Bone Deep

Apropos of yesterday's post where I suggested I might do a TV diary, I thought I'd write a bit about Bones.


I watched last night's episode this morning over a bit of breakfast because I was too tired to watch TV last night. I had a big day yesterday, so I taped both Bones and Supernatural to watch back today.

I'm yet to watch Supernatural, but I thought I'd talk about Bones because as I sat down to watch it this morning, I thought I'd messed up the recording of it, and I was momentarily, but intensely, disappointed. I'd completely forgotten about it last Monday--it was a busy day last week too--and before I managed to get the episode to play back, I'd thought 'Oh noes! That's two weeks in a row I've missed it!'

At that thought I had a flash of self-awareness about the contradictions in my television viewing tastes.

I think most people who read this blog know that I'm doing a PhD thesis on 'quality' television drama. That means that I'm constantly thinking about the cultural value or lack thereof that is generally attributed to television and its texts.

In this context I know that Bones is not fantastic television. It's television that panders to least offensive programming policies. It's not the edgy, more culturally valued product of HBO and Showtime or even the BBC (if you're after a different measure of quality).

If I scratch the surface of Bones I know there are terrible flaws in the characterisation of its protagonist, forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance 'Bones' Brennan. Part of this is that in every episode Bones charts the same arc: she begins as a socially and emotionally inept rational scientist type and, coaxed along by the charming, sensitive and God-fearing FBI agent Seely Booth, she is transformed into someone who learns what it is to be a living, breathing, spiritual human being, as opposed to a mere collection of bones encased in flesh.

Last night's episode 'Baby in the Bough' is a case in point. At the scene of a car accident where the adult female driver dies, Booth and Bones find a baby in a capsule. The capsule was flung free of the car and landed, with the baby unharmed, in the bough of a tree. Booth thinks it's a miracle, while Bones intones that the baby's survival is exactly what such capsules are designed and manufactured to ensure. In a series of events that merely confirm Dr. Brennan's incompetence with real live human beings, the baby, Andy, ends up swallowing a key at the scene of the accident, and since it's a likely clue to help solve the mystery of the woman's death, Booth and Temperance have to look after the child until the key makes its way through his digestive tract. (Did I mention completely ridiculous plot contrivances?) Eventually, of course, Bones warms to Andy, becoming extremely protective of his care and determined to ensure him a secure future.

Another version of this arc happened the week before last, and no doubt if will happen again next week. Bones never really changes. This is television without a memory.

Here, I might be expected to make a claim along the lines of 'it's so bad, it's good', but I can't.

I don't even want to.

The fact is, I like Bones.

If I'm pressed to explain my taste, then it simply comes down to this:


Together, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz are completely hot.

What's Going On?

If you're interested to know what I've been up to lately, you'll have to look at the Twitter feed over there in the right hand margin. 140 characters at any one time is about the extent of my blog writing capacity at the moment.

If you click through to Twitter proper, you'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about my opinions of Australian Idol, how the Wii Fit experiment is going, my lately acquired propensity to walk into inanimate objects or have them fall on top of me, my disdain for the e-book etc. No doubt I've thrown in a few complaints about public transport too.

Over there in the margins, I've also added another couple of feeds from a third party source which you might be interested in. The feeds are both from Good Reads, a kind of social network book site, similar to LibraryThing, I think. The first feed is a record of what I'm currently reading. In some cases I've made a few preliminary comments. I've included some of the non-fiction, academic reading I'm doing for my thesis as well as a new research assistant contract I've just started.

The second feed is what I've managed to record of books I have read. I've not done too well in creating the back catalogue, and I'm not convinced it's something I'll ever do for reasons of time and memory and, I'll admit, sheer apathy. At the moment you could form the impression that I've read nothing but Andrew McGahan novels.

While you're over there in the right hand margin, you'll see I haven't been to the movies since the film festival a couple of months ago. As a counter-balance, you might note that I've been watching lots of TV instead, broadcast TV, as well as on DVDs and downloads. I need a TV site that works on the same principal as GoodReads, then I could just feed that through to this blog as well.

That was a lot more than 140 characters. I'm done in.

Lush Life

This is the view from the kitchen door this morning:


That is all.

Tina, Tina, Tina

Meow Laughs

I intend to blog about about some low-cholesterol dishes I've been making lately as part of what I have come to think of as the Great Cholesterol Lowering Experiment (you say that in a big booming voice).

One of these meals, which was surprisingly tasty, is a vegetarian lasagne with lentils. While I get my act together I offer you this LOLCat for your amusement:


I've had that LOLCat pinned in my Bloglines for sometime now in anticipation of the lasagne post, but clearly my desire to share it with the two people who don't obsessively refresh their feedreaders for new LOLCat chortles is greater than my impulse to write a post about saturated fat-free food.

Today I came across this LOLCat and it also must be shared. Check out that expression:


Actually this cat reminds me a bit of dogpossum's Squeeze, and it's just the kind of thing he might say too. (That is a compliment, really!)

N.B. There is no significance to be found in the juxtaposition of the lasagne LOLCat and the barfing LOLCat.

Power without Glory

This is from Tales of Mere Existence which I love.