Bones Fans Reveal What They Wish The Show Had Done Differently
Sometimes, the complexities of life require us to hold two opposing ideas in our minds at the same time. For fans of mega-popular Fox crime procedural Bones, their ability to do just that is tested by the conundrum that Bones is a perfect TV show ... except for all the times it isn't.
Even the most diehard fans of Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) have to admit that there have been some storylines and character arcs throughout the run of the series that leave quite a bit to be desired. That doesn't mean they love the show any less. After all, a few missteps over the course of a nearly 250-episode run is still a pretty good record. However, a recent Reddit thread entitled "Things that you wish the show would have done differently?" is proof that you can't make a beloved crime drama without cracking a few bones.
Here are some of the moments that fans of Bones wish the series had handled better.
Fans were irked by the time jump in Brennan and Booth's relationship
At its core, Bones is really about two things: forensic investigations of horrific murders, and the love story between Brennan and Booth. The characters ended the run of the series happily married with children, but their eventual status as a rock-solid couple is only a certainty when viewing the show in hindsight. In reality, it took six seasons of will-they-won't-they antics before Brennan and Booth finally got together.
The ball got rolling toward the end of Bones season 6, when the characters have a clandestine hookup. This seemed like just another chapter in the story of their dysfunctional courtship, but in the finale, Brennan confesses to Booth that she's pregnant. That bombshell ended the season, and when the show came back the next year, fans were a little thrown when things picked up not right after Brennan's shocking revelation but many months later.
For fans who had been following this courtship for years, skipping over all the lovey-dovey early relationship moments felt like a raw deal. In the Reddit thread about things fans wish they could change about Bones, user u/Shneepz wrote, "After all the close calls they finally get together, great. Then she's automatically pregnant...Then it's S7 and they've skipped all the drama and emotional development and now they're living together. Like, the whole point of the show is essentially their relationship and you just skip what is probably the most important part of it."
The way the show killed off Sweets didn't sit well with many Bones fans
It's never easy to say goodbye when a character you've grown attached to leaves a TV show. Bones fans have had to make peace with the departures of many characters over the years, but few have hit as hard as the death of Dr. Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley). While most fans are understanding about Daley's decision to leave the show, the way the writers decided to have the character make his exit didn't sit well with many.
Sweets was shot to death off screen on the season 10 episode "The Conspiracy in the Corpse," with Brennan and Booth arriving on the scene with just enough time to say a few tearful goodbyes. Some fans were upset that Sweets died at all. In the Reddit thread about the show's mistakes, user u/kdramaslave said simply, "Sweets should not have died."
For others, it's not necessarily that the show killed off Sweets, but how it did it. Elsewhere on Reddit, in a thread about Sweets' death, user u/takemyd_va wrote, "The fact there wasn't even a heroic death scene of him shooting the guy and fighting back... nope...I just feel like for such an important character, especially one that's been on the show for so long, to deserve a more oomf to their death, ya know?"
Some fans wanted more out of Booth's relationship with Hannah
Although it seems sacrilege to root for Booth to get together with someone other than Brennan, during season 6, some fans were doing just that. The show introduced a new formidable love interest for everyone's favorite grump in the form of journalist Hannah (Vikings' Katheryn Winnick). That is, until he proposed prematurely and blew up their relationship, leading to a moment that had fans of the show ripping their hair out.
You might think that Bones trying to set Booth up with someone other than Brennan is what fans object to, but the complaints about the Booth and Hannah romance are a bit more nuanced than that. For many, the issue has more to do with the fact that once Booth and Hannah's relationship ended, it became obvious that the character of Hannah was little more than a narrative obstacle to pad things out until Booth and Brennan eventually got together.
In the fan complaint Reddit thread, user u/Bones-447 pointed to the disappearing act the character did as soon as the show didn't need her anymore: "Booth-Hannah's closure (the writers literally pretend it didn't exist?! No callbacks at all?!)." Commenting on another Reddit thread, user u/TheDudeOnHisRug summed up how many fans felt about Hannah's arc by writing, "Yes, it felt rushed and not properly written. Hannah only appeared to generate drama."
In the end, no TV series is 100 percent perfect, and Bones is no exception. Hopefully, none of the fans lodging their complaints are expecting their issues to get resolved in a Bones movie.