Jay Maidment/FOXBones is back! Well, almost, anyway. The season premiere is two weeks away, to be exact, on Sept. 3.
To gear up, I recently caught up with Bones' big bosses Hart Hanson and Barry Josephson and got a little insight into that Booth-Bones hookup you've been hoping for and some dish on both the London-set season premiere and the show's future exotic foreign settings...Is your hometown in the running?
Click in for the dish on season four and some sneak peeks of Booth and Bones in London!
London Calling: In case you've been wondering what brings our heroes to England for the two-hour season premiere, according to David Boreanaz: "Bones is speaking to Oxford, and I'm speaking to Scotland Yard. There is an American businessman living in London, and his daughter is murdered—we pull her car out of the Thames—and it becomes a unified effort between Scotland Yard, the FBI and the forensics teams on both ends."
Foreign Affair? Detective work isn't the only thing on the itinerary, however...there's a little flirtation as well. Emily said: "I am giving a lecture at Oxford, and I have been invited here by Dr. Ian Wexler (Andrew Buchan), another forensic anthropologist—the top forensic anthropologist in England. He's kind of like me in London. The lecture is on interstitial lamellae remodeling—one of my favorite subjects to speak about—and Booth falls asleep while I'm giving my lecture, which I don't appreciate." But don't worry B&B fans, Booth isn't falling down on the job. According to David Boreanaz: "Ian Wexler is the forensics guy over here, and he's moving in on her—which is fine, but it's also going to drive me crazy, obviously."
The Main Attraction: What about the rest of the year? Hart confirmed to me that Booth and Bones are getting horizontal in season four: "We will, in fact, see Booth and Bones together in bed. Naked." Shut. Up. "Shut up, yourself. They're naked in bed. You betcha. It may be the season ender, it may not..." Bedly nakedness? Aaah!
Altar-ed States: Also in season four, expect the points of the love triangle between Angela (Michaela Conlin), Jack (T.J. Thyne) and Birimbau (Sean Blakemore) to get sharper. Hart said: "Angela's missing husband, Birimbau, shows up during the season premiere, and merry mix-ups ensue. I hope it's not what anyone expects. I hope people will expect either that everything goes great for everybody or that Birimbau breaks up Jack and Angela, and I don't mind telling you that neither one of those things happen."
Dearly Departed: If you were worried that Zack (Eric Millegan) would be forgotten by the team or by the show's producers, you can lay that fear to rest. According to Hart, "We are not replacing Zack...Eric and I are very good friends. Eric is fine. Zack's not doing so well, but Eric is fine. He's booked to be in the first episode we're shooting in August." (We'll be catching up with our poor Zackaroni at the asylum where he currently resides...)
Baby Bones: According to another executive producer, Barry Josephson, "We're doing a lot with these guest interns," referring to a series of grad students who will filter in and out of Brennan's lab at the Jeffersonian, doing many of the tasks once assigned to Zack. In fact, said Josephson, "Some of the interns are going to be recurring, and I think what we're going to do is look at the fan community and see who people like and why they like them, and that might impact our decision making." Who said reality-show voting is the only form of participatory television?
New People and Places:
- Hart Hanson said of the remaining team members: "We have a girlfriend for Sweets (John Francis Daley). And Cam (Tamara Taylor) has a past, and because of that she approaches life a certain way, and we go into a bit more of what she is."
- The sets are also getting mixed up a bit this year, said Barry Josephson: "I think shows are going to end at different locations in D.C. this year, rather than always at the diner. We'll do some location shoots as well as some spots on the Fox lot."
- All you overseas Bones fans, good news: You can start making up those "I Heart D.B." posters now, because Bones stars may be coming to your country sometime soon! Barry Josephson told me that after the success of the first European expedition (the season premiere was shot on location in the U.K.), "We are going to do more international shows. The trip to England was at the suggestion of a studio executive, but when you see how well we do in other countries, it just makes sense. I've recently traveled a lot and have seen Bones airing in French Polynesia and New Zealand. And Bones is a forensic anthropologist, and she can travel anywhere, and she should!"
Think Bones should shoot an episode in the place where you live? Tell the producers in the comments below why your town is the place to be!
The special two-hour season-four premiere of Bones airs on Fox Sept. 3 at 8 p.m.
—Reporting by Jennifer Godwin