Friday, May 15, 2009

Obsessions, mysteries and bones

I dislike mysteries. Did I say it loud enough? I DON'T LIKE MYSTERIES. Obviously this view is not represented by the library as a whole or even my other colleagues at the library: see here, here, and here. I can never figure out who did it and it always makes me feel like a less than knowledgable person. Also blood and guts and gore are not my thing. I have read a couple of mysteries that aren't blood and guts and I've got problems with them as well. Since these rely on personalities we have 20 people vying for the right to have a cameo in each book (I'm talking to you Qwilleran's friends [and mustache]!).

This hatred also extends to TV shows. No CSI for me (in any incarnation). No police procedurals. No psychic detectives (although I did flirt with Pushing Daisies which featured a detective). You can see the depths of this. What you probably can't see is how I came across my current obsession, Bones.

That is right. How can a mystery hating, gore abhorring gal like me start obsessively watching a gore obsessed, mystery entrenched show? It all has to do with this other television series that started up this year about a mystery writer who hangs out with the police and helps them solve crimes. I loved the main actor in Serenity and Firefly, and thought for sure I would like him in this. So I DVRed it. And I didn't.
Was it him or the show or me? I set to find out, catching an episode of Bones to compare it to. And instantly fell in love with it. Its a procedural with a lively FBI agent and a repressed logical forensic anthropologist with every single person in the cast of characters interesting.
While the television show's main character has the same name as the Dr. Temperance Brennan in Kathy Reich's Bones series, the character on the show is loosely based on the author's life. And since the library had the first three seasons for me to quickly catch up on the show I was able to thoroughly enjoy last nights season finale. And I will watch it when it comes back on tv in the fall.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bravo MJ...another entertaining piece. You should be a author not a librarian. Being surrounded by books and not writing them...tisk...tisk.