Bones has had quite a few problems as of late, but, now, at least one of those recent issues has finally been cleared up. After the show’s fall finale, it wasn’t given a return date for the second half of the season, but, as of today, that’s changed.
FOX confirmed to us that the eleventh season of the hit series will continue on Thursday, April 14. The show will kick off the night and be followed by a new military-inspired show, American Grit.
If you’ve been paying attention to Bones news over the past few months, you know that things have not been so rosy behind the scenes. Three months ago Bones executive producer Barry Josephson dropped a lawsuit on both FOX and their parent company 20th Century Fox Television, saying that they’d kept him from millions of dollars’ worth of profits from the show for several years. His suit also alleged (among other things) that FOX purposely classified some expenses for the show in ways that would leave out himself and other behind the scenes players, and that he and other profiting parties were threatened by FOX big wigs.
A week after his suit was filed, Bones’ stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, along with executive producer Kathleen Reichs (who also wrote the books that the show is based on), also sued the network and many of its subsidiary/parent companies for allegedly withholding all of their individual shares of the show’s profits. Some time after that, FOX filed a petition to have all the suits moved into arbitration.
While all this was unfolding, Season 11 of Bones was on the air and seemed to be limping along to an unsuitable ending for the die hard fans who had stuck with the program for so long. The ratings weren’t much to write home about anymore and the quality of the show, after more than its share of seasons on the air, was starting to suffer. No announcement has been made on the fate of Bones. Many are speculating it may come to an end after this season, especially given all the behind the scenes problems, but there's certainly still a chance it could earn a surprise renewal.
When you love a TV show with every fiber of your being, one of the worst things that can happen is to watch it slowly fade away. What we always want is for our favorites to power through forever and ever. But, that rarely happens. Just like everything else, television shows grow old and, often, tired. They fall into an easy procedural pattern where the answers easily come at consistent viewers from a million miles away. Story lines fall flat, sometimes because the creators start things they have no idea how to finish.
The list of potential problems is long, but it looks like Bones will have a chance to right the ship before saying goodbye, whether that's after this season or after another. Hopefully, that will mean all those Bones fans will get to see the best possible ending for one of their favorite shows, whenever that might happen.
