Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Episodes: 22
Duration: 42 min (per episode)
Bones: Season 11 (DVD) – Series Review
While we are now only reviewing season 11 of Bones, season 12 has already been announced. It will be the last one of this well-loved series, but all good things must come to an end. Anyway, we were already a bit skeptical in wondering what new season 11 could possibly bring to the table. Twenty-two more episodes is what this season brought us, of which we give our thoughts below.
At the end of season 10, Bones (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) both decided to quit their jobs at the Jeffersonian and the FBI respectively. Now, six months later, their daughter Christine (Sunnie Pelant) has a little baby brother, and Booth is training new FBI recruits for a living. They seem to be happy in their new situation, and today seems like no other when Booth takes off to work. Meanwhile at the Jeffersonian, Cam (Tamara Taylor), Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) are called out to a crime scene, where they find a body in a burnt car. The team fear the worst when they find out that the gun that was found with the victim belongs to Booth. Also the initial examination of the bones makes it appear that he is the victim. Dr. Brennan decides to come to the Jeffersonian herself, as the situation is driving her crazy, and she eventually finds out that the remains aren’t Booth’s, but his brother’s, Jared. The question remains where Booth is, and how his brother ended up dead.
Eventually, everything turns back to normal by episode three, and Bones and Booth are back at their old jobs, just like they used to be. Murders keep on happening, and Booth and Aubrey (John Boyd) work closely together with the team of the Jeffersonian to bring the killers to justice. While the season focuses foremost on the cases themselves, there are some developments in the personal lives of the characters as well, but we won’t spoil the fun by telling you now.
Each episode has a good flow to it, where many suspects are considered along the way, and the outcome is often unpredictable. The format remains the same as in the previous seasons, namely a focus on the cases, where reexamining the bones over and over will eventually prove to be vital in finding the murderer. This solid format got us feeling that season eleven was just not really different from what we’ve seen earlier, yet it still proves to work just fine. Certainly newcomers to the series will have no real issues tagging along, but for people who’ve seen many episodes already, it might get a bit dull eventually. Episode five will prove to be interesting though, when all of a sudden Ichabold Crane (Tom Mison) and Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) turn up, straight out of Sleepy Hollow, to investigate a two hundred year old skeleton.
While the flow of the individual cases is quite enjoyable, the personal story of the characters gets to the background quite a lot. Every now and then you will find out more about Cam’s love life, Angela and Hodgins’ marriage or Aubrey’s new crush, but nothing major steps out until halfway the season. After that, it’s back to work, and again the characters don’t get much personal screen time anymore. It’s a bit sad to see, as here, season eleven could have made a difference from the other seasons, and while the characters do develop, they just have to do it in an amount of time that is simply not sufficient.
There have been no major changes to the cast since last season, and it’s safe to say that the current team of actors all did well. We still love how T.J. Thyne puts down a smart yet childish Hodgins and Michaela Conlin counterbalances him perfectly as his wife Angela. We weren’t such a fan of Emily Deschanel’s acting in the previous seasons of Bones to be honest, but over the years, she managed to convince us more of her character Dr. Brennan, and also in this season she did quite well.
We were quite disappointed with the extra features of this release. There are only some deleted scenes and some bloopers, nice enough on their own, but we expected a bit more after plowing through all twenty-two episodes. After eleven seasons, it must be difficult to find some original extra content, yet only deleted scenes and some bloopers makes us feel like they didn’t even try.
Conclusion
Season 11 of Bones feels much like the previous seasons: the same format is used in every episode, and while at the end of season 10 things seemed to be heading a different direction, we are back to square one, with Brennan and Booth back in their old jobs. Nonetheless, the episodes are fun enough to watch and the cases are still built up well. Overall, we liked this season quite well.
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