The DVR is a magical device. Not only does it digitally record shows for you, it stores them until you are in the right frame of mind to watch them. So, if you’re not interested watching American Idol at its normal time because you fear that you’ll reach into your TV and rip Simon’s neck off, you can watch it a few hours later after downing some codeine cough medicine.
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of this delayed viewing with Bones. For some unfathomable reason I can’t get into the show since it returned with new episodes earlier this month. Sometimes it takes me several days to get into the zone to watch the newest episode. Such was the case this past week. After spending a few days in the queue, my wife and I were finally in the right state of mind. So, we pressed Play, watched a few minutes…
…and promptly fell asleep. It wasn’t that it was late in the evening – it was probably around 9:00 PM. Frankly, the episode was downright dull. I can’t put a finger on why that was. We had a new intern for Temperance to berate, a focus on the Squints, and a fairly good mystery. Still, the show dragged. In fact, I remember complaining to my beloved wife that only a half-hour of the show had run during one of my commercial fast forwarding sessions.
Thinking about it more, after a good night’s sleep, there were a number of factors that made this past week’s episode boring. First, the amount of time spent on Angela’s breakup with Roxie. If this had been an on-screen romance I could see the purpose of expounding on this subject. We barely saw any of the romance, but it became a focal point of the episode, with Angela speaking with many characters on the reasons why the break-up happened. This slowed the show down, especially at the end with Angela and Sweet’s conversation.
Second, Arastoo Vaziri, the ‘Intern of the Week’, wasn’t as interesting as others who have appeared this season. His use of sound effects to punctuate injuries discovered on the murder victim was neither amusing nor endearing. Also, his reluctance to speak with Dr. Brennan on anything even related to the case reminded me of the way Raj acts in front of women on The Big Bang Theory (of course, Bones was really a bitch with him; so, I guess his reactions were logical). Out of all the interns who have passed through the Jeffersonian this season I think that Mr. Vaziri shouldn’t be asked back.
Then, there were the appearances (or lack thereof) of Bones and Booth. It may be my imagination, but these two really didn’t have a lot of screen time. While we all love the Squints, we come to the show to see Tempe and Seeley interact with each other. Save for an extended conversation at the end of the episode, there were very few of these interactions. Hell, Tempe didn’t even determine how the victim was murdered. That credit went to Cam and Arastoo.
Look, I’ve been wrong before when it comes to these things. However, there has to be one person out there who agrees with me about last week’s Bones. If there is please let me know so I don’t feel like I’m slowly losing my mind.
Clacked by Richard Keller 
on Mar 26, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
You’re not the only one. Even now I’m having trouble remembering what the case actually was. I never really got the whole Angela/Roxie relationship. I feel like this break up actually got more attention than her relationship with Hodgins. There were some lasting side-effects, but I don’t remember Angela and Bones ever really talking about it much. So yeah, I didn’t sleep through it, but it could have been more… better. :) I still look forward to it, though.
This whole lesbian relationship was just a means to an end – they noticed they were going nowhere with her and Hodgins so they broke them up with bringing former lovers of Angela back – that’s all, nothing more.
I watched all episodes of Bones in a week after my little cylcing-accident and to be honest I find the fourth season all in all lacking. It’s definitely not Zack who I miss it’s his replacements who are boring and on top of that all the halucinating of Booth is going on my nerves. This is becoming all to esotheric if you ask me and reading today about him doing it again on May 5th (hint: don’t visit TV Squad if you don’t want to get spoilered on how and what he imagines) doesn’t leave me looking forward to it.
I love Bones, but you are right. I can’t remember anything much about this episode. Oh, that’s right, wasn’t this the episode with the chiropractor?
This is still a pleasant show, but to tell the truth, they haven’t recovered since the strike messed up the whole Gormagon long story.