Bones: Season 10 (DVD) – Series Review
Near the end of Season 9, the squint squad stumbled upon a complex web of conspiracies involving some of the country’s top government and business leaders – including the McNamara family. In only a matter of time, the Jeffersonian team finds themselves targeted and Booth is being blackmailed as classified information of his past military service is revealed. Season 10 picks up the thread, three months after the events of Season 9.
The season starts off three months after the event of season 9. Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) finds himself becoming a sitting duck in prison but luckily the squint team has been gathering evidence of the blackmail scheme ever since they stumbled upon it. Dr. Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan (Emily Deschanel) decides to take matters into her own hands and joins the blackmail scheme, resulting in the immediate release of Booth. Reunited with Bones and the squint team of the Jeffersonian, Booth can finally figure out where the evidence is leading them – to a conspiracy plot that has grown over the years and includes key figures such as John Edgar Hoover.
Over the course of the season, the Jeffersonian team comprised of Bones, Booth, Dr. Hodgins (T.J. Thyne), Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) and Dr. Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) has to deal with the death of a team member, a direct result from the conspiracy case, while life continues throwing them interesting murder cases to solve. The most memorable case is certainly the murder of a game developer but other cases such as the murder of a miniature golf star, a crossword puzzle designer and a cookie-jar collector are just as brilliant although some are easy to figure out as the viewer.
Other than offering detailed crimes, the show offers a good amount of drama within the families of the Jeffersonian team and the squinterns Dr. Wendell Bray (Michael Grant Terry), Dr. Daisy Wick (Carla Gallo) and Dr. Arastoo Vaziri (Pej Vahdat), resulting into many smaller storylines that supports the larger narrative mostly comprised of the two main protagonists, Bones and Booth.
While one character has left the scene, two more have jumped in. The first one being the chipper intern Dr. Warren, played by Laura Spencer, the second one being the humorous Special Agent James Aubrey, played by John Boyd. The entrance of Aubrey left some confusion in its wake but it is soon noticeable that this character offers a sense of humor the show hasn’t had for a while, even with all the drama. In fact, if you take away the crime aspect of the show, it transforms into a fine drama series so upping the comedy aspect certainly makes the show much lighter to watch.
The tenth season of Bones surprised the fans with a special 200th episode of the show written by Stephen Nathan and directed by David Boreanaz. While this episode was entirely in a different alley , it kept the same characters and altered them to fit the film-noir 1950s “love letter to the fans”, where Booth is the suspected thief, Bones is an highly intelligent detective and Dr. Hodgins a mad scientist. Other characters made an appearance too but I wouldn’t want to spoil the entire plot. In the making off, Nathan mentions that he wanted to create a 1955 Technicolor Hitchcock version of Bones, and he did so successfully with the 200th episode.
Not surprisingly is that the crew with years of experience has grown accustomed to the quirks of their characters, as the viewers has, but each character continues to evolve. However, this is only noticeable if you have watched the show for years. Those who have only started somewhere in the midst of it all, will barely see a different, if any. Despite all of this, each actor puts down a steady performance, even the new members of the cast.
The box set offers a decent amount of extras, such as the making of the 200th episode, deleted scenes and gag reels. In fact, each of the six DVD’s in the box offers at least one extra short sequence which make up for a lot of extra content to explore after the four episode per disc – or once you’ve watched the twenty-two episodes of Season 10.
Conclusion
Bones Season 10 shows us that after ten seasons, the series is still strong but might be running towards the end of its course, even if the show has celebrated their 200th episode in an unusual film-noir kind of way. A loveable character has gone and the season finale suggests more characters might leave the scene but the addition of two new characters add a certain dynamic and humor the show hasn’t had for a while, which is rather refreshing after ten years of running.
Bones: Season 10 (DVD) - Series Review,
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