IGN Interviews/Articles about 'Bones' Return

Bones Unearthed
We talk to Emily Deschanel and the cast and creators about the show's return.
by Eric Goldman

April 14, 2008 - This past week the cast and creators of Bones were on hand for a tribute to the series, at a special panel at the Paley Center for Media, in Beverly Hills, CA. The series returns tonight (Monday, April 14th) for the first of six brand new episodes and at the Paley event, executive producer Hart Hanson told me that the writers' strike, "Altered the season. There's a bunch of stuff we wanted to do but had to push to Season 4. Thank god we seem to have a Season 4! There was some more Booth stuff, some more Zack stuff in Iraq was stuff that we had to push. It was quite a rethink, and I found out when we came back that I hadn't thought about it much while we were on strike."

Four of the six new episodes were actually completed before the strike, and executive producer Stephen Nathan noted "We didn't know if we were doing any [more episodes this season], so it was just a matter of compressing certain things that we wanted to do this season, and leaving other things on the table for next season, because we actually had to wrap up the season by the end of May with two additional episodes and that's it."

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(L-R) Stephen Nathan, Hart Hanson, Michaela Conlin, Emily Deschanel, Tamara Taylor, John Francis Daley, Eric Millegan and David Boreanaz at the Paley Center for Media's Tribute to Bones

The production schedule for Bones post-strike is actually a fairly complicated one. Bones is now back in production filming those final two episodes of Season 3, and the cast and crew will then immediately segue into filming four more episodes which will actually be part of Season 4. On the heels of that, they are then likely going to London to film a two-part episode that will actually open Season 4, before taking a summer hiatus following the total of eight new episodes they will have shot. Got all that? Michaela Conlin ("Angela") admitted to me "It's totally confusing. Hart wrote it down on a piece of paper for me and told me twice, and I still don't really know. We're doing these eight [new episodes] and some of them are airing now, and some of them are airing in Season 4. I'm not really sure! I know that I probably can't change my haircut very much, not that I was thinking of it, but they're running kind of out of order."

Storywise, Conlin revealed "We're doing this double episode Season 3 finale, in which Angela finds her ex-husband." Conlin laughed about the long build up to meeting her husband, who was first revealed to exist in the Season 2 finale, saying "Finally, right? I want to meet this guy! But it will be interesting to see what transpires from that."

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Emily Deschanel

I asked the producers how they managed to arrange the impressive feat of filming in London, and Hanson told me "It was a fanciful idea that somehow grabbed hold. We do well in England, so Sky TV could help and we have an English producer/director who has contacts there, and it certainly lends itself to our kind of story – Brennan going to England, and then Booth having to come when something fascinating happens. It works for us and they like us. And you know, David [Boreanaz] is a huge star in England – he's gigantic. So it all kind of came together in spite of the fact that the exchange rate just gets more and more terrifying for the studio." Nathan added that while nothing was set in stone yet about going to London "it looks like it will work out."

When I mentioned to star Emily Deschanel ("Dr. Temperance 'Bones' Brennan") the possibility of the London episodes, she replied "We're hoping so! I don't even want to say it, because it makes me feel nervous." With a laugh, she added, "I lived there when I was 11 for a year, so I look forward to visiting all the parks that I went to."

A big ongoing mystery in Season 3 has been the identity of Gormogon, a cannibalistic serial killer. Asked whether his new character is the killer, John Francis Daley ("Dr. Sweets") wouldn't say, but replied with a smile "I do know one thing. Gormogon is a very nice-mean man-woman." Bones has some rather unique methods of murder revealed each week, and Daly said "It's pretty incredible how they manage to change it up completely every week. When you think about the fact that there's a bunch of other procedurals out there, it's nice that they can keep it refreshing."

I asked Eric Millegan ("Zack") if he likes to try to find out what's to come from the producers and he replied "I did once. When [Zack] got back from Iraq, I asked Steven Nathan, 'Well, is there anything I can know about what happened to my character in Iraq, so I can bring it to the performance from the first episode?' And Steven said, "Well, Zack was in Iraq… and now he's back.' I was like 'Alright, I can work with that!' So you don't always know what they're going to write. You play the moment; you play the scenes they're giving you and you never know where it's going to end up."

Conlin was excited about an upcoming episode they had filmed that features the return of Ryan O'Neal as Brennan's father, whose character's trial begins. "Ryan O'Neal was back and Loren Dean, who plays Temperance Brennan's brother," noted Conlin. "That was really fun. I love when the whole group can be together. Courtroom stuff is fun, you know?"

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Michaela Conlin

When I asked Deschanel how Brennan's reacting to the situation with her father, she told me, "Well, it's a very complicated relationship. I think it's such an interesting relationship to play. She's very conflicted, because she feels like she knows that he did it, but she doesn't have empirical evidence completely on her side that proves that he did it beyond the shadow of a doubt. So she's kind of forced to face a moral dilemma, whether she helps her father get off or lets him go to jail. There's lots of twists and turns and it's an interesting episode."

The Christmas episode of Bones this season had Booth and Brennan finally kiss, albeit with mistletoe and prodding from a friend involved. I asked the producers how much discussion went into having that kiss occur, and Hart said "Tons. For the fans, when you've got a romantic tension between two people, you've got to pay it off every once in awhile. You've got to let off a little bit of the pressure, before the audience gets too frustrated, so it was time." Added Nathan, "And it was great, because they kiss without kissing, you know? They both had a way out. " Hart nodded, smiling as he said "So that cheat is out of the way, so now you have to move on. You have to parse it out."

I asked the producers what else they could tease about the end of Season 3, and Nathan jokingly replied "The last six episodes of Season 3 are very good. You'll like them very much." More seriously, he added "They'll be a lot of surprises in them. Character surprises, a lot of extremely bizarre deaths as we always do, and then we will wrap up, in some fashion, the Gormogon story." Added Hart, "In a way we think our audience will like and respond to."


Bones returns with new episodes Monday, April 14th at 8:00 pm ET/PT on FOX

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:http://tv.ign.com/articles/866/866347p1.html