A Bone to Pick with Bones

Yeah, I'm sure I'm the first one that's use that turn of phrase since Bones came on the air.

Here's the thing. My mom gets incensed when a book is so close to being awesome and just misses in some area or another - charm, character, plot, balance whatever. I don't. I can take what I like from a book and pretend the other parts don't exist... gloss over them in my mind.

Oddly enough, that is NOT what I can do with tv shows. Perhaps because so much less is left to my imagination to interpret or fill in, I really can't stomach shows that don't work in all ways for me.

Bones for example is exactly the kind of book I would have loved (yes I know it IS a book series, I haven't read it), but from episode #1 the tension/friction/closeness; the Mulder/Scully relationship was way way way too pronounced way way way too early. They had run into each other before is what is implied in the first episode, but that doesn't help in my opinion. Yes they generally do and say all the "right" Mulder/Scully (or should I say Steed/Mrs. Peel who were much earlier ;) ) things, but it's empty because we don't have the years of build up.

With Mulder and Scully there was a reluctant flirtation maybe, but the sexual tension was way down on the list. NOTHING would happen between them for episodes or if there was anything in an episode it was A look, A comment and could oh so easily be ignored.

What goes on in recent shows trying to pick up a Mulder/Scully-esque audience is that they are playing up to that audience way too much - to the point where it's fluff. And honestly, as silly as this sounds when referring to pretend worlds - fluff is just not going to create quite the same sort of phenomena. There was no doubt - none - from the very beginning of Bones what they wanted the audience to see and feel - so much so that they practically just plain told us how we should feel about this "tension." While I know the rule "show not tell" is a writing mantra, it should be with any story.

They are also incredibly impatient. Way too much happens in every episode to progress a relationship that we all know they aren't going to progress. So it's all so empty because it never matters from one episode to the next.

The relationships I prefer of this nature are slow and steady. The assumption by everyone, for a multitude of reasons, is that these two cannot get together or will not. Sure, we know its television and it's always a possibility, and after a few years, we're really dang sure the powers that be are manipulating us with that possibility, but it's fun because so much of it is under the surface, left for us to imagine. In these shows they aren't just drawing out the inevitable because they know their audience will die off when the suspense does. It's certainly an incentive for them not to bring the two together, but the audiance at least as the illusion that there is more to it than that - and NOT a surprise ex-wife that shows up in the second season or some other manufactured road block.

In Bones, Booth & Bones' reasoning (which they allude to in every other episode in one way or another) is that a relationship would complicate their working relationship whether or not they stayed together. Fair enough... BASICALLY. Until whoops, Booth has a relationship with Cam which does not really complicate their work in or out of the relationship except for the tension with Bones. They are just fine, can work together, blah blah blah. So if Booth and Bones have so much more between them, what exactly is the fear here? Oh I know - they try to put fears in there - but its different from the sorts of roadblocks that are inherent. For example - in a recent Bones episode the crux of the problem is that Bones instantly respects Booth's alcoholic brother more than Booth because he is higher up in rank and therefore smarter in some way? It was weak, trust me... point being we're supposed to think that Bones' lack of respect for Booth would be a new deep gash in their relationship. Er... ok... well yeah, Bones came off as disgustingly pompous and superficial - but that same "issue" of smarts has been there since the beginning and never bothered him overmuch before (nor has she been particularly impressed with MILITARY rank before). UGH just SO manufactured.

The difference I can illustrate from X-files is that the complication wasn't JUST that they were partners working with each other - there were fundamental deeper problems - problems that aren't ever really going to be totally resolved, whether they are together or not. Mulder may trust Scully with his life, but he doesn't know how much she'll ever trust him - she's so skeptical that at times she has practically betrayed him (from his pov anyway). On the other hand, Scully knows that no matter how much she may mean to Mulder, she also knows he'll sacrifice anything and go anywhere in pursuit of his "truths." When they come together we still worry about these things and we know that through the YEARS that we have experienced with them that they loved each other in spite of these things.

In words, the two relationships may not seem all that different, but its in their integrity, their "show, not tell" that the two really stand apart.

It is all the more tragic because the couple episodes a season that are really designed to let us see the depth of their relationship (Bones) are fantastic. If I only cared one little ioda for their relationship, it would be just so awesome.

Anyway, after trying, really trying to just let the show catch up to it's own hype, I finally turned off the tivo.