Holy crap, they actually came up with a plausible explanation for how a woman who displays no understanding whatsoever of basic human behavior can write characters who can appeal to a mass audience!
Rob Helmerichs
Bones 4/1/10 "Bones on a Blue Line"
This was an awful episode, from beginning to end. Worse yet, as far as I'm concerned, there are clear signs of FOX meddling with the show, and right now I am so very close to completely giving up on it.
Let's deal with the most glaring issue: the product placement. Ridiculous. They've been doing it for weeks, and it's awful. There are good ways, acceptable ways, and bad ways of doing it. Chuck demonstrates multiple ways of doing it well - the in-show placement is usually subtle, but even when it's not it doesn't drag the show to a screeching halt. And the out-of-show use of characters from the show is extremely novel and works extremely well. As for acceptable, that would be Leverage... their tight shots of the car logo are obvious, but it's brief and doesn't take up an undue amount of time.
This show is doing it all wrong. It sticks out like a sore thumb... it isn't integrated into the story at all, it doesn't feel natural, it doesn't work. It doesn't leave the viewer with a positive feeling about the product, and doesn't leave them wanting to learn more. It just leaves the viewer feeling like they've just been sucker-punched. The entire show stops while an actor rattles off these lines that are clearly scripted not by the show writers, but by some ad exec for the product. Even the actors seem to me to have this guilty look on their faces, as if to say "really, we're sorry for this, it's not our fault!" It's awful, awful, awful stuff. FOX: STOP IT. STOP IT NOW.
Ok, I'll step off that soapbox.
Ok, the other really glaring thing: the subway scene. Come on... we can clearly tell that is the "Earthquake!" attraction at Universal Studios. I mean, there wasn't even a slight attempt to disguise it... the "subway" (tram) cars, the water pouring, everything. It was silly, and took me completely out of the story right from the beginning... and the worst part is that it felt superfluous. There were probably 6 better, more realistic ways they could have introduced the episode, but yet they went with the "Earthquake!" attraction, almost as if they were told "Here, you have to use the attraction in some way. Now write an episode around it."
Brennan's book... it's almost as if they went "huh, well if Castle can steal a few ideas from us, we're going to steal back the idea of featuring a main character writing a book." It became quite corny when Brennan's main character was named Dr. Kathy Reichs... then proceeded to repeat the name about 30 times (at least) with absolutely no subtlety, as if the audience wasn't already aware that Bones is based on a book series by Dr. Kathy Reichs.
(As an aside, I really hope they don't decide to also copy Castle and actually hire a ghost writer to produce a "real" Temperance Brennan book. At this point, there are the original Reichs books, there are Bones TV tie-in books... if they actually produce a "Temperance Brennan" written book, that would just be ridiculous. I don't know that they are, but with as heavily as they featured the fake book this week, I wouldn't put it past them.)
Now, the meddling I referred to. There were so, SO many moments during this episode that a character had to stop and state the obvious, as if FOX had felt that even the not particularly complex script would confuse the viewers. I was muttering, "What is this, Blue's Clues?" For example, they show a shot of what is clearly a rat's nest, with rats crawling in and out of it... yet a character has to exclaim "Oooh, that's a rat's nest!!!" Thanks, we can see that. This is the latest iteration of FOX underestimating the audience... this is also the same show that has in past episodes had FOX stopping the show at the midpoint and reminding viewers what just happened, so I'm pretty sure it's not just sloppy writing.
I could go on and on... the acting seemed more wooden than a high school drama club production, and the chemistry between the characters seemed so off it was almost as if they were complete strangers. There was no fun to the writing, no spark, no nothing.
Right know, it's almost as if Castle has managed to take all the stuff that Bones used to do well... and do them even better, and I'm thinking my time would be better spent watching that show, and not this one.
Let's deal with the most glaring issue: the product placement. Ridiculous. They've been doing it for weeks, and it's awful. There are good ways, acceptable ways, and bad ways of doing it. Chuck demonstrates multiple ways of doing it well - the in-show placement is usually subtle, but even when it's not it doesn't drag the show to a screeching halt. And the out-of-show use of characters from the show is extremely novel and works extremely well. As for acceptable, that would be Leverage... their tight shots of the car logo are obvious, but it's brief and doesn't take up an undue amount of time.
This show is doing it all wrong. It sticks out like a sore thumb... it isn't integrated into the story at all, it doesn't feel natural, it doesn't work. It doesn't leave the viewer with a positive feeling about the product, and doesn't leave them wanting to learn more. It just leaves the viewer feeling like they've just been sucker-punched. The entire show stops while an actor rattles off these lines that are clearly scripted not by the show writers, but by some ad exec for the product. Even the actors seem to me to have this guilty look on their faces, as if to say "really, we're sorry for this, it's not our fault!" It's awful, awful, awful stuff. FOX: STOP IT. STOP IT NOW.
Ok, I'll step off that soapbox.
Ok, the other really glaring thing: the subway scene. Come on... we can clearly tell that is the "Earthquake!" attraction at Universal Studios. I mean, there wasn't even a slight attempt to disguise it... the "subway" (tram) cars, the water pouring, everything. It was silly, and took me completely out of the story right from the beginning... and the worst part is that it felt superfluous. There were probably 6 better, more realistic ways they could have introduced the episode, but yet they went with the "Earthquake!" attraction, almost as if they were told "Here, you have to use the attraction in some way. Now write an episode around it."
Brennan's book... it's almost as if they went "huh, well if Castle can steal a few ideas from us, we're going to steal back the idea of featuring a main character writing a book." It became quite corny when Brennan's main character was named Dr. Kathy Reichs... then proceeded to repeat the name about 30 times (at least) with absolutely no subtlety, as if the audience wasn't already aware that Bones is based on a book series by Dr. Kathy Reichs.
(As an aside, I really hope they don't decide to also copy Castle and actually hire a ghost writer to produce a "real" Temperance Brennan book. At this point, there are the original Reichs books, there are Bones TV tie-in books... if they actually produce a "Temperance Brennan" written book, that would just be ridiculous. I don't know that they are, but with as heavily as they featured the fake book this week, I wouldn't put it past them.)
Now, the meddling I referred to. There were so, SO many moments during this episode that a character had to stop and state the obvious, as if FOX had felt that even the not particularly complex script would confuse the viewers. I was muttering, "What is this, Blue's Clues?" For example, they show a shot of what is clearly a rat's nest, with rats crawling in and out of it... yet a character has to exclaim "Oooh, that's a rat's nest!!!" Thanks, we can see that. This is the latest iteration of FOX underestimating the audience... this is also the same show that has in past episodes had FOX stopping the show at the midpoint and reminding viewers what just happened, so I'm pretty sure it's not just sloppy writing.
I could go on and on... the acting seemed more wooden than a high school drama club production, and the chemistry between the characters seemed so off it was almost as if they were complete strangers. There was no fun to the writing, no spark, no nothing.
Right know, it's almost as if Castle has managed to take all the stuff that Bones used to do well... and do them even better, and I'm thinking my time would be better spent watching that show, and not this one.
Please, you act like Bones was a masterpiece to begin with.
I couldn't take it seriously when in the first two minutes of the pilot, Angela flashed that ticket agent.
I've been treating this as a strictly "turn off your brain" show since then although any respect I might have had for the characters (or the writing) disappeared between the way they had Temperance help get her father out of the murder charge and Zach as Gormagon's apprentice.
Bones was never "high art".
The only real reason I stick around is for David Boreanaz (and I admit, I did find it funny the time Bones caught him reading Green Lantern).
I couldn't take it seriously when in the first two minutes of the pilot, Angela flashed that ticket agent.
I've been treating this as a strictly "turn off your brain" show since then although any respect I might have had for the characters (or the writing) disappeared between the way they had Temperance help get her father out of the murder charge and Zach as Gormagon's apprentice.
Bones was never "high art".
The only real reason I stick around is for David Boreanaz (and I admit, I did find it funny the time Bones caught him reading Green Lantern).
Toyota Sienna.
The "explanation" of why Angela was driving one is what Loadstar was referring to.
Ah, now I remember the scene. It seemed a trivial discussion and did not affect me, positively or negatively (obviously, since I forgot about it).
I had no idea that the water main break was filmed on an amusement park set, which is not surprising since I have never seen any such exhibit at an amusement park.
As for the rest of the show, I was bored by the Sweets plot, as well as by the Japanese lady. But I enjoyed the main plot about the murder with the blue disintegrating bullets. Except, the bullet did not work as it was supposed to, since it went through the victim and still had enough energy to cause a powerful explosion of glass particles.
I had no idea that the water main break was filmed on an amusement park set, which is not surprising since I have never seen any such exhibit at an amusement park.
As for the rest of the show, I was bored by the Sweets plot, as well as by the Japanese lady. But I enjoyed the main plot about the murder with the blue disintegrating bullets. Except, the bullet did not work as it was supposed to, since it went through the victim and still had enough energy to cause a powerful explosion of glass particles.
I'll admit the show started off quite rough. There were many clunkers during the first season, and Brennan specifically was quite badly written. ("I don't know what that means.") By the second season, it had recovered quite well. It was fairly well written, there was nice chemistry between all of the characters, it was firing on all cylinders.
This was in many ways worse than first season.
I didn't notice the product placement either, and agree it's not a show worth scrutinizing too closely. It's lite entertainment.
Yeah, the only thing that really bugged me was the wild disparity between Bones' social skills and the level of social skills necessary to write bestselling novels...which, as I said in the OP, I am stunned to see that they plausibly addressed!
Now, I still don't buy the character (her level of social skills can still vary pretty widely based on the needs of the script), but at least now it's reduced to dumb goofy fun from intelligence-insulting idiocy.
(The other think that really bugged me was the Zack fiasco, but they pretty much pretend he never existed, so I guess I'll forgive them for that one.)
The product placement in Chuck is a bit worse. The Toyota thing made me roll my eyes for a moment but the dialogue quickly moved on.
This was never a "good" show but now its losing its entertainment value. This episode was better than the last few however.
This was never a "good" show but now its losing its entertainment value. This episode was better than the last few however.
Oh, I'll never forgive them for that.... it was stupid, stupid, stupid.
I swore I would stop watching because of it but they've sucked me back in.
Yeah, that was bad. And the worst part was they could have had nearly the same placement without it being so clunky. Switch it to the two of them getting into the van (with a leverage style view of the Toyota badge), and first seeing the van gives a natural 'mini-van person' opening so the size thing for angela's art supplies makes sense, the a (much shorter) mention of the backup cam wouldn't be out of place. "Great for art supplies and I love having a backup cam".
It still would have been an extranious placement scene, but at least there'd be movement and it would be quite so blatent.
That actually bugged me more that the product placement. I didn't realize it was the "Earthquake" attracktion, but it wasn't anything like the DC metro. (Nothing, not even the tacked on signage, was even close to correct)
And of course it was ultimately pointless. The earthquake was nothing more than a way to turn up the victem. (And to tramatize Sweets) but any number of things could have done the same without being so painfully bad. The earthquake had no further impact on the case.
I don't recall actually seeing it in the photo, but they more or less said he was standing in front of a (glass) tunnel light fixture and that's where the shards came from.
anyone get a clear picture on how much $$ was on the check she gave Angela?
Or am I thinking of another show I saw last night ( Human Target) where a check was shown?
Or am I thinking of another show I saw last night ( Human Target) where a check was shown?
I almost had to stop watching this one because Sweets' girlfriend/fiance has got to be the most irritating character on television right now. HATE her!
They showed the check, but I didn't see any shot where you'd have had a chance at reading its value.
In Human target (spoilers since it's for another show)
the CEO of Agrius wrote a check to the Dr. It was for over $300k, closer to $400k
I tried to read the check amount when Angela showed the check, but I couldn't really see.
*sigh* I find it incredibly depressing that standards for scripted television have dropped so far that there are people that didn't even notice a car ad crop up smack dab in the middle of a scene of a television show.
Maybe somebody can explain to me why exactly the transit cop, or whatever she was, actually shot the blind guy? There really didn't seem to be any motive.
And the product placement was ridiculous - I fully expected Angela to let Miss Wick (soon to be Mrs. Sweets) drive so she could see how great the Sierra handles.
And the product placement was ridiculous - I fully expected Angela to let Miss Wick (soon to be Mrs. Sweets) drive so she could see how great the Sierra handles.
That was my guess. I was thinking at Hodgins: "That's not your thing. You stole that thing from L.A. Law 20 years ago when you were a young pup."
And I definitely noticed the product placement ad for the Sierra.
Didn't recognize the subway from the Universal Studios ride, though.
Like the OP, I thought this was a clever explanation as to how Bones manages to write best-selling novels. Apparently she doesn't argue with Angela's suggestions like she does with practically everyone else. I wonder how her editor manages to work with her.
She got pissed off that she left her boyfriend for the blind guy's clients based on the letters that weren't real. The pawn shop owner was her real love.
So of course rather than being pissed at the guy who bought the letters, she killed the guy who wrote the letters
Yes, that was bothering me as well. (Can't believe I forgot to mention it earlier)
Even if she's pissed that he offers this service of creating 'fake' love letters why shoot him?
It's a wildly disproportionate response.
Now if she'd started having him harassed, or gotten a client list and started outing the other love letter purchasers to their prospective SOs, that would be believable.
But "I made a temporary change in my life because, with your assistance, somebody lied to me" doesn't seem like any reason (even in the heat of the moment) to want to kill.
edit: If it had led to something irreversable (her loser-Ex offs himself, or marries someone else, so she can't get back with "the love of her life") then maybe, maybe, the shooting would be more believable.
The car ad bugged me too. It was pretty obvious to me. I gave it a bit of thought at the time though. I think TV shows have been so neutered when it comes to mentioning real products that even a natural conversation would stand out. Maybe it will be a few years before we are less sensitive to seeing "real" objects described on TV and they'll fade back into the background.
Product placements can be pretty bad. I used to read James Patterson's Alex Cross books until he became a shill for a German luxury car maker. Too distracting so I read other books now.
The earthquake was distracting as well. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the Universal Studios ride, and I've never even been there before. I think it was supposed to be a San Francisco BART station.
Not something they did wrong, but as soon as they said the blue color came from the projectile I immediately thought "Glaser safety slug!"
Product placements can be pretty bad. I used to read James Patterson's Alex Cross books until he became a shill for a German luxury car maker. Too distracting so I read other books now.
The earthquake was distracting as well. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the Universal Studios ride, and I've never even been there before. I think it was supposed to be a San Francisco BART station.
Not something they did wrong, but as soon as they said the blue color came from the projectile I immediately thought "Glaser safety slug!"
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