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Trivia / Bones

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  • Accidentally-Correct Writing:
    • Bones' ambiguously-defined disorder would not have made much sense to be called "autism" (Word of God has mentioned the subset Aspergers, but it was never used on-screen) when the show began development and production. By the end of its run, the scientific consensus was that the condition does include both women and highly intelligent people and it's hard to see Bones' as anything else. Her ineptitude with metaphor jumps out in particular and is considered very specific, even more than the No Social Skills.
    • Season 4 basically predicted the Tinder app.
  • Actor Leaves, Character Dies:
    • Vincent Nigel-Murray was killed by Broadsky due to Ryan Cartwright leaving the series to be a main character on another show.
    • A more harsh example with the death of Sweets; John Francis Daley (whose writing and directing career was picking up steam) requested a four-month leave to direct a movie with full intention of returning to the show once it was completed. Showrunner Stephen Nathan instead opted to kill off his character in the season premiere, feeling it would be better for him to dramatically die, than to have him vanish for half a season, and possibly having to write him out again later on.
  • Actor-Shared Background:
    • Pelant went to Stanford University and got a degree in Computer Science, just like his actor, Andrew Leeds.
    • Both Arastoo and his actor Pej Vahdat are Persian Muslims (though Pej isn’t Iranian born).
    • David Boreanaz really did want to be a pro athlete before wrenching his shoulder like Booth did.
    • Like Angela, Michaela Conlin has both a white father and Chinese mother.
    • Bones is a vegetarian like her actress Emily Deschanel.
  • Adam Westing: In the opening scene of "The Senator in the Sweeper," Sal Vulcano and James Murray from Impractical Jokers make guest appearances as Sal and Murr, a pair of street sweepers who find the titular senator’s remains jamming up their vehicle. When they discover the carnage, Murr initially thinks that Sal has pranked him and asks if Joe and Q put him up to it, referencing Joe Gatto and Brian Quinn, their castmates on Impractical Jokers.
  • Ascended Fanon: "Squintern" was a fan term referring to Brennan's six ever-rotating interns. The cast and crew adopted it.
  • Author's Saving Throw: After Pelant coming in between the engaged Booth and Brennan in the Season 8 finale ignited fans' rage, the writers decided to quickly wrap up the plotline, killing off Pelant in episode 4, and having Booth and Brennan tie the knot in episode 6.
  • California Doubling:
    • Set in Washington D.C., filmed in Los Angeles. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach appears as "The Aquarium of the Atlantic", The Jeffersonian itself is often "played" by the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, and despite the name, "The Bones on the Blue Line" doesn't resemble the DC Metro in the slightest (barring an establishing shot of the distinctive DC Metro), and is actually the Earthquake subway set on the Universal Studios Backlot (part of the Universal Studio Tour).
    • "The Murder in the Middle East" has Little Tokyo substituting for Tehran, Iran (there's lots of rice-paper-looking window coverings in the background, plus Arastoo emerges from a notable yogurt shop in that area).
  • Dawson Casting:
    • Zack is supposed to be the youngest member of the team by a significant margin; in fact Eric Millegan is the third oldest member of the cast after David Boreanaz and Tamara Taylor.
    • Daisy is around the same age as Sweets, but Carla Gallo is ten years older than John Francis Daley. She's actually older (by a year) than Emily Deschanel, too.
    • One of Sweets' previous girlfriends, April (the fish girl in "The Man in the Mud"), was portrayed as only a few years older than Sweets. Senta Moses, who played April is twelve years older than Daley.
  • Directed by Cast Member:
    • David Boreanaz seems to have what it takes to be a TV director on top of an actor. In total, he's directed 11 episodesnote , including the milestone 100th and 200th episodes, four Season Finales, and the very last episode.
    • Emily Deschanel's directorial debut is the Season 12 premiere, "The Hope in the Horror".
  • Fan Community Nickname: FOX began referring to fans of the show as Squinterns.
  • Filming Location Cameo:
    • Season 1 episode "The Woman at the Airport", where Booth and Brennan travel to L.A. to investigate the death of a woman whose bones were scattered around Los Angeles International Airport.
    • In the season 7 episode "The Suit on the Set", Booth and Brennan return to L.A. to consult on the production of a film based on Brennan's latest book. Naturally, the film is being shot at Fox Studios. (Although the characters never explicitly say where they are. They just let the coffee cups do the talking.)
    • The 200th episode, season 10's "The 200th in the 10th", is an Elseworld with the characters living in 1950s L.A.
  • God Does Not Own This World:
    • Seasons 1-9 were handled by series creator Hart Hanson. For Season 10, Hanson stepped down and passed on his showrunner duties to Stephen Nathan, a good pal of his who'd been in the series since the beginning. Later, Michael Peterson and Jonathan Collier, two writers/producers who began working on the show in 2009 and 2012 respectively, took over as showrunners for Seasons 11 and 12.
    • In a positive example of this trope, the two new showrunners made sure to get Hart's approval for some of the plotlines in the episodes they made, even though they didn't have to. Hanson's vision for the Grand Finale of the series was different to what Collier and Peterson did, though he gave them his support regardless.
  • Life Imitates Art: Several years after “The Graft In The Girl” a real life tissue harvesting ring came to light that had many similarities. Several people got cancer from tainted tissue and some died. And the ringleader got cancer and died from it just like on the show.
  • Long-Runners: The series lasted 12 seasons from 2005 to 2017, 246 episodes in total.
  • Milestone Celebration:
    • Episode 100 is an Origins Episode detailing how the Jeffersonian and the FBI came to work together.
    • Episode 200 is an Elseworld episode similar to the Season 4 finale, but set in the 1950s with Booth being a jewel thief and Brennan a detective facing sexism in the police force.
    • The Big Beef in the Royal Diner is a special episode for two reasons: it's the landmark episode that pushed Bones as the longest-running FOX drama, and it's the 206th episode of the series. To celebrate, all 206 bones of the human body are mentioned.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Thomas Vega, the kidnap expert who'd been following the steps of The Gravedigger, was portrayed by a different actor in each of his two appearances, in Aliens in a Spaceship and The Hero in the Hold.
    • Cam's daughter Michelle was played by a different actress in her very first appearance.
    • In season 11, the actor playing Parker was changed.
    • Michael Vincent Hodgins was played by three different actors over the seasons he was in. Two different kids were used in season 9 though they look similar enough to pull it off.
    • Both of Brennan’s parents. Her dad’s different appearance was explained by extensive plastic surgery.
  • Out of Order: Two instances, in Season 3. Both can (at least in part) be blamed on the 2010 WGA strike, which put a gap in that season and shortened it considerably.
    • The Baby in the Bough aired in the latter half of Season 3, but judging by the opening credits (which don't feature John Francis Daley), the episode was supposed to air before The Santa in the Slush.
    • Player Under Pressure was supposed to be the 19th episode of Season 2, but was delayed for a year thanks to the Virgina Tech shootings. When it aired in Season 3, it had new Hodgins and Angela scenes so it wouldn't look as out of place. The DVD features the original S2 version.
  • Produced By Castmember: David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel both became producers over the course of the series.
  • Real-Life Relative
    • Aubrey's dad is played by John Boyd's actual father, Guy Boyd.
    • David Boreanaz's daughter Bella appeared as one of the kids in Christine's class in "The Movie in the Making”. His son Jaden and his wife Jaime Bergman both appeared briefly in "The Steel in the Wheels". His father Dave Roberts (credited under his full name Dave T. Boreanaz) had a cameo as a newscaster in the series finale.
    • Emily Deschanel's younger sister Zooey appeared as one of Brennan's distant relatives in "The Goop on the Girl". Her real-life husband, David Hornsby, appeared briefly as the Father at the beginning of "The Woman in White". Her son was one of the boys in Christine’s class with David’s daughter in “The Movie In The Making”. Offscreen, her father Caleb directed at least one episode.
    • John Francis Daley’s dad R.F. Daley is in season 6’s “The Truth in the Myth”. They have an interrogation session together.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Both times Brennan became pregnant on the show were due to Emily Deschanel becoming pregnant in real life. The first in Season 6-7 ended up advancing the Will They or Won't They? of Booth and Brennan a bit earlier than planned.
  • Recycled Script: The Season 8 episode The Pathos in the Pathogens is remarkably similar to the House Season 2 two-parter Euphoria. Both episodes have a team member contract an illness from the infected victim/patient of the week, and the rest of the team rushing to find out what the illness is (and catch the murderer to get the antidote, in the case of Bones) before it's too late.
  • Screwed by the Network: Over its 12-year lifespan, the show never had a consistent time slot, and switched around many, many times. Not to mention that according to cast and crew, their show never got many promos and they were always on a bubble, wondering if they'd get another season. It even briefly ended up in the Friday Night Death Slot in mid-Season 9, rightfully raising concerns that FOX, being FOX, would screw over the show soon.
    • Through all this, it was the persistence and loyalty of the Bones fanbase that managed to keep it alive and performing steadily for so long. Hart Hanson even called it "the cockroach of FOX".
    • This trope was ultimately (and thankfully) subverted at the end, since the FOX execs decided to give the show a mercy kill: granting the showrunners a chance to write a twelfth, half-length Finale Season to give it a proper ending.
    • This show might have been one of the most notable examples of it in modern television: In 2015, a massive lawsuit was filed by 2 of the shows Producers along with stars Boreanz and Deschanel accusing Fox of hiding profits and avoiding paying them what they were owed. Four years later, the suit settled for 129 million in hidden profits, after an arbitrator found multiple instances of blatant fraud on the side of Fox execs.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Originally, Hart Hanson intended Angela and Booth to drunkenly get together one night, but abandoned the idea to save Angela's reputation among fans. Instead, he created Cam and originally planned to have her be a Romantic False Lead to Booth and a rival to Brennan for six episodes before killing her off. However, the crew really liked Cam, so they decided to keep her alive and promoted her to a regular.
    • The writers' strike cut short Bones' third season, eliminating episodes that could have been used to give clues into the Gormogon case (and Zack's role in it). Instead, Zack's involvement came out of the blue in the season finale, leaving many fans angry.
    • Apparently, the Gravedigger was originally going to be a one-episode villain. According to the original FOX summary for Aliens in a Spaceship, after Brennan and Hodgins were found, the bumper sticker in Hodgins's leg would be used to arrest Thomas Vega's co-author Janine O'Connell, closing the case. Instead, the episode was ended with character reunion scenes, and the Gravedigger case was left unsolved until two seasons later.
    • It's quite possible that Aubrey's role in the Elseworld-set 200th episode was originally intended for Sweets had he survived in the tenth season premiere.
    • The plot for the Season 11 Mid-Season Twist, where Hodgins and Aubrey nearly get blown up by a bomb in a body was initially considered as the plot for the season premiere, which would bring Booth and Brennan back into their old jobs. But David Boreanaz got sick before filming began, so the showrunners instead came up with the "Booth goes missing" two-parter in response.
    • The series finale and the answer to the 447 mystery are both different from what Hart Hanson originally intended... though that doesn't mean he disapproves of the ending that was actually done.
    • There were plans for a black-and-white Film Noir episode in season 5 but plans were discarded when the crew realised that Fringe had done a similar thing. Said plans would be reused in some form for the show's Elseworld-set 200th episode (minus the black-and-white part).
    • An episode planned for the third season was going to resolve the remaining plot details of the short-lived series Vanished but the WGA strike scrapped said plans.

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