Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Bones: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Ready for more goopy, gory, or otherwise falling apart cadavers?

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater October 19, 2011

I’ll admit up front: I’ve never been one for episodic, procedural TV series, the kind of shows where a crime is introduced in the opening scene and solved within 45-minutes. Give me the sprawling Dickensian serial narrative of The Wire or the deep dark mystery of Twin Peaks, the evolving “mythology” of Lost or the ongoing period drama of Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire. I generally don’t want easily digestible TV short stories; I want something that sustains me from week to week and keeps me wanting more. Granted, some shows have managed to do both. The X-Files is probably the best example, balancing an overarching story with “Monster of the Week”-style episodes, and Fox has applied this same basic template to Fringe and—to a lesser extent—Bones. Of the two, Bones definitely exists more in the “week-to-week” category, but it does make concessions for a few larger storylines that play out over the course of the season, including the ever- changing relationship between its two main characters, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and her off-and-on love interest, FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz).

Bones

The show’s sixth season begins with Dr. Brennan’s team disbanded and spread all over the world. “Bones” and her “squintern” Daisy (Carla Gallo) are off in Indonesia tracking down mankind’s evolutionary missing link, while Agent Seeley—a former sniper—has reluctantly returned to the Army Rangers to help keep the peace in Afghanistan. Forensic artist Angela (Michaela Conlin) and her entomologist husband Jack (T.J. Thyne) are spending a year living it up in Paris, psychologist Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) has taken a sabbatical and temporarily become a lounge pianist, and lead pathologist Cam Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) is working as a federal medical examiner. When Cam needs help cracking the tough case of a young boy’s unidentifiable remains, however, the gang is summoned back to the Jeffersonian Institute Forensic Science Department and everyone quickly falls back into their old murder-solving routines. There are definitely some big changes, though. Angela and Jack learn they’re going to have a baby—their expectant parent nervousness is played for both drama and laughs over the course of the season—and Booth returns from Afghanistan with a sexy war-correspondent girlfriend, Heather (Katheryn Winnick), who seems to be Dr. Brenner’s polar opposite. Bones tries to play it off like Booth’s new love interest doesn’t phase her—after all, it was she who left Booth in the lurch at the end of the last season—but clearly there’s some tension here.

This awkward love triangle gives season six its emotional backbone, and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way as the three come to terms with their own desires and how to express them. Bones is her usual awkward, borderline-Asperger’s Syndrome self, Booth tries valiantly to overcome his latent—and sometimes blatant—feelings for her, and Heather, a commitment-phobe, struggles to balance her relationship with Booth and her jonesing to get back into the field. I won’t spoil anything, but there’s a huge surprise at the end of the season that will certainly affect the Booth/Bones storyline in season seven.

There are a handful of episodes that further the show’s ongoing narrative, and these tend to stand out amongst their wrapped-up-in-an-hour counterparts. “The Bullet in the Brain” sees the return of notorious killer Heather Taffet (Dierdre Lovejoy)—the so-called Gravedigger—who plays mind games with the insecure Sweets, and this episode also introduces a new uber-villian, Jacob Broadsky (Arnold Vosloo), a rogue sniper who was Booth’s former mentor. The subsequent episodes with Broadsky are some of the best this season, as his presence generally ramps up the tension considerably. There’s a cool—if overused—sniper versus sniper angle here, as Booth and Broadsky battle it out on rooftops and in shipyards, vying for marksman superiority. Broadsky is a sort of Dexter character—a killer who kills other killers—and he’s also set up as a kind of anti-Booth here, equal in skill but with an opposite moral stance. I’m going to hazard a guess and say that I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.

As usual, the characters are likeable—sometimes too much so, I wish Bones had a bit more edge—and the writing is clever and funny in its own loveably cornball way. I can see why the show’s fans stick with it. But let’s face it; this isn’t exactly high concept television. It sticks to a highly perfected formula, which is fine for those who like the familiarity and tidiness of procedurals, but if you’re looking for innovative, boundary-pushing drama, you’ll have to search elsewhere. That said, Bones does advance the industry avant-garde in one key area—the amount and degree of gag-inducing grossness you can get away with showing on television.

The regular cases this season—that is, the weekly murders in need of solving—are as twisted and bizarre and grisly as they’ve always been, and one of the show’s main pleasures is in seeing the ridiculously gory body discovery cold opens the writers have cooked up for each episode. I bet the crew that does the practical effects for Bones has a blast devising ever new ways to make decomposing bodies look revolting. There’s some truly disgusting stuff this season—a woman found half-dissolved in a tub full of lye, a mold-covered skateboarder, a victim lying dead in a running shower, the water boring holes through her rotting flesh. I don’t recommend watching Bones while you’re eating dinner. I had to take a few stomach-quelling deep breaths during “The Woman in the Bar,” when the world’s largest chunk of chocolate was sawed in half, causing liquid putrification to gush forth from the body hidden inside. Let’s just hope Bones is never converted into Smell-O-Vision. You can already practically smell the stench of death wafting from the TV.

Bones: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bones made the production switch from 35mm to high definition video at the beginning of season five, and the show hasn't looked back since. I think the change works well for the series; it used to be a touch too grainy—just look at some of the older clips from the credit sequence—but now the picture is as fine-edged as a scalpel and as clean as a newly disinfected autopsy table. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but you get my point. The episodes have been given 1080p/AVC encodes, and taken together, they're crisp and strongly colored. The image in general is plenty sharp, but you'll especially notice the level of high definition clarity in close-ups, where the actors faces are keenly defined and the details of the cadaver gore are disgustingly realized down to the smallest maggot and bit of textured viscera. Sure, you'll notice some occasional soft-ish shots, but this has more to do with slightly imprecise focus-pulling than any issue with the encode. Considering the show's subject matter, the color palette is bright and almost cheery, with well-lit interiors—this makes sense in the forensics lab—and outdoor scenes that feature vivid grass and clean blue skies. Skin tones looks healthy— besides the ample rotting flesh, of course—and black levels are as inky as they need to be while still preserving shadow detail. Noise spikes slightly during darker scenes—as you'd expect—and I spied some slight aliasing in a few episodes, but there are no egregious compression problems, no instances of overenthusiastic edge enhancement, and no overt banding or macroblocking. Bones once again looks great on Blu-ray.

Bones: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bones features the kind of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound presentation that you expect from a procedural series—that is, one that isn't fancy but certainly gets the job done with a strong attention to detail. In other words, this is a standard made-for-TV mix, not particularly immersive or bombastic, but still thoughtfully designed. The front channels carry most of the action and are definitely punchy when they need to be, while the surrounds offer up modest ambience and occasional effects, like gunshots, outdoorsy sounds, and gross insects-feeding-on-dead-body noises. The subwoofer is less frequently called to duty, but when it is—during explosions and the like—it rumbles authoritatively. Music is usually light and complementary, but there are a few instances where it pounds along, propelling the action. Most importantly, dialogue is always clean, prioritized, and easily comprehended, with no hisses, pops, crackles, or dropouts. Each episode features optional English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles.

Bones: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This season six set contains about the same amount of bonus material as previous seasons—that is, not much—but what's here is worth checking out.

• Audio Commentaries: Like the season five release, there are only two commentary tracks here. Hart Hanson, Stephen Nathan, and Ian Toynton discuss "The Doctor in the Photo," while Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz give their take on "The Blackout in the Blizzard."
• The Blackout in the Blizzard (1080p, 8:22): A short featurette about the making of the "Blizzard" episode, where Bones and Booth get stuck in an elevator together during a power outage.
• The Visual Effects of Bones (1080p, 11:50): A look at the practical and CGI effects work required to bring the show's cadavers to life…uh, death.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 4:25)
• The Killing Pilot (1080p, 45:31): The fourth disc contains the pilot for AMC's murder mystery show, The Killing, which, if this episode is any indication, is going to look great on Blu-ray.

Bones: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you've been a Bones fan from the beginning, season six offers up more of what you expect from the show—fun characters, strong writing, and grisly-ass, gross-out, stomach-churning murders, solved neatly by the end of each episode. This kind of episodic, procedural TV isn't for everyone, of course, so if you're curious I'd suggest first checking out the show on Hulu, where season six is currently streaming. If you like what you see, this Blu- ray set might be worth picking up.