Scripted TV, from the perspective of those making it anyway, is all about making fiction seem like reality. Even in the case of something based on a true story, the elements that are being brought together to tell that story are not “real” in every sense of the word. It’s merely about making it feel real to the audience. That’s not always easy, and the fan-favorite TV series “Bones” was no exception. That’s something Emily Deschanel learned while filming one of the most beloved episodes of the long-running show.
In “Bones: The Official Companion,” quite a bit of background information is shared on the “Bones” season 2 episode “Aliens in a Spaceship,” arguably the show’s best episode. The episode sees Booth and Brennan on the trail of a notorious killer known as the Gravedigger who kidnaps and buries his victims alive while seeking ransoms. During the investigation, Brennan and Hodgins become the killer’s latest victims and are forced to try to solve their own kidnapping from an underground grave.
Filming the “underground” scenes, in which Brennan and Hodgins are trapped in a buried car, was challenging for both the actors and the crew. As first assistant director Kent Genzlinger explained:
“We used what’s called a ‘buck.’ Essentially, it’s a car that’s been cut into pieces. We took a standard vehicle and cut it in half in the middle. Then we had the front of the car with the two front seats that you can shoot from behind, looking out. And we had the rear of the car to look through to the backseat and the back window. We also had a second car where we cut the side doors out, so you could do front to back shots from the sides. So for this episode we had three bucks set on stage ten.”
Emily Deschanel had to suspend her disbelief for Aliens in a Spaceship
“Bones” regularly found ways to make things feel real for the actors. The episode “The Boy in the Shroud” had them contending with real bugs and turkey carcasses, for one particularly gross example. But there is no safe way to trap actors underground and film the scenes while making it feel all that real. As a result, Deschanel had to stretch the limits of her imagination to make the episode’s drama play out convincingly. Here’s what she had to say about it:
“The car wasn’t as contained as it seemed. A lot of the challenge in doing that episode was really believing that you were in that car all alone. I knew that in reality I could open that door and I’d be fine – I’d be in a soundstage. You have to use your imagination to understand the feeling of being trapped. Then you have to think, what do you do when you’re trapped? And what does a character like Brennan do? You would try to get yourself out of there, and use your skills to do that. She’s going to do everything she can and use her mind to figure out how to get them out of there.”
This is just part of an actor’s job, particularly in the modern era. Christian Bale didn’t enjoy all of the green screen used in “Thor: Love and Thunder” particularly because it makes the process monotonous. Be that as it may, it’s an occupational hazard when one is telling fictional stories for a living. Given how this episode turned out, it seems fair to say that Deschanel did an admirable job under difficult circumstances.
“Bones” is currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
