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Friday, April 2, 2010

Page 187 on Bones 5.15

Bones 5.15 provided a delightful, insightful lesson in the morality of authorship and attribution - to wit, regarding Bones' new novel, featuring the exploits of Kathy Reichs, which is itself a most cool meta-mirror, since Kathy Reichs, a real forensic anthropologist, professor, and author in our world, is responsible for the character Temperance Brennan, aka Bones.

The nub of the novel - its most interesting part for our characters - is what transpires on p. 187, where Kathy and Booth's analog have some kind of fantastic sex.   Hodgins gets a look at the page, and discovers mostly to his pleasure that the sex hinges on a technique that is his - one, moreover, which he assumes is pretty much unique.   Since Hodgins hasn't slept with Bones, where did she get the details on this?   From Angela, of course, who, it turns out, helps Bones edit her novels.

The case - which I haven't yet mentioned - proceeds.   It, too, revolves around authorship and attribution - who wrote what and who assumes who wrote what.   And there's also an hilarious Japanese reporter, interviewing Bones for a story on Bones the writer.   And Sweets has a defining moment which clarifies and changes his life.   All of this percolates and develops against the backdrop of the events on page 187 which, as Bones comes to realize, are at least as important as all of the forensic detail and characterization in her novel.

In the real world of writing, stories abound of people who contribute ideas to books and television shows and get nothing but thanks from the author or creator if they're lucky.  But in the ideal world that is Bones the television show, Temperance in the end does something amazing and generous:  she gives Angela a check for 25-percent of the advance and royalties earned for her novels.

The show may not have happy endings for its victims, and not quite yet for Bones and Booth, but this is about happy and just as it can get for authors and their partners.


5-min podcast review of Bones

See also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14




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