The final episode of Bones, completing 12 seasons, has been broadcast and viewed. Bones marked a valiant attempt to bring science, and scientists, into the realm of humanity, as Dr. Temperance Brennan, for all of her nearly inhuman competence and confidence at the gurney, also has the insecurities that come with childhood bullying and abandonment, the foster care system, and how to interface her atheistic philosophy with a world which is rarely so rational and scientifically ordered; the other scientists also make similar contributions. Whether or not Bones succeeded in influencing society toward a more appreciative position on science and the contributions it makes to society is a matter to be assessed in the future.
But Bones was, as it had to be, so much more, taking on topics ranging from love, sex, and marriage to the morality and backlash of sniping. It’s really fairly hard to just toss off a piece on such a long-lived show in which stuff happened. It wouldn’t be so hard with a sitcom in which nothing really changes, but in Bones characters grew, suffered setbacks, moved on, died – and then were mourned and sent on their way down the last river, so to speak. In other words, all the previous episodes mattered.
So, in some ways, that’s what this piece covers. Bones was unremittingly excellent, unafraid to explore hard topics, and willing to sacrifice characters when a story demanded it. It was fun but hard-nosed, but willing to question that nose when it was wrong, with the exception of the unexamined fidelity of a polygraph machine in the final episode – an aspect of pseudo-science that could have been fun to explore in another episode, but here only served as a gear in the plot. As it was the final episode and it provided some lovely tension, I’ll just have to excuse it with a regretful shrug.
Thanks for the memories, Bones, and I hope we’ll get a movie or two out of you.
