I'm the perfect target for television creators. I watch lots of things, and if it's really good, I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many times I can watch a thing over and over again.
There isn't that much on television that rises above a consistent and comfortable plateau that grows from that joint effort of creative intentions and fan response, even with the best of prime time broadcast television drama. Most good tv rises to the level of pretty good, and hits occasional flashes of outstanding brilliance.
I've seen most of this series, except for the final couple of seasons, most of it via a Netflix binge between the 7th and 8th seasons. I became quite caught up in the characters, and the romantic impasse between the two lead characters that concluded the first five seasons.
The sixth season of this show, of which this episode is number nine, builds an off-balance foundation drawn from the characters' choice to scatter and do other things with their lives in the season five finale after Bones rejects the offer of romantic involvement from Booth. It's months later and Cam's problem with a forensics job pulls everyone back to the Jeffersonian in the season six opener. What's new: Booth HAS moved on and is involved with a news reporter named Hannah. In a series of moments in the early episodes there's a subtle onset of a growing instability in Brennan, the growing visibility of inner yearnings, and we gradually see that Booth's moving on with Hannah DOES not sit well, and has started a process which Brennan has little ability to understand much less control.
By the time "Doctor In The Photo" begins, Brennan is in denial, and must confront a victim whose death directly exposes the inner longings and fears she has been carrying about her own life. A brilliant surgeon, a loner, missing for nearly a year when her corpse is discovered in the roots of a storm-toppled tree, isn't missed or mourned by anyone except the coworker whose romantic offer she rejected. Brennan over identifies with the victim and doesn't understand until its almost too late that what she's solving is her own mystery.
There's nothing to match the mental rush of stumbling upon an unexpected dramatic gem, a piece of drama so expertly and masterfully written and performed that it knocks you down every time you watch it. This is one of those rare tv episodes for me. I just watched it again as a matter of fact. Is it the near-perfect soundtrack with quiet swells of disoriented sadness? Is it the near-perfect performance of the regular and guest cast members? Is it Carla Kettner's near-perfect screenplay the actors work from? It is all of this and more, a good show hitting an unexpected moment of transcendent excellence, and saying things about the nature of loneliness and friendship in ways that few other works of art achieve.
I can choose at any moment to resume my binge and finally watch the final few seasons of this show that I have not seen yet. Yet every few months I return to watch one episode, THIS episode, and be deeply touched by it one more time. Thanks.
There isn't that much on television that rises above a consistent and comfortable plateau that grows from that joint effort of creative intentions and fan response, even with the best of prime time broadcast television drama. Most good tv rises to the level of pretty good, and hits occasional flashes of outstanding brilliance.
I've seen most of this series, except for the final couple of seasons, most of it via a Netflix binge between the 7th and 8th seasons. I became quite caught up in the characters, and the romantic impasse between the two lead characters that concluded the first five seasons.
The sixth season of this show, of which this episode is number nine, builds an off-balance foundation drawn from the characters' choice to scatter and do other things with their lives in the season five finale after Bones rejects the offer of romantic involvement from Booth. It's months later and Cam's problem with a forensics job pulls everyone back to the Jeffersonian in the season six opener. What's new: Booth HAS moved on and is involved with a news reporter named Hannah. In a series of moments in the early episodes there's a subtle onset of a growing instability in Brennan, the growing visibility of inner yearnings, and we gradually see that Booth's moving on with Hannah DOES not sit well, and has started a process which Brennan has little ability to understand much less control.
By the time "Doctor In The Photo" begins, Brennan is in denial, and must confront a victim whose death directly exposes the inner longings and fears she has been carrying about her own life. A brilliant surgeon, a loner, missing for nearly a year when her corpse is discovered in the roots of a storm-toppled tree, isn't missed or mourned by anyone except the coworker whose romantic offer she rejected. Brennan over identifies with the victim and doesn't understand until its almost too late that what she's solving is her own mystery.
There's nothing to match the mental rush of stumbling upon an unexpected dramatic gem, a piece of drama so expertly and masterfully written and performed that it knocks you down every time you watch it. This is one of those rare tv episodes for me. I just watched it again as a matter of fact. Is it the near-perfect soundtrack with quiet swells of disoriented sadness? Is it the near-perfect performance of the regular and guest cast members? Is it Carla Kettner's near-perfect screenplay the actors work from? It is all of this and more, a good show hitting an unexpected moment of transcendent excellence, and saying things about the nature of loneliness and friendship in ways that few other works of art achieve.
I can choose at any moment to resume my binge and finally watch the final few seasons of this show that I have not seen yet. Yet every few months I return to watch one episode, THIS episode, and be deeply touched by it one more time. Thanks.
