Bones (TV Series) The Shot in the Dark (2013) User Reviews

Pretty Darn Good (may contain spoilers)

[anderbilt · 8/10 · 20 December 2013]

As a fan of the series Bones, I have an odd way of gauging my gut reaction to an episode on first viewing. I check the cadence of Emily Deschanel's vocal delivery during the first ten minutes of the episode. If she hasn't fallen into the stilted stereotypical "Bones"-speak and taken a few other co-workers with her, I think it's going to be an interesting hour of drama.

This episode passes my litmus gut-check and I'm proud to give it eight of ten stars on IMDb. The acting is excellent, and in terms of the overall story of "Bones," it explores some interesting aspects of the protagonist's life and views.

The atheism-agnosticism of Temperance Brennan presented in this series is more than a character trait, it almost qualifies for its own line in the show credits. We KNOW she has no logical path to a personal concept of God and doesn't spend time calling her own materialist worldview into question. Yet when she is mortally wounded by an assailant in her own lab, Brennan has the classic out-of-body experience described by others who have died and been revived; the vision where the subject is met by a previously-departed loved one, with bright lights and all that. Brennan has the vision of meeting her own mother, whose absence and presumed death has been a psychic scar for most of Brennan's life.

We eventually uncover the identity and motives of the assailant, through the usual diligence and processes employed by the Jeffersonian staff. Of course the science is a little dodgy (Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel has debunked the myth of an ice-bullet two different times now) Of course the whole metaphysical story isn't one that is normal or expected in the storyline of this series. But that's what is nice about it for me.

I have found that there are different levels of Bones fandom; I don't connect with the fans who crave the Bones-speak, or having the first interview subject in each investigation be the perpetrator, no matter how many red herrings crop up. I like character-driven explorations, and the best episodes of this series for me, have stretched Brennan and Booth as people in ways we couldn't expect but could feel and understand. I'm thinking of "Doctor In The Photo" and a dozen other true high-water marks in the episodes of this series. This one is a good one.

Kudos to the excellent Dave Thomas as well, the veteran entertainer and writer who wrote this episode. AWESOME JOB.

Goof

[wija-73262 · 9/10 · 18 June 2021]

At 2 minutes and 25 seconds when Clark enters autopsy with Cam, you can see the security guard take a breath. His open abdomen Rises and then Falls.

Well done. . .

[elizdv · 8/10 · 22 October 2022]

I love when Bones diverges from its usual setup. The mystery was interesting enough. The rest was very sweet. Contrary to what other reviews indicate, this is not pushing a belief that the afterlife is real. It is presenting it as another mystery with no answer given. Also contrary to what another reviewer has written, this show has not thus far been fair in representing believers vs. Non-believers. The vast majority of the characters are atheists with Brennan constantly talking about this religious myth or that religious myth. This episode simply presents another viewpoint in an interesting way.

amazing episode

[brian-quinn10 · 10/10 · 16 March 2021]

I find that the common misconception with this episode is that the episode is saying god is real, it's not. it's up to you, it's a beautiful episode that really show the character of Brennan see past herself.

Love to Read Butt-hurt Reviews

[PartialMovieViewer · 10/10 · 29 September 2020]

I think this episode is really worthy of a seven or eight - but with this review page filled with so much butt-hurt puerility I just had award this episode a 10, or an 11, or maybe a 12. I don't care what all other scaredy-cats say, the writers really went out on a limb and made quite the gutsy move. Funny - Some people take a knee for a selfless reason, and the spineless join together to belittle such an action - and then another will take a knee and these same brainless lemmings will applaud the same action. Bones was an outstanding show, sadly it just listed too long. PC started to suffocate originality and the two stars spent less and less time on-set.

I'm a sucker for soppy stuff

[soelir · 6/10 · 7 October 2022]

The religious stuff has always irritated me a bit, as has the staunch atheism, but at least there seemed to be a balance. It seems that balance is going now though, which is a shame.

Anyone who has lost someone they love (and I'm included there) appreciates the idea of the afterlife, even if it's not logical. I am a bit disappointed that they gave her visions certainty, when that wasn't required, but I love the idea that she spoke to her mom. I'd give anything to be able to do that. I just hope they don't go on to give Brennan some kind of evangelical awakening, otherwise I'm coming back to give this a one!

Now, onto my next few gripes. Where is Pelant and why has no one mentioned him since? I seriously couldn't understand why their go to for her shooting wasn't him. And Hodgins lost his entire fortune and it's just never referenced. It would be a massive deal to him as he was clearly used to living at a standard that his wages alone couldn't maintain. But not a peep. And why the hell does Dr Saroyan keep showing up in hospitals? She's a pathologist not a surgeon. And I thought Angela had gone part time to be an 'artist' but she went undercover last episode, which would suggest she's a bit more wedded to the job she doesn't like.

Rant over, I still love the show!

Waiting for Bones to come back.

[4nne · 6/10 · 22 October 2023]

Ever since Bones got pregnant I've been wondering what the hell happened to her. All the social progress from seasons 1-6 is apparently completely gone. Suddenly she is hyper rational to the point of ridiculous, without any empathy. Even worse than in season 1, when she hadn't learned anything yet. That in itself is cringeworthy. In the first seasons it was funny and also kind of cute, it made her who she is. Plus, it was fun to see her growth - and stumbles - in it. But the extreme extent it is now taking is irritating and exaggerated and, moreover, unbelievable. At the same time, she has supposedly become softer now that she is a mother, which we see reflected in equally exaggerated moments of emotionality and irrationality. I mean, sure you change when you become a mother, and yes, there are occasional feelings that come with it that no one in the world understands... but come on! The moments themselves might still be believable, if they weren't juxtaposed against the extreme rational moments. This combination makes her a kind of pinball machine that makes any emotionally bouncing mother look tame. And yes, unfortunately the start of this episode is no different. Add a story that within a few episodes is again about God, while the rational Bones does not believe in this, and you get a story that makes me sigh a bit. And no, I have nothing against God or spirituality or believing in heaven. It's all part of my life. But above all, I like to respect one's own view, and in such a short time, another story in which God is pushed into Bones' life feels exactly like that: Pushed.

New writer is killing this series

[b-anonymous-67 · 1/10 · 11 February 2013]

Bones started as a strong spunky show with lots of heart. Last year, the writing started going downhill -- Brennan was written nerdy, losing her high intelligence and rationality. This episode hit a bottom with her character. It begins with her getting all hysterical and irrational because she is a rational person -- EXCUSE ME??? So she goes to work and gets shot -- then our writer just has to prove that Brennan's atheist beliefs are wrong and write god's existence into the show. This is obnoxious. If your writer has this severe need to dump her beliefs on the world, give her a pulpit not a writer job on Bones. Please get Brennan back to being logical, rational, intelligent, or you'll loose everything that made this show successful.

As a long time big fan of Bones I am sad to say that this episode was fairly pathetic and did nothing for the credibility of the show.

[lornt123 · 1/10 · 20 March 2013]

As a long time big fan of Bones I am sad to say that this episode was fairly pathetic and did nothing for the credibility of the show. Booth has always been unwavering in his Catholic beliefs (great!) and Brennan a firm Atheist who does not believe in the supernatural (god for her)l. By her mother then telling her information in one of her near-death experiences that she could not possibly have known, it forever alters the dynamic of the show. Smacks of someone on the writing crew forcing their dogma on the viewers. Silly stuff, I'm left wondering if the "junior youth for Christ" writing team penned the script? Will the writer's next write out Booths faith as he questions God's existence? I highly doubt it.

An 8-Season Heresy Execution

[jeffro45 · 1/10 · 16 February 2013]

This is a review from long-time fans of the show. It's not a very positive one, since that first statement is more accurate if placed in the past-tense.

My wife and I were fans of the show since the beginning years, but it's slowly been devolving into someone else's version of how educated, rational people without belief are somehow 'damaged' emotionally.

The robotic, logical nature of Brennan as a person that was socially inept was amusing and gained interest for us initially as the somewhat 'yin and yang' relationship between the super-patriotic, superstitious Boothe, and the rational Brennan, and it seemed likely that eventually, it would evolve into a more balanced approach in that she would 'warm up', and he would 'mellow out' without anyone completely abandoning their own beliefs. Lately it's become patently clear that the message being if you're lacking even a smattering of faith in the Divine, you must be damaged and lacking in morality.

A 9/11 episode, history itself was hi-jacked with the soliloquy of 'religion being hi-jacked' as if everything bad ever done in the name of any religion in the complete evolution of human history was perpetrated solely by 'rogue elements'. Essentially, it directly implies that authentic historical events well-known by historians that were standard practises of various religious leaders and the central hierarchies were little more than just some relatively random 'mistakes'. In other words, brutal enforcement and heresy was never a central theme of the authentic authorities of any organization that insisted itself into the lives of people by narrow means . . . despite the fact that a person of Brennan's initial defining beliefs would have probably been burned at the stake or arrested, excommunicated or publicly ostracized by the 'hi-jacked faiths' well into the 20th, and apparently, this century. Apparently, according to that historical account, it's been a moderate, '1960's' version of faith all along.

And of course, the main character's main quality implies that anyone who does think critically is somehow an unfeeling robot. To be fair, in the beginning she was portrayed that way, which made her quirky.

But one of the most recent episodes displayed her rational thought process and seemingly unemotional life as a direct result of religious denial. She needs to balance the two in order to be whole.

In that, it's become patronizing to people who are secular, good people that are well-balanced both morally and intellectually, and merely continue the stereo-type that if you don't believe in some fantasy perpetuated by centuries of completely nonfactual accounts of faith, you are not whole.

As long-time fans of the show, we've witnessed this spiral as it seemed that Brennan and Boothe inexplicably were drawn together, and it's now turning into nothing more than a post-9/11, 45-minute ad for God and Country, and has devolved far too past the point of no return. The writing has taken a turn for the worst as it sinks into a mediocre soap opera designed for people that believe that anyone who is atheist will eventually be the person who must eventually accept the possibility of the Divine, or go mad.

Oddly enough, having a main character with knowledge of evolution and how brain functions can trick people into all kinds of delusions devolve into a person who thinks 'near-death' experiences are believable . . . well, as a plot line, it's not.

Essentially, the title character is nothing more than the 'guy in the red shirt' on an old episode of Star Trek . . . and the phaser is set on 'kill slowly with nonsense'.

Frankly, this show could now be run successfully on some evangelical television network, for all it's credibility. The main forensic team is heading down a path that might as well start trying to read fortunes in the innards of chickens in order to try and understand how the brain works.

Perhaps Bones can eventually redeem itself, but we're not holding our breath.

It's a perfect example on how a writer, producer, or director's vision or personal beliefs can ruin a perfectly good main character by devolving them into an unrealistic shadow of their full potential. Brennan is suffering what is the modern version of being 'excommunicated' by those with much smaller visions of the universe and the potential the human experience can be.

Her character's heresy is being slow-roasted on a stake on television, basically. And what credibility the show had is going up in smoke with it.

I should have skipped these episode. Really bad writing!

[Doc_Rancher · 1/10 · 7 February 2021]

This episode contains nothing you really need to understand later episodes. You can skip it and I strongly recommend to do this.

The only really interesting thing about the case is the ice bullet, which is nonsense. Even if it would work, why would someone use an untraceable bullet, but leave his DNA in it? If it had to be blood why not from an animal?

The fight between Bones and Booth is clearly forced to make it more dramatic when she's in the hospital later. A better writer would at least have chosen a subject, where we expect Bones and Booth to disagree. Certainly not some at least questionable theories about leaving a little child better at home. This is totally out of character, since Bones - unlike the writer - would have done research before stating such "facts".

But the real dragdown, that makes me wish to have not seen this episode, is of course the "proof of God" or at least of an "afterlife", when her dead mother tells Bones something she could not know, but is acknowledged by her dad. Up until then this series was fairly neutral (most of the time). Religious people could relate to Booth, agnostic or atheistic people to Bones. And despite different believes, they all got pretty much along with each other most of the time. Now we suddenly have a series, where the "afterlife" ist a "fact", which ist not very scientific. I only hope, I can forget this and enjoy other episodes. Shame on you, religious screenwriter!

Some religious interest group must have gotten control of the writers!

[harriss-tom · 1/10 · 15 December 2013]

At what point did this show run off the rails and get taken over by the religious nuts?

There are so few shows that show a rational point of view, and almost none with a strong, likable atheist.

The religious nuts have EVERY other show out there, why do they have to shovel their crap into one of the very few shows that was rational?

Shame on the writers for doing this. Shame on whoever allowed this to happen.

Very disappointing and discouraging.

What makes superstitious people feel that anyone who is reasonable has to be like a Vulcan... all brains, no emotion or warmth? Then they use that show how flawed reason must be as compared to the feeling "faith" based idiocy they want to advocate. This show probably drove them nuts because it had a strong advocate of reason who made all the superstitious/religious people in the show look silly (as will happen when they are faced with reason and facts)... so they applied some kind of pressure or something and the writers were replaced or caved to pressure and they destroyed the core of the show with this fluff. So sad.

Crucial scientific error and unbearable Tempe character

[laminur · 5/10 · 19 January 2016]

In every episode we must hear the scientific explanations and theories from Brennan a character which is difficult to bear. I'm a scientist too not in Antropology; but in the Educational Science.

In 8 - 15,,,I couldn't believe in my ears! Tempe says for a 14 months child home is better, because the child doesn't understand outside; wood, lake etc area.

Indredibly nonscientific, nonsense, bullshit. Sorry. From the moment we born especially the first years, the more we confront different stimulus, the more neuron cells connect in our brain making our brain a huge network which corresponds to LEARNING and brain development.

If Tempe would have been right there would be no necessity go send the children to schools, parks, no need to toys.... All these are stimulus developing the brain. If you put the child just in home he/she will end up as an idiot.

Death defined by heart beat.

[The_Real_Celsus · 1/10 · 11 March 2014]

Episode is just plain awful. It really does not deserve more than this. If you liked 8.9 you will love this one. If you are a shark, put on your jumping headgear protection.

That is the end of the review. I am forced to put 10 lines for a review IMDb says. Great now I am being forced to put more effort in to the review of the show than they put in to the episode its self. That was seven lines. This is eight. This episode was horrid. Bones hearts Jesus. That should have been 10 lines, but it seems I was a little short, argh this episode was bad. Really? I have to add one more line? Here, hope this is ten lines now.

Contrived Religious Gobbledegook

[Hitchcoc · 2/10 · 22 February 2023]

The premise of this could have been just fine, but the writers seem like they're trying to facilitate Booth's fundamentalist beliefs, his dogma. She is shot and begins to hallucinate. People hear that someone's heart stopped and say "You were dead for two minutes." You weren't dead. Your heart stopped. Your vital organs and your brain continued to get oxygen, putting you on hold until they can get your heart started. If your heart stopped for ten minutes, you would be truly dead and you wouldn't come back. What a stupid episode. Booth's baloney really gets tiresome. Of course, heaven is only for Christians, right?