OnTV: Mulder Does ‘Bones’
Bones, Angel, and Mulder: A Match Made in TV Heaven
One of the best shows on U.S. television right now, hands down, is Fox’s Bones. For the uninitiated, this hip, fresh, and smart (Did I include all of the best buzzworthy adjectives? I think I did.) crime procedural follows the gritty work of one Dr. Temperance Brennan (the exquisitely cast Emily Deschanel), an ace forensic anthropologist with an uncommon ability to reconstruct important clues about the dead using only their bones as reference, thus her nickname Bones. When law enforcement is stumped and unable to identify the cause of death or even the identity of the body itself, Brennan is who they call to beg for help. Smart beyond her years, despite an amusing total blind spot for pop culture (don’t even bother making sly references to it-girls of the moment like Paris, Lindsay, or Britney because she definitely doesn’t know who they are … or care, for that matter), Brennan eventually enters the realm of one Special Agent Seeley Booth, a man’s man FBI agent played pitch-perfectly by David Boreanaz of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. Together, the two brainy and brawny—they’re each both—invesitgators team up to get to the bottom of hair-raising crimes that would otherwise remain unsolved in the cold case files forever.
Brennan and Booth receive some special love tonight when none other than David Duchovny—the one and only Fox Mulder from The X-Files, of course—steps behind the camera to direct a pivotal episode in this sophomore season. Entitled “Judas on a Pole,” the installment gets off to a typical puzzling start when Brennan and Booth first encounter a scorched body atop the Federal Building and then deduce that the deceased was too intimately involved with organized crime. Even odder connections become apparent after Brennan learns about a foreboding call her estranged brother Russ (Loren Dean) received recently from their long-absent father. Given Duchovny’s presence, how can we be surprised when it next turns out that a possible ongoing government conspiracy is at play? All we need now is a few aliens that bleed green goo, and perhaps a paranormal event or two, and I can almost see Gillian Anderson fighting back a smirk as she rolls her eyes behind Duchovny’s back.
There’s no doubt about it—Bones is *the* show to watch tonight.
Bones‘ “Judas on a Pole” episode debuts December 13 at 8pm EST on Fox
Bones photo courtesy of Fox
