Not-So-Guilty-Pleasure: Bones: Making it Look Super Cool to have a PhD

So I am not going to write a ton about this show. It has been on for five seasons now, but I just recently started watching it because it was recommended to me by...Netflix! This is based on my preferences for crime drama shows. While composing my syllabus, I find it necessary to keep myself entertained by putting this on for background noise. What I love about this show: It makes getting a PhD seem so so so cool!!

The main character Dr. Temperance Brennen is a forensic anthropologist who works for the Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., helping the FBI, specifically agent Seeley Booth, solve crime through analysis of you guessed it: Bones! Bones serves as a double entendre, as it also serves as a pet name for Brennan by Booth. In this show they use state-of-the-art technology to recreate faces of fragmented skulls, bug/environmental analysis to determine time of death/burial/site of remains, and cause of death through specific weapons/objects etc. I mean it seems so far-fetched, but even Brennan's nerdy team of squints seem to be pretty neat-o! The squints have these totally unreal jobs (although supposedly the show is based on series creator Kathy Reichs' life) and Brennan gets to go out solving cases kicking some @$$ with her taekwondo or whatever..something she probably learned traveling and living with various indigenous groups throughout the world. Oh if getting a PhD was only so glamorous...

I must admit, I do not buy into all of the science i.e. Dr. Temperance Brennan and her team can tell someone's ethnic/racial origins based on their skeletal remains. For example Brennen can often make the distinction between someone of African decent from someone of one of the many white European decendants' ethnicity/race. Sounds like an updated version of racist Phrenology. At least she is not in charge of discerning who is smarter based on skull size, bumps, and brains. Brennen has learned so much about "others" by identifying their remains, as she says, "It's like I know them." Uh huh? I want to think it is that cool, but I must admit I think human life is more than abstractions made from various skeletal remains. I do think Brennen is coming to terms with this throughout the show.

The other thing I am not a huge fan of: Making Emily Deschanel appear socially awkward and only understanding of human contact and interaction as a means of biological drives and positivistic science. I feel that someone who went through graduate school with an anthropology degree, even physical anthropology, would probably not be quite this dense. And Deschanel doesn't play this well. Every once and awhile her misunderstanding of a certain colloquial or pop cultural icon/moment/saying seems faked. For example, she questions what the expression, "What's up buttercup" means? Her socially awkward (and poorly portrayed social awkwardness at that) Zack, must explain to her what this means. While I understand this is a.) supposed to make her seem out of touch with reality b.) appear more intelligent than everyone else c.) not concerned with trivialities like such expression it makes the character look like she must have been living under a rock for her ENTIRE life. And I do believe at some point she was a child (we see flashbacks of this) and probably did not always have her PhD and may have been exposed to life outside academia for say 18 years or so of life. Even without a PhD, someone could probably discern what such a statement would mean, or give it an educated guess. So far I like season two's lack of this incredibly stereotypical representation of "Dr."

Below I offer a really horrible you tube clip of the show. I recommend just watching it on the ol' Netflix watch it now if that is a choice for you.