Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Discussion of TJ's most popular venture to date!
Sinkwriter72
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Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

*grumble grumble grumble*

Just finished watching the Bones portion of the crossover "event."

*sigh*

I liked the parts with Hodgins. (As if that would ever be in doubt. LOL.) He was funny. I liked the look he gave Crane when Crane pushed his hand away from the ancient book of spells, as if Hodgins would contaminate it (even though he was wearing gloves and Crane wasn't, LOL). And I liked how (later) Crane complimented Hodgins on his job "well played, sir" and Hodgins thanked him and called him brother. Heee.

I also liked how Aubrey was cracking jokes about how odd Crane's name was and how could his parents have given him such a name as Ichabod that probably got him bullied or something and Booth defended the name, saying it wasn't all that weird, there's nothing wrong with unconventional names, and then Aubrey realizes he just inadvertently insulted a guy named SEELEY. Heh. That was funny.

I also liked how fascinated Crane was by the Jeffersonian's technology, and his occasional references to how it would have made the real Jefferson proud. That, and his handwriting matching someone who supposedly wrote a letter back in the 1700's. Watching Crane try to reason his way out of that with Brennan was amusing.

However...

1) I still think these two worlds should never have crossed. They don't work together. Booth and Brennan and their FBI world -- no matter how silly they can be sometimes -- is still grounded in reality of the world in which we know it. There are no supernatural forces, there are no monsters (only human villains). And for Booth to conveniently know Abbie's former sheriff boss just isn't believable. Corbin was a sheriff in Sleepy Hollow, not an FBI agent or even in law enforcement in an area near enough to cross paths with Booth. It just doesn't fit. None of it does. And to have this unspoken magic and fantasy coming into the real world of the Bones storyline just doesn't work. You can't have them meet someone like Ichabod Crane and then pretend like he's not really from the 1700's and we're all just modern people here, wink wink, just having a bit of fun for a week, but maybe we'll all work together again if the ratings are good enough, even though it makes no sense and interrupts both story worlds. Anyway, it just really didn't work for me.

2) I think Booth and Brennan and Ichabod had moments of good, grounded acting, but they also had moments of eye-rollingly over-the-top acting caused by forced writing. Trying to force humor is one of the things that has bothered me about the more recent seasons. They had humor in the early seasons too, but most of it made sense within the structure of the stories being told. Now I just feel like the Bones writers or showrunners force humor in the kind of way where you feel like they're standing there waiting for you to laugh, and they're staring at you like, haha, get it, get it, we're being funny here, GET IT? And that kind of humor just doesn't work for me. And in those kinds of moments, that's when Emily starts to act over-the-top and I just eyeroll at Brennan. And there are moments like that for Booth too. And in this episode they made Crane do it too. He's not usually so over-the-top with his humorous bits and facial expressions, which makes me wonder if Tom was directed to be more broad with his mannerisms. Which annoys me. Because he's naturally very funny on Sleepy Hollow - he doesn't need to push it over the top like they made him do several times in this episode, like they were trying to show in a too-big way that he's out of place in their world. *sigh*

Anyway, I'll be curious to watch the Sleepy Hollow side of the crossover and see if the direction eases up or if they force some of the hyper-humor in that episode as well.

Frankly, I'm not looking forward to Booth and Brennan being in this part of the crossover. It already seemed like they were stretching it to have Abbie and Ichabod show up in Bones world. To have Booth and Brennan be called to Sleepy Hollow for any reason whatsoever just feels like it's pushing those boundaries even more. AND once they step into the weirdness and fantasy stuff that makes up Sleepy Hollow, once again I think it just doesn't work because these two worlds shouldn't pair up. One is grounded in reality (or is supposed to be) while the other is steeped in fantasy and myth and supernatural forces. Witches, monsters, spells, you name it.

So... you just can't have two people like Booth and Brennan show up in a world like that and then pretend like it's not real. Or have them be clueless to the fantasy/supernatural stuff, or "just miss" the moments of scary monsters, or find some "perfectly scientific" reason for whatever happens there. I just don't believe it as I'm watching it, I don't think it fits or works well, it's too forced and I'm a little annoyed with FOX for forcing the two shows to try something like this.

With a show like Buffy and its spin-off Angel, it makes sense for the two shows to have a crossover. The characters know each other, and they have the same worlds (supernatural, scary stuff to deal with). Even combining shows like NCIS and NCIS: L.A. or NCIS: New Orleans makes more sense because they're grounded in the same type of premise and might even have reason to work with one another under the right case circumstances.

But shows like Bones and Sleepy Hollow just do not mix. And it annoys me to have them forced to do it anyway and then pretend like it won't affect either program's canon. Like it doesn't matter.

Of course it doesn't matter to the FOX executives. They're not the ones who have to pretend their stories aren't compromised. The execs are just happy if the ratings for either show (or both) get a boost.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to care about whether or not it makes sense to the VIEWERS. And it did not make sense to me.

Anyway, that's how I felt about that. :D

And as always, more Hodgins, please. ;)
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ThyneAlone
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by ThyneAlone »

<<rolleyes but hopefully not too unrealistically>>
It's not like we didn't all expect it.
WHY??!!!
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Sinkwriter72
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

Yep. Sorry, Steph!

Which isn't to say it wasn't enjoyable at all to watch either episode. They were both generally fine episodes. It's just that under it all, I couldn't escape the fact that crossing the two shows just does not work because it compromises their worlds, most especially the Bones world, because magic and monsters shouldn't exist in the Bones world. And just because Booth and Brennan didn't SEE anything monster-like happen, just the presence of Abbie and Crane and their experiences means that stuff now exists in the Bones world and they just don't know about it.

I think the crossover of these two shows makes Booth and Brennan look stupid and clueless. Booth is supposed to be a very savvy, gut-smart FBI agent. He's the gut, Brennan's the science. And to have neither of them catch on that there's something fishy going on with Abbie and Crane and all their nervous "Don't figure out that there are monsters in the world" side eyes to one another, it just makes them look incompetent in comparison and that's not who these two characters are supposed to be. Booth and Brennan are supposed to be at the top of their fields. Brennan is brilliant and Booth is savvy when it comes to reading people. We saw it a little bit when he cornered Abbie and asked her if she was doing some sort of off-the-books case work. But for him to not dig any harder or think they were in any way suspicious, and for them to miss out on so many pieces of the puzzle and just hand wave everything away, I think it makes them look not good at their jobs. And that shouldn't be the case. Because they're smarter than that (or they used to be). They're supposed to be.

That's why I think these two worlds should never have mixed. Because it forces each world to mesh when they shouldn't - for example, now they pretend there's no Washington Irving or headless horseman tales? Like there's no way Hodgins wouldn't have been cracking wise about stuff like that, especially it being right around Halloween and him finding a headless corpse and then accidentally dropping a pumpkin into the coffin. And it means that Booth and Brennan are walking around clueless to the monsters and evils going on, when in their world they'd be fighting such things right alongside of Abbie and Ichabod. (Especially Booth.) Instead, at the end of the Sleepy Hollow episode, Abbie and Ichabod get off a Skype call with Booth and Brennan clearly none the wiser, and they sigh huge relief that their true investigations weren't found out. It's ridiculous.
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Sinkwriter72
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

There was also a moment in the Bones episode where the writers included a bit in which Brennan asks if Abbie and Crane are sexually involved and then recommends to Crane that he pursue that option because it's worked out so well for Brennan and Booth.

*headdesk*

Bones writers, I know you cannot seem to help yourselves with this kind of hitting-over-the-head approach. After all, you spent seaons doing it to Booth and Brennan on your own show. But do not start adding that to Sleepy Hollow! They don't need it!!

It's eyerolling to me but I'm not surprised they went there in the Bones script. Before Booth and Brennan got together, the writers got very heavy-handed with near-constant comments about Booth and Brennan and how they should be dating and how almost everyone on the show would say something to Booth and/or Brennan. "So you two must be dating, right?" "How long have you two been together?" "You're not together?? No way!"

You may recall from season 4 The Passenger in the Oven, they even had a suspect who had just been handcuffed and was being transported into custody make a comment about how he couldn't believe Booth and Brennan weren't dating. The dude was a teenager who had murdered someone by pushing her into a giant oven and letting her die a horrible death being cooked/burned alive. You really think a psychopathic teenager would be thinking about whether or not the two cops/FBI agents who arrested him were dating or compatible in any way? Seriously? And if he weren't psychopathic, he'd still be a scared teenager who'd done a terrible thing on passionate impulse and knows he's probably going to prison for a very, very long time. His mind would not be on the dating habits of his jailers!

It got so bad I wanted to smack the writers and showrunners for beating all of us over the head with the message that Booth and Brennan should get together. WE KNOW! We watch the show! You don't need to tell us! You need to SHOW us that they're getting closer in their partnership, not tell us by having every character comment on how they LOOK like they're already together.

Ugh. It's something that drove me nuts about the show. So I do not want FOX executives to start pushing that kind of over-the-top agenda on Sleepy Hollow. Whether they ever get together or not, the characters are doing just fine in the developing partnership they have.

Okay, I'm done talking! Who else watched the episodes and what did you think? :D
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by ThyneAlone »

Sinkwriter72 wrote:*headdesk*

Bones writers, I know you cannot seem to help yourselves with this kind of hitting-over-the-head approach. After all, you spent seaons doing it to Booth and Brennan on your own show. But do not start adding that to Sleepy Hollow! They don't need it!!

It's eyerolling to me but I'm not surprised they went there in the Bones script. Before Booth and Brennan got together, the writers got very heavy-handed with near-constant comments about Booth and Brennan and how they should be dating and how almost everyone on the show would say something to Booth and/or Brennan. "So you two must be dating, right?" "How long have you two been together?" "You're not together?? No way!"
Till I did that Bones 2.20 review recently I didn't realise just how long it had been going on. In that ep there were some really rather stupid comments from the officer who was taking them down to see the remains. Yeah ok, they were talking about love - sort of - in that abstracted way Brennan has of talking about love as if it's a scientific experiment - but nevertheless. To me it was a far more convincing intimacy when they sat down to a meal together - one Brennan had prepared specially for Booth, with some instinctive little personal touches - at the end of that episode.
Sinkwriter72 wrote:
It got so bad I wanted to smack the writers and showrunners for beating all of us over the head with the message that Booth and Brennan should get together. WE KNOW! We watch the show! You don't need to tell us! You need to SHOW us that they're getting closer in their partnership, not tell us by having every character comment on how they LOOK like they're already together.

Ugh. It's something that drove me nuts about the show. So I do not want FOX executives to start pushing that kind of over-the-top agenda on Sleepy Hollow. Whether they ever get together or not, the characters are doing just fine in the developing partnership they have.
The reason why this drives you nuts, Sherry, is simply that you are a high-performing, intelligent human being and you don't like the fact that the show writers are not crediting you with even minimal wit. I like my shows to acknowledge that I can think; subtle and witty is therefore the order of the day. Give me Joss Whedon or Steven Moffat and I am a happy bunny.

Now I have never watched Sleepy Hollow but I am very familiar with the genre and it really does need a light touch with a soupcon of humour. Heavy-handedness will not do the series any good at all. I wonder how the writing teams got on - is there any overlap, do you know? And I wonder what the actors thought about it all.

:occasion-happyhalloween:
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by skftex »

I'll have more to say about this later but I have to mention the two things done with the Angelator that bugged me. The first was when Angela is looking for the identity of the victim and has the girl with blond hair and said she couldn't make a match. Then Cam tells her that the girl actually had purple hair and a lot of piercings, so she changes the victims hair color and adds studs and finds a match. Why wouldn't the program have found this girl based on her facial features no matter what her hair color was or whether she had facial piercings? Not a great program if it uses things that can change like that! It bugged me because she's never had to do that before, she finds identities when they have no idea who they are and the skeleton has no type of hair but this time...yes lets not know who she is until we know her hair was purple!

The second things, the candlelight on her computer. I just don't believe she can simulate candlelight with all those glaring overhead lights that were on LOL But it did give us a funny moment with Hodgins and Ichabod and the fist bump so okay, I'll let that one go a bit.

I was okay with the Bones episode. It wasn't one of their best but it was okay. But I do have the same issue with it that Sherry does, now these people exist in the world of Bones, and really they shouldn't. Plus the only one thing they did as far as the name was concerned was say "Who names their kid Ichabod" and that was really just a joke about odd names said to Booth, because Aubrey wasn't thinking about Booth's name being Seely.

The Sleepy Hollow episode I started and didn't watch far enough to even know how they fit Booth/Brennan into it, because I had no clue what was going on, I didn't know who Pandora was or these other people that were with Ichabod and Abbie at the bowling alley or the significance of things they said. So I gave up after maybe 10 minutes, maybe not that far.

How the actors felt about it, well, TJ when he first heard-which was from me HAHAHA-he didn't seem to know how that was going to work. We had a short conversation a few weeks after he found out about it and he said he had no clue what was going to happen with it, though DB and ED didn't want to go to North Carolina (where Sleepy Hollow is filmed) so both episodes were done in LA. He volunteered to go to North Carolina but of course they told him no. :roll: That said, based on the photos TJ tweeted (I'll add those for you Steph into the thread once I get them up somewhere) he seems to have had a lot of fun filming the episode. But then TJ does love Halloween so that isn't surprising.
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by skftex »

Here are the twitter behind the scenes photos for you Steph!

Image Image

Image

And the one Tamara Taylor posted

Image






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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by ThyneAlone »

Oh thanks, those are wonderful!!!
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by stargazer »

So, it looks like you ladies have covered about everything concerning the episode. :D TJ was awesome as usual and I absolutely loved the spooky contact lenses. :romance-smileyheart:

I agree that this wasn't a great Bones episode and they really had to reach in order to fuse this world with that of Sleepy Hollow. There were a couple things that bugged me; I don't understand how easily Brennan accepted the explanation of Crane's handwriting matching the handwriting on the 200 year old document as being that of his ancestor's. It doesn't make sense because Brennan would normally disregard that sort of explanation immediately without any further thought.

Also, I don't like the fact that the legend of Sleepy Hollow didn't exist in the world of Bones in order for the crossover to work. Hodgins should have been the first one to point out that the headless body on Halloween and Icabod Crane were sleepy hollow references. Also, if I recall correctly, there was an episode a few seasons back where Fox was trying to promote their new show Sleepy Hollow on Bones and Hodgins had a line mentioning that he wanted to get home to see Sleepy Hollow. Does anyone else remember that or recall which episode it was?

I was a bit disappointed that Hodgins wasn't in the SH episode, I was hoping to get two hours of TJ. LOL!
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by stargazer »

I was watching a Bones rerun this afternoon and came across the episode where Hodgins mentioned recording an episode of Sleep Hollow on his DVR. Season 9 episode 1 The Secrets in the Proposal.
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Sinkwriter72
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Re: Bones 11.05 The Resurrection in the Remains

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

Good catch, Kathy!

:eusa-snooty: Nice work, network.
;)
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I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating [& sharing their experience]. I don't care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music… I think this world would be unlivable without art. ~ S. Soderbergh