We’re delighted by the return of Emily Deschanel as forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan and David Boreanaz as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. We hope we won’t have to put up with more of the wholly unnecessary backstory and eschatology that was introduced toward the end of last season by writers who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Do we care that Brennan’s parents were really crooks, her menacing father is still alive, yada yada yada? What was wrong with dead bodies and repressed feelings? This show is so smart it doesn’t need any Hindu cycles. By the same token, who thought it was a neat idea to introduce a new head of forensics at the Jeffersonian (Tamara Taylor), and why must she automatically be so hostile? What so seethes inside even the best television writers that they can’t imagine an office where everybody doesn’t hate the boss?

Fox, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.

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• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Sep 18, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!