixed: 20 out of 294
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Negative: 63 out of 294
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ToyBAug 28, 2006The character dynamics hook audiences, the dark humor appeals, the cases are well-thought out, and the acting is superb on all aspects.
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MargoBAug 28, 2006
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Feb 14, 2013This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.