What's old is new again

Though I started this blog to keep friends and family informed while I travel, I realized that I don't have to restrict it to just that topic. So...

It's FINALLY Bonesday! Yes after, what, seven weeks (the day before Thanksgiving), FOX is finally giving us a new episode of Bones. Granted, we were supposed to get a new episode last week but the presidential speech threw a kink in things. I just started watching Bones over the summer when some of my friends from my Remington Steele group told me I had to watch it. I borrowed their DVDs and watched the pilot. I thought it was just OK and it was several weeks before I watched another episode. I really should have known better. Like Steele's pilot ("Tempered Steele", though that was the second episode to air) there's a bit of a different feel to the episode as compared to the others. But once they got on a roll, boy did things pick up. I watched the rest of season 1 over the course of a week. When I finally got my hands on season 2, I think I watched all 21 episodes over the course of a weekend. My friends were right - I hadn't seen chemistry like this in a long, long time. Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz just "click" together the same way that Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan did back in the 80s. It's a shame it's taken 20+ years for that chemistry to repeat!

As I got more into the show, I noticed more similarities with Steele and a friend and I started compiling a list of commonalities between the shows. It really is true about nothing is really new in Hollywood. So, without further ado I present:

How Bones is like Remington Steele:

1. Both shows feature a bickering mixed-gender crime-solving team. Bones is often compared to Moonlighting and in the sense that the characters are not a romantic couple (yet), that's appropriate. However, Moonlighting's creator, Glenn Gordon Caron, got his first regular writing job on Remington Steele and many of its early episodes also feature the leads bickering.

2. Both shows have one wildly uneven season where episodes were obviously aired out of sequence (B4, RS3), yet that is the season with the highest ratings.

3. Both shows opened season 4 with a 2-parter set in England

4. Both shows have episodes regarding children of privilege ("Blood is Thicker than Steele", "A Boy in a Tree"/"The Bone that Blew").

5. Both Temperance Brennan and Laura Holt have fathers who abandoned them when the girls were in their mid-teens.

6. "High Flying Steele" and "Double Trouble in the Panhandle" are episodes in which the leads go undercover in a circus.

7. Both "The Hero in the Hold" and "High Flying Steele" feature rising water in an enclosed space as a potential deathtrap for one or both leads.

8. Both shows featured airline/airplane-centered episodes with "The Passenger in the Oven" and "Coffee, Tea or Steele".

9. Based on interviews & articles I've read, it appears that the networks didn't/don't know how to promote an hour-long show that has both comedy and drama in it. Though I wouldn't classify either show as a comedy, the actors certainly have to utilize comedic skills at some point in almost every episode of both shows.

10. Both shows have a Christmas episode featuring Santa as the bad guy: "Dancer, Prance, Donner and Steele" and "Santa in the Slush".

11. In both "Steele Knuckles and Glass Jaws" and "The Baby in the Bough", the leads have to care for an infant that was abandoned.

12. Both shows had episodes where family members of the leads were involved. Pierce Brosnan's wife and Stephanie Zimbalist's dad were in several episodes of Remington Steele and Emily Deschanel's dad directed an episode of Bones.

13. Some of the common guest stars: Richard Cox ("Etched In Steele", "The Soccer Mom in the Mini-Van"), Roxanne Clark ("Steele Waters Run Deep", "Stargazer in a Puddle"), Tom Everett ("Dancer, Prancer, Donner and Steele", "The Killer in the Concrete"), Jim Jansen ("Sting of Steele", "Woman of Steele", "The Blonde In The Game")

14. Both shows have an episode dealing with fictional superheroes: "The Superhero in the Alley", "Stronger than Steele"

And finally, could the birthdays of the leads be just a coincidence?

Stephanie Zimbalist (October 8) - Emily Deschanel (October 11)
Pierce Brosnan and David Boreanaz both born on May 16th!

Now I want to post a challenge to the writers of Bones. For 20+ years we've heard the same thing: if the leads get together, the sexual tension is over and the show goes downhill. I say, Baloney! That's almost like saying "life ends once they get together because they become boring". If handled properly, that doesn't have to happen. Sure, the sexual tension changes, but it can be replaced with other things. In this instance - would B&B need to keep their relationship a secret? How will they be able to handle working side-by-side when their relationship is different? That "line" that Booth put in place back in S2 has only been effective in keeping them physically apart. As numerous fan fiction writers have pointed out, they're so emotionally close now that the point of the line (to keep them emotionally apart which will keep them effective in their jobs) is worthless. We've seen numerous examples since the line was implemented where either Booth or Brennan goes a bit nuts because the other is in danger and they haven't figured out how to rescue the other one. So come on Hart Hanson and all the writers, give the viewers some credit and let's get some significant movement forward on the B&B relationship (and NOT just in the fantasy episode!).