David Boreanaz

TCA Press Tour: Insert “No ‘Bones’ About It, The Show’s Better Than Ever” joke here

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again to give credit where credit is due: if it wasn’t for my wife, I wouldn’t watch nearly as much “Bones” as I do. As a diehard David Boreanaz fan, she was there from Episode 1 of the series to watch her boy in his new gig…and, not surprisingly, that meant that I was there a fair amount of time as well. It’s come quite a long ways over the past few years, with Emily Deschanel growing into her character…or maybe it’s her character doing the evolving; I can’t always tell…and the rapport between Deschanel and Boreanaz getting stronger all the time. Additionally, the ensemble cast has continued to gel, which only adds to the success of the show.

* The character of Zach Addy - played by Eric Millegan - went off to Iraq at the end of last season, but since Millegan was on the panel, it was reasonable for us to presume that he’d be back for Season 3. Before Millegan could answer, however, creator Hart Hanson interrupted, “Don’t verify it, Eric! Waffle! Just because you’re here on the panel doesn’t mean you’re back!” Millegan looked for a moment as though he thought Hanson might be serious, but when Hanson admitted that he was kidding, Millegan revealed, “Yeah, I’m back. And, gosh, I don’t want to give too much away, but he was sent home early. He was supposed to be in Iraq longer, and he was sent home early, and in the show we’re going to explore why he was sent home early and how he feels about that.”

* As far as Fox’s repeated threats to move the show to an invariably-deadly Friday night timeslot, Hanson stated with conviction, “We’re not going.” Would that he had the power to make that decision. “We’ll do what we can,” he finally said. “You know, FOX does what they can. They’re fair. They have a good plan. We’d just like to perform well enough that we don’t have to move to Fridays.”

* Speaking on the subject of the definite sexual tension between Booth and Bones, Deschanel offered a titillating revelation. “I think this season we’re growing deeper as friends and other things,” she says, “just deeper as a relationship, pretty soon. I mean, we investigate a certain kind of fetish that comes up in a crime that we’re investigating and that kind of brings up a lot of sexual tension and stuff between us.” (”Pony play,” cracked Boreanaz.)

Going on, Deschanel said, “And you can see how we have been affected by being left at the altar after Angela and Hodgins left their wedding and how that kind of affected us and how we’re forced in some way to face what we feel for each other. And you’ll see that at the beginning of the season, how we’re dealing with that.”

Boreanaz added, “You’ll see us very separate and apart and not kind of clicking, I think, in the beginning. Then you’ll see how that kind of gets back and working and how it sparks up again and the reasons why it works, the reasons why it doesn’t. Again, we can possibly throw in a therapist maybe to help us with our relationship in order to deal with the workplace, which I think is — I don’t think you’ve ever seen that on television, so I think that’s a really unique insight into how these two characters will grow with each other as the show grows.”

Hanson, however, got the last word on the subject…as is only appropriate for the show’s creator.

“We have a lot of really smart people chewing on that problem all the time,” said Hanson, “and, of course, I mean, everyone in this room is a pro. You know how it goes. We want to keep them apart as long as we can without annoying the audience. And there’s a number of ways to do that. We also — there are certain little valves you can use, little steam valves you can use to relieve pressure, and we’ll use every single one of them. I hope we’re deft enough to do it, to keep them as long as we can from them actually coming together as a couple.

“But, you know, it’s season three,” he acknowledged, with a laugh. “I think we’d better see something.”

* The episode from last season which featured a school shooting and was pulled in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy will be reworked and will appear later this season. Hanson noted, however, that at least one part of the episode will not make the revised version, due to it now falling outside of the show’s current chronology. “It was a great storyline and a very, very funny sequence between TJ and Michaela,” he says. “I hope we can put it on a DVD for people.”

* Stephen Fry will not, as it stands, be reprising his role as therapist Dr. Gordon Wyatt…but lord knows it’s not because the cast and producers don’t want him. “We love him; that guy is great,” gushed Hanson, “(but) he’s also a very busy man. I’m not sure there’s an American version of Stephen Fry. Maybe Gore Vidal crossed with Spalding Gray crossed with, you know — he’s a very, very busy man. And the dates that he’s available are — there’s not a lot of them. So he would love to come back, and we are going to try and have him come back as soon as we can and for as much as we can. He’s an amazing man. Amazing actor.” (When Deschanel added that Fry was “incredible” and that it “was a dream of mine to work with him, Hanson admitted that it was one of his, too.)

* Lastly, I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity and find out who was responsible for the concept of having Angela’s dad be Billy Gibbons from Z.Z. Top. (I mean, honestly, that sounds like one of those drunken jokes that turned into reality because someone decided to make a just-for-the-hell-of-it phone call to Mr. Gibbons.) When I posed the question, every single person on the panel immediately pointed to Hanson.

Hanson stroked an imaginary beard and looked skyward. “Billy Gibbons — wow, how was I going to meet him? Oh, I know,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve got a TV show!”

When Hanson claimed that he felt very old when Boreanaz had to ask who Gibbons was, Boreanaz refused to believe that he’d ever made such a statement. “How can you not recognize him?” Boreanaz asked. “How can you not recognize this guy?”

Hanson followed up on that. “First, we had him just come in for the visual,” he explained. “You know, he’s instantly recognizable. But then, in the season-ender, he came and had a scene with TJ, playing Angela’s father, and it was a great scene, and he was great. So we have to have him back.”

T.J. Thyne, who plays Dr. Jack Hodgins added, “Billy had a really good time on the shoot. He really is a fan of show. He’s a fan of Hart’s. And he just — he was really kind of giddy. It was really great working with him. He was really excited, and I hope he gets to come back.”

This led to further waxing on the part of Boreanaz about guest stars in general. “I think it’s interesting,” he observed, “that the guests that have come on our show, like Stephen Fry, Billy Gibbons, Ryan O’Neal — great, respectful, huge work that they’ve done, but I don’t think we tend to cast this person to get a specific number, or we have to cast this specific person to get some more viewers to watch the show. I think the content of it is that these characters fit the roles that dictate these storylines, and I think that’s really interesting. And I think that is a testimony to the strength of Hart and the executives over here that make these decisions. You know what, these are great characters, let’s fill (the show) with people that make sense rather than go after the persons that could be larger but probably won’t fit.”

It’s true. And it’s probably one of the biggest reasons I enjoy “Bones.” Besides, of course, the fact that my wife makes me watch it.

I’m kidding, of course. But I should mention that, by happy coincidence, my wife was able to attend this particular panel with me and, at its end, got to meet Boreanaz personally.