Fox Home Entertainment
MSRP: $69.99
Release date: October 6, 2009
In a creative decision at the end of Bones‘s writers strike-shortened third season, series regular Eric Millegan’s character, Dr. Zack Addy, was linked to a cannibalistic serial killer and committed to an asylum. Zack’s spot on Brennan’s team was filled in Season 4 by six rotating interns. Not knowing which intern would be featured in any given episode, I didn’t warm to any of them until Season 5.
Season 4 was a mixed bag of ambitious and gimmicky episodes. The two-hour premiere was a trip to London during which Booth and Brennan solved two murders. In other episodes, location detracted from plot and character development: Brennan and Booth on a plane to China, Brennan and Booth in an office building, Brennan and Booth at a funeral home, Brennan and Booth join the circus.
The season’s most significant and strangest character developments concerned Special Agent Seeley Booth (Boreanaz). The appearance of Booth’s younger brother Jared (Brendan Fehr) revealed that their father abused them as children. In one episode, Booth hallucinates his dead Army Ranger spotter. In another, he hallucinates playing hockey with Luc Robitaille. In a third, he hallucinates The Family Guy‘s Stewie Griffin. These seemed like “jump-the-shark” moments for the traditionally very realistic show—until, late in the season, Booth was revealed to be suffering from a brain tumor.
These developments made me unsure of Bones‘s future, but looking at it another way, the show was taking risks, risks that have paid off in the fifth season.
The five-disc Season 4 Blu-ray set includes 25 episodes, three extended episode cuts, deleted scenes, a gag reel, a featurette on the rotating interns, and a featurette on transforming a guest actress into an androgynous character.
–Gerald So
