Bones: The Complete Fifth Season review, Bones: The Complete Fifth Season DVD review
Starring
Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Michael Conlin, T.J. Thyne, Tamara Taylor, John Francis Daley, Michael Grant Terry, Eugene Byrd, Joel Moore, Ryan Cartwright, Carla Gallo
Director
Various
Bones: The Complete
Fifth Season

Reviewed by Will Harris

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ne of the biggest battles fought by male and female characters on any television show is whether or not to provide a definitive answer to the eternal question, “Will they or won’t they?” In the case of “Bones,” series creator Hart Hanson continued to keep viewers waiting with baited breath for a full-fledged coupling between forensic anthropologist Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), offering tease after tease throughout the first four seasons of the show. In Season Five, however, the series celebrated its 100th installment, and it looked for one shining moment as if we were finally going to see Brennan and Booth join together as a couple at the end of the episode.

But we didn’t.

In fact, if anything, we got arguably the saddest ending in all 100 episodes of the damned show, with Brennan telling Booth that she wasn’t willing to gamble their friendship on the possibility of a relationship.

We spent all of the season’s episodes up to that point seeing Booth try to figure out if his feelings for Brennan were legitimate rather than the lingering effects from his mental maladies at the end of Season Four (he had brain surgery, in case you weren’t watching), and this is what we get? Sometimes, I really hate Hart Hanson.

If you aren’t a regular viewer of “Bones,” then you might be surprised that the show has as much of a romantic side as it does. Yes, there are still a lot of dead bodies to be had on the series, some so utterly grotesque that you may feel a bit queasy when you see them, but there’s a lot of love in the Jeffersonian Institute during Season Five, and it isn’t all between Brennan and Booth. Indeed, it may well be because of the lack of a relationship between those two characters that Hanson and his team finally decided to let Angela (Michaela Conlin) set aside her perpetual uncertainty about a relationship with Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and finally allow the two of them tie the knot once and for all. There are also interesting developments throughout the season between Dr. Sweets (John Francis Daley) and Brennan’s lab assistant, Daisy (Carla Gallo), and, heck, even Camille (Tamara Taylor) manages to find herself a steady.

Season Five is full of guest stars, many of which are familiar faces from previous seasons, including the return of Stephen Fry as Dr. Gordon Wyatt, who has abandoned his work as a therapist in favor of the culinary arts. Additionally, Eric Milligan reprises the role of Zach Addy during the flashback portions of the 100th episode, Billy Gibbons gets to play himself again during the season finale (he’s Angela’s father, you know), and the despicable Heather Taffet – the Grave Digger – finally gets her day in court in “The Boy with the Answer.” Ryan O’Neal pops up a few times as Brennan’s father, Max, but it’s his appearance in the Christmas episode that proves the most enjoyable, since he introduces Brennan to her cousin, Margaret, played by Zooey Deschanel. “Bones” also continues to get a lot of enjoyable mileage out of the decision to offer rotating lab assistants, and although it’s maybe a little too on-the-nose to have Joel Moore’s character be involved in a storyline involving Hodgins and Sweets waiting in line to see “Avatar,” it’s still funny.

Five seasons in, and “Bones” continues to offer enough character development to keep fans glued to their sets, waiting to see what comes next. It’s hard to say that it would really be a good thing for Brennan and Booth to finally get together, but damn, if it’s not going to happen, then maybe we can at least see them end up finding happiness with other people sooner than later. The fact that they’re both still single is starting to get a little depressing.

Special Features: It’s another pretty solid selection of bonus materials for fans to enjoy. There are a handful of commentaries scattered throughout the set as well as a few featurettes (a look into the 100th episode with David Boreanaz, who directed, “The Bodies of ‘Bones,’” which examines the special effects behind making the corpses look so grotesque, and something called “The Nunchuck Way”), plus deleted scenes, a gag reel, and extended versions of a few episodes.

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