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Thanks to the lightning-quick rise of the internet around the tail-end of the 20th century, the entertainment industry suddenly had a shiny new tool at its disposal to promote its products. And while the eventual rise of Facebook and Twitter would send social media marketing into overdrive, Hart Hanson’s “Bones” proved to be exceptionally savvy at navigating the wild, wild west that is the information superhighway in the years that came both before and after that. In fact, as early as its second season, Hanson’s gooey-gross procedural rom-com had already started using the ancient relic known as MySpace to make its viewers feel like they themselves were playing an active role in the show’s weekly murder investigations.
Season 2, episode 20, titled “The Glowing Bones in the Old Stone House,” had all the making of your average “Bones” case when it aired on May 9, 2007. There was the intriguing hook by writer Stephen Nathan, which saw Bones (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) inspecting a curious set of glowing bones that, in a twist that only deepens the mystery, doesn’t prove to be radioactive as initially feared. Then there was the usual interpersonal hijinks, with Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and Angela (Michaela Conlin) — still a few years out from their surprise getting hitched in “Bones” season 5 — continuing their roundabout workplace courtship in-between lending their specialized skills to the puzzle at hand.
So, how does Chris and Tim Vanderhook’s (mostly) defunct social networking service enter the equation? Not getting the answers they need from the physical evidence of the case, Bones and the gang venture forth into cyberspace in search of virtual clues, including the various photos, messages, and videos posted by the murder victim and their friends to MySpace. This is where the audience involvement angle comes in.
Bones turns to the world wide web for help
As recounted in Paul Ruditis’ book “Bones: The Official Companion,” the creatives behind “The Glowing Bones in the Old Stone House” created functional MySpace pages for the episode’s guest characters. They didn’t half-ass them either; the whole idea was that “Bones” fans would be able to log online and see if they could put the pieces together before the show’s heroes did. That meant the “Bones” crew had to take their time and put a good deal of effort into fleshing out the MySpace pages with details lifted directly from the series. As first A.D. Kent Genzlinger put it:
“This episode was very complicated because there was tons and tons of stuff that tied into the MySpace pages for the characters. So we were on the internet as well as in the show. We had a lot of props to take photos of to give to video playback to put on the MySpace pages.”
At first glance, all that extra effort might’ve seemed for naught; “The Glowing Bones in the Old Stone House” was nowhere near to being the most-viewed episode of “Bones.” It did, however, affirm that the series’ creators would go above and beyond the usual cheap marketing gimmicks to make things more engaging for those watching at home. The show’s audience was fiercely loyal in return, with eight to 10 million people consistently tuning in for “Bones” on a weekly basis for many seasons after the episode aired. There’s a reason why in this, the year of our lord that is 2024 and an era in which the average teenager couldn’t even tell you what a MySpace is, we’re still talking about the crime-solving misadventures of the woman they call Bones.
