I know it's April Fool's Day and all, but two big-ticket network shows, which return tonight, can make a person feel very foolish for watching them. With one you feel like an airhead. With the other you feel a headache coming on from studying the heavy-duty storylines.
For instance, Dr. "Bones" Brennan wears a very nifty raincoat on tonight's episode of Bones (Fox, 8 p.m.). The coat is white with big black buttons, and the pockets are huge.
It's the 100th episode of Bones,and there's a lot going on, but it's the raincoat I remember very, very clearly. All kinds of things happen, actually. The episode opens on a subway train. Dr. Sweets (John Francis Daley) is on it and having an interesting conversation with someone he just met. Then the train is thrown off the track by a flood of water. Someone dies and, wouldn't you know it, a "partially skeletonized body" is thrown onto the subway track by the flood. Mystery ensues. People stand around and poke at the grisly skeleton, trying to figure out who it is.
Meanwhile, a bit of nonsensical business keeps intruding because Dr. Brennan (Emily Deschanel) has written a novel and a relentlessly nosy journalist from Japan is trying to interview her about the connection between reality and fiction. Also, Dr. Sweets is traumatized by his experience in the flood. Other stuff happens and there's much complicated stuff spoken about the skeleton. A "deadly love triangle" is mentioned. Still, it's the raincoat I recall.
We haven't seen Bones since February. This, the start of an eight-episode run into May, is the start of the spring season of the show. Whatever. The show has a plot that is so flimsy it barely exists at all. That grisly skeleton storyline is all mixed up with the comedy of the pesky reporter from Japan.
Bones, based on the novels by Kathy Reichs, has always been perky show and full of sass. Dr. Brennan is sarcastic and brisk. When the show arrived five years ago, Brennan was a terrific addition to a TV schedule featuring too many shows in which women were presented as the inevitable victims of crazy, middle-aged creeps.
Now it's so slight that it's watched for the little decorative bit of comedy, romance and, yes, that raincoat.
Fringe (Fox 9 p.m.) also returns tonight, part of that same spring season trend. However, unlike Bones, Fringe is a show with way too much plot. On the air for only two seasons, it's already incomprehensible. From the beginning it's been all about a nefarious scheme to change the world, one that began when some wacky genius professor began dabbling in "fringe" science. That was back in the 1960s, when people were doing drugs and messing where they should not have been messing.
FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) got the job of investigating some weird occurrences and then engaged mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), who had been institutionalized for 20 years. He's the go-to guy on the world of experimental science. Since then the lovely Olivia has been upstaged by Dr. Bishop. And by Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), son of the mad scientist. The show was created by J.J. Abrams who promised that Fringe would not get as convoluted as his other shows, Lost and Alias, and viewers would be able to tune in at any time without feeling perplexed by the plotting.
This has proved to be an empty promise. Tonight, it's back to 1985 and Bishop is conducting experiments that have something to do with the existence of an alternative universe. There's a mirror-like gadget which allows him and others to peer into this world. Something to do with theoretical physics. "There's only room for one God in this lab, and it's not yours," Bishop barks at his assistant when asked about the morality of his endeavours.
What's happening has something to do with the origins and fate of Bishop's son Peter and an illness that struck Bishop's wife. I think. Also it has something to do with cadging science from that alternative universe. In fact the opening scene, in 1985, in which Bishop shows a small, slim cell phone to some military officers, is by far the most intriguing.
But the fact is, if you haven't been following Fringe very closely and don't have a clear memory of what happened on the last new episode months ago, you're probably lost. More lost than with Lost.
What we get with Bones is too little plot to be bothered with. What we get with Fringe is so much plot that we're weighed down by it. Fools for watching is what we are.
Also airing:
The Nature of Things: Masters of Space (CBC, 8 p.m.) suggests space will be a "new arena for war." It is mainly about the U.S. domination of space in terms of satellites for communications and military power. There is much information about things we don't see or think about - those gadgets going around and around in space. We're told that as the U.S. becomes more reliant on satellite technology, the country is also more wary of other countries' presence in space. One U.S. Air Force officer, speaking about advances in Chinese technology, talks about the possibility of "an electronic Pearl Harbor."
Who Framed Jesus? (Discovery, 8 p.m.) asks if Judas was, you know, set up. It is revisionist history of a sort, challenging the accuracy of the Bible and applying contemporary science to the issue. But in truth it doesn't close the case.