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Friday, October 30, 2015

Creepy But Logical #Bones #SleepyHollow #Hollowbones

Creepy But Logical #Bones #SleepyHollow #Hollowbones

All pictures courtesy of FOX

Ahhh! Why do I even try? Ever feel like life itself is going against you at the moment? That is precisely how I've been feeling for the last near two weeks. Every year, usually twice a year my computer gets a virus or gets so hot that it overheats and does this ten minute shutdown thing for a few days (the computer is a little old, so...). As luck would have it, both things smacked me at the same time I was doing cleanup in my garden. I had to focus on getting my yard together while trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer and ended up rebooting and re-installing everything on the computer. There's not much on here save for a few programs to help me create my books and other such works. Still, it is a hassle, especially if you have to do it a few times because the code is rootkited or whatever. I'm not going to go into it.

So, with that mini-rant about how computer viruses are from the devil, I get back on topic and give you a review of FOX's confusing and confounding crossover event from last night, Bones and Sleepy Hollow. Now, to be fair I read an article yesterday on my phone (should have saved the link and emailed it to myself) that stated how little the actors understood the crossover also. Other than the fact that they were both on Fox and both had a male and female partner that clash at first like oil and water (bad and overused cliche; hey, I haven't written anything in over a week. Gimme a break!) before accepting each other's differences and maybe even coming to appreciate them. And they're both FBI.


But when looking outside of that, one show is steeped in modern-day real world science while the other deals in fantastical paranormal occult stuff. It would be like if Walter White showed up on The Walking Dead because everyone discovered that the way to defeat the zombies was to give them blue meth. If that's confusing, well, it's probably because I don't watch the Walking Dead, or it could also be the fact that the idea doesn't make any sense. If anything, FOX could have done a crossover between Rosewood and Bones (something I expect they will do come next season) or a crossover between Sleepy Hollow and, uh... hmph? The one show I can think of is NBC's Grimm but network logistics and all. Other than that, they could have waited until their Lucifer show (premiering mid-season) came out but who knows if that'll last and if it'll replace Sleepy Hollow as the strange show on the network.


How did they do with this strange, ill-advised crossover event? Believe it or not, I'd say they did OK.
First off, though I wanted it to be, I quickly realized that this wasn't going to be some explosive mind-blowing crossover that ends with all of the crossover characters in a shootout for their lives and situations that had long-lasting repercussions on both shows. No, this was more of a toe-dip into the water of making a shared TV universe where they can have their different shows crossover with little problem to mark special occasions. In this case, the occasion was Halloween as this was to be a haunting crossover spectacular. And while it didn't live up to that moniker per se, it did do a nice job at making us believe these two radically different-in-tone shows could coexist in the same universe.


Beginning with Bones, the team found two pairs of human bones because... well, the show is called Bones. I can't imagine what it'd be without actual bones. Anyway, the first set of bones belonged to a woman from this time period. Recently dead, she had much of her skull intact and had clue markers on her like hair that had recently been dyed back from a previous purple hue, and multiple earring holes. Nicely dressed, she appeared to have been a puritanical church girl until those two clues (because straight-laced people would never do something so silly as dye their hair a cool color or get more than one ear piercing).

They discover that she was actually a doctor going for higher position, so she wanted to be taken seriously. That, however, still did not account for why she was found in the near vicinity of the second dead body.
Enter Ichabod and Abbie. The second body belongs to a redcoat fella from back when redcoats and bluecoats and midnight rides were still a thing. He first determines that the man is one person but when Dr. Brennan does a facial reconstruction and analysis through her neat machine, they match the possible face to the man that Ichabod had been talking about for the last few weeks, a General Howe. I say possible face because for more than half of the show the body did not have a head. Why? Because the purple-haired woman believed back when she was alive a myth from long ago that spoke of the head somehow being a gateway into life after death. Essentially a good luck charm, she could resurrect so long as she had the head near her. How she discovered the body was where it was I can't recall, but she found the general's grave, sliced off his skull and took it back to her place where she participated in a crazy stunt.


A morbid but natural fascination with death, the woman had previously gotten a doctor friend to stop her heart with a drug cocktail before reviving her. When she died, she went to what she perceived as a stop before heaven where she spoke with her sister who died as a young child (the catalyst for her death intrigue). This life-changing experience is what prompted her to act differently, re-dying the hair, removing the earrings, etc.

With the experience so phenomenal, she pushed her boyfriend to do it with her the next time. He went first and all he saw was darkness and nothing. So frightening the experience, that when she revived him he panicked and accidentally killed her. And so solved the case of The Ressurection in the Remains.
Frankly, I thought the Bones episode of the night was rather lacking in excitement, though all readers should take that with a grain of salt as I don't normally watch the show. Outside of a few cutesy referencings of Ichabod's strange character, his garb, how much he knows about history of that pre-revolutionary era, and an odd note with his signature on it as dictated to or by George Washington, nothing else leapt out as overly strange. There was some talk about Abbie's FBI mentor also being the mentor of Boothe and a throwaway line about Ichabod and Abbie having a romantic relationship in the future but other than that it didn't reach the heights of weirdness more than a few of us were expecting it to; instead, everything made perfect sense.

Moving into the Sleepy Hollow episode, Abbie requested the headless man's body be moved back to Sleepy Hollow as ordered by George Washington long ago. See, he had not only given the order to kill General Howe but knew that burying him in England wouldn't be beneficial to the patriots. Why? Because the purple-haired woman was right. The general had some kind of artifact that tied him into the dark plans of the evil one Ichabod and Abbie are always talking about. While they still haven't fully engaged in Christian lure and just outright said it is the devil doing this stuff, it has been hinted at more than enough times (giving him other names doesn't change that when they're going off the Christian book of Revelation). This amulet or stone the general has allows him the power of resurrection, not only making it easier for him to be resurrected by someone else (Pandora) but to call forth his own dark army that can only roam around during the night and become subterranean during the day.


Naturally, when the transport for the body is interrupted and the dead guy escapes, the Bones crew is called on for some assistance as they can get Ichabod and Abbie into a historical monument in D.C. While Brennan is tripping off of how historical of an archaeological discovery this all is, Ichabod finds a secret passage where the general's body was to originally be stored under Greek fire or napalm as scientifically pointed out by Brennan. She and Ichabod get trapped and almost burnt to death before Booth shoots out the keypad to reopen the secret passage door. I don't honestly know what to say about that part as the archaic lock popped off like cheap house siding in a summer rainstorm, prompting the question of why Abbie doesn't always do that. That was pretty much it for the Bones' crew as Ichabod and Abbie took over, discovering that General Howe's undead army was defeated by the Greek fire in the battle of Manhattan where Betsy Ross helped burn the city to the ground.

Abbie and Ichabod, along with her sister and the old sheriff's son lure the zombie-gopher soldiers into an underground tunnel where they burn them all. Then, in a strange twist, the general walks into the fire on his own and roasts himself. Still trying to figure out why he did that.

To end the episode, Bones got their new artifact to obsess over with the secret passages, Ichabod and Abbie stopped another monster-of-the-week threat that had brewed since the season opener, and Abbie was confronted with info that her sister was caught up in an ongoing FBI investigation. Again, this is a bias statement because I don't normally watch Bones, but I found Sleepy Hollow the much better episode in the crossover. I enjoy crossovers so long as they are done correctly (still waiting on that Agents of Shield/Daredevil crossover). Though they showed no split or frayed seams between the two shows, I would appreciate a little more fireworks and bizarreness the next time the network and producers go for #HollowBones. Viewers certainly did enjoy it as both shows saw a slight uptick in ratings for the historically tough Thursday night.

As a side note about ratings, with canceling season upon us, I will soon be giving my predictions on what will and won't stay and why. For now, I still have a few more premiere week three week roundup posts on new shows.

What did you think viewers? Did you watch the Bones and Sleepy Hollow crossover? Did you like it? Did one hour standout over the other? If they do this again in the future, what would you like to see happen? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

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Until next time, “I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign."


P.S. Yeah, it's Friday and I just hit you with a little throwback 90s jam music from Ace of Base. The lyrics sorta apply here... kinda. OK, maybe I'm reaching a little but I couldn't think of anything else to write and it was in my head. I think of something better next time.

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