Television

I can't help it. Whenever I see David Boreanaz I can't stop seeing the brooding vampire Angel. It's not really his fault. This character couldn't be farther from the Angel character, but that's what I see. It's also true that Bones, now entering its sixth season, has been around longer than Angel. It's also very likely that he now has fans that aren't even aware of that previous character. It has been quite a few years. I'm usually better at letting go of a character once the show has ended and the actor has moved on. But there it is. Agent Booth ends up doing something silly, and it throws me for a bit of a loop. It's probably a testament to how good an actor Boreanaz actually is, that he's ingrained himself so fully in my brain. And, I haven't watched near as many episodes of Bones, to transfer that identification. But it's Bones that's here now, and based on its current popularity, it's likely to be here for a while longer yet.

Dr. Temperance Brennan, or Bones (Deschanel) is the world's leading bone specialist. She works in Washington, D.C. for the famous Jeffersonian (I assume it's intended to be the Smithsonian). Her talents have proven themselves very helpful in solving crimes where skeletal remains are all that there is to go on from the victim. Her FBI agent/liaison is Seeley Booth (Boreanaz). Together they have an uneasy relationship that grows into a kind of friendship. The problem is that Bones doesn't have a ton of social skills. She relies on Booth to guide their social interactions. More on that later. The lab is run by Dr. Camille Saroyan (Taylor) who has become a bit of a guiding mother to the team. Dr. Hodges (Thyne) is the trace-elements expert and tries very hard to be cool and hip. He's generally the opposite of Bones. He says pretty much what comes into his head and is a bit of a science-fiction geek. Angela (Conlin) is an artist who uses her skills to reconstruct facial details from the skulls. She also works on enhancing images and restructuring evidence. She's a bit of a romantic and has probably slept with every male in the lab. Dr. Sweets (Daley) is a young FBI agent and psychologist. He profiles victims and suspects as well as serves as a counselor to the team. He's a bit over-eager at times, looking up to Booth as a mentor, of sorts. The lab also has a few interns that show up from week to week, likely depending on actor availability.

"Cal Lightman sees the truth. It's written all over your face. It's also in your voice, your posture, the words you choose. Give him five minutes and 20 questions and he'll know whether you went off to Argentina to cheat on your wife, lied about a well-timed stock sale, or murdered a one-night stand."

I spent quite a few years as a detective. My specialty turned out to be in the interview room. When some of my fellow detectives had a suspect they couldn't break, they often called me in. It was my job to get the person talking. You see, the company’s insurance recovery from the theft was based on how much I could get the thief to admit they had taken over and above whatever they just got busted for. I have to admit that I rather enjoyed the job. I was able to read the person's emotions well enough to gauge how my approaches were making the suspect feel. The key was to be able to separate the truth from the deception. Well, it turns out there's a science behind what I just took as instinct. Apparently, our faces and body language are almost impossible to control, and anyone who could read and translate that language would be nearly impossible to deceive. I don't recall consciously looking for any of these things. I could just tell. After watching a season of Lie To Me, I'm not so sure that there wasn't more to it than just instinct.