After the shocking conclusion of last season, when Brennan stunned Booth by revealing she was pregnant with his child, Season 7 finds FBI Agent Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperance Brennan struggling to deal with the balance of a complex personal life and a constant series of increasingly dark and puzzling crimes. Still seeing the world from radically different perspectives, Booth and Brennan grapple with the issues surrounding the upcoming birth of their child - all while continuing to deal with a series of gruesome and baffling crimes. These include a nefarious tech-savvy foe who uses his unparalleled skills to challenge Booth, Brennan and the squints to solve a string of murders designed to embarrass and humiliate them...

The seventh season of Bones has a shorter episode count than normal - being only 13-episodes - due to the fact that Emily Deschanel's real life pregnancy was taken into account. While there aren't as many episodes, this doesn't reflect badly on the quality of the season as the scripts are as strong as always.

Bones reminds me of a CSI series, but with a focus strongly on the characters rather than the crimes. This, for me, makes it a more enjoyable show, as you really invest in the personal stories of each character - rather than on CSI where it's mainly a "corpse of the week" show.

Part of the atmosphere of each show depends on which interns are featured. For example if it features Daisy Wick (who is dating Lance Sweets) then you know it's doing to feature a lot of dizzy scenes. The chemistry when Daisy and Sweets are on screen together is believable, and they make for a great comedy double act.

Highlights in this season include:

The Prince in the Plastic: This has one of the grossest corpses - as the liquefied remains and skeleton are encased in plastic wrap - meaning that the team has to pierce the plastic and let the ooze drain out. This episode also features Morgan Fairchild and John Ross Bowie (Barry Kripke in The Big Bang Theory). In addition it features Daisy and Sweets - which is always a bonus.

The Crack in the Code: When a skull and spine are found the team have to work out why the spine has been taken apart and put back together in the wrong order. In addition, why does a clue, written in blood, contain DNA from several different people?

The Suit on the Set: This episode sees the team visiting a movie set for a new film, Bone of Contention, based on Brennan's book. The movie is played straight and is truly awful (full of technical inaccuracies and terrible dialogue) which helps to add to the humour of the episode. The final sequence is also one of the funniest in a Bones episode. This episode also features Rosalind Chao (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Keiko O'Brien).

The Past in the Present: Is this season's finale. It's a clever episode that sees the manipulation of electronic equipment to allow a criminal to frame Brennan and her team for the current murder they are investigating. It also features a moving cliffhanger.

Extras include Deleted Scene from Shallow Grave (57 sec); Creating The Suit on the Set (10 min, 32 sec behind the scenes look at that episode); Bone of Contention: On the Red Carpet (3 min, 09 sec spoof interview with Angela Montenegro and Jack Hodgins at the film premiere of Bone of Contention, from the episode The Suit on the Set); Audio Commentary on The Past is the Present; Deleted Scene from The Past is the Present (1 min, 09 sec); and Gag Reel (3 min, 52 sec).

In addition there's the pilot episode of Tim Kring's Touch series - which reminded me of the movie Knowing. It's certainly an interesting looking show and one that I'll be following.

Bones's seventh season is just as entertaining as it ever was - and the season cliffhanger will have you eagerly anticipating the start of season eight.

8

Darren Rea