(no subject)

[eruthros]

Spoilers ahoy.



I'd like to think I have more to say about Bones than this, but in fact the first thing I think when I think about the episode is: "But no one has ever been IDed from facial reconstruction!"

This is so not my field, so I haven't done any reading on the subject in the last threeish years, but. Butbutbut. I think it would be big news if someone had ever actually managed it -- I mean, occasionally it's been used for what proponents call identification, but in all cases they've had a fairly good idea of who the skeleton is first and know who to show it to and who to ask and what color to make the eyes/hair etc. Which hardly counts. And I suppose I should also say "no ID from facial reconstruction has ever been confirmed by other means." Occasionally people call and say "I think that's my daughter," or whatever, but the dental records or DNA doesn't work out. It's fabulous for giving a case new publicity and getting it on people's radar, but so far the only way it's ever solved cases is by giving the police six hundred new phone calls.

On a more show-based level... hmmm. I'm not sure that I like what they've done with the character of Tempe Brennan. In the books, she's much less Mary-Sue (and more middle-aged, for one). I suppose this may be toned down in subsequent episodes, but at the moment Brennan is really ridiculously a trope of women-in-science Mary-Sueness. She's a martial arts master with a gun, her quirks are all "adorable," she's young and pretty and an orphan, fergodsakes. And her Missing Parents make her want to Help Others, which is why she went into forensic science -- yeesh. Also, this totally sets her up for my least favorite Women In Positions of Knowledge/Power character arc ever -- you know, the one where the Quirky and Smart and Kickass but Emotionally Distant Woman must Change to Fit Societal Expectation For Women -- I mean, to Become More In Touch With Her Heart and Start Listening to the Men in her Life. (Who, actually, are often wrong, because otherwise they can't set said woman up as smart and kickass, so why she'd start listening to them I don't know.)

I rather liked David Boreanz' Booth, though, which surprised me. He was occasionally a little over the top, but on the whole they wrote him much more subtley. Conclusion: I may watch it again, especially as it's on before House, but at the moment I feel rather "eh" about it.



And then there is House. Which rocked. House was snarky and fabulous. And Wilson was practically singing Barbara Streisand. And Foreman and Chase had character development. And Stacy didn't annoy me as much as I thought she would. And Cameron was... blargh, as usual.

m_shell pointed out early in the episode that Cameron was right about her clinic patient from a medical perspective -- you really couldn't say cancer for sure until it'd been biopsied -- but I was confident that Cindy had cancer, for plot and character reasons rather than any medical reasons. After all, I said, we'd seen Cameron's problems with death, and we'd seen how she couldn't tell people they were dying, and so this had to be trying to do character development. Regardless of the medicine Cindy had to be dying. Also, considering that she made this whole Hippocratic Oath point, she was really fine with leaving death-row guy to die. "First, do no harm" my ass.

Foreman's character development, otoh, was much more interesting -- he nearly let death-row guy die (see above, re: Hippocratic Oath) and then ended up planning to testify at his appeal. Sure, part of it was the biological, but my sense of his conversation with House was that he was actually thinking about his refusal to see social stuff as part of people's problems.

I couldn't get over Cuddy's shirt. So ridiculous. With the ruffles. Wah.

I still love Wilson, but his new haircut is too short. Also, I am shallow.

And House himself -- saving his patients by whatever means necessary, and alienating everyone to do it.

Comments

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and, just to add, because you're the one person on my friends list I can say stuff like this to and know you'll not need any other explanation, so, they find ossified *ossicles*, in a pond, like you said, but they don't find any *other* ossified fetal bones? Which, I know, I know, I shouldn't even be worrying about it because of the whole "early pregnancy" thing they said, but, still, *god*. I don't expect much from, say, SGA, but you would think a show about a forensic anthropologist on a major network in prime time would do at least a *little* research.

[eruthros]

Seriously. It would be like... "oh, hey, we found a neonatal hyoid!" And, sure, it makes them harder to ID because you hardly ever see them -- if she'd spent half the episode thinking fetal verts were from frogs, we'd be laughing hysterically, too -- but at the same time, so very yeesh.