Bones may have been a well-oiled machine by the time it finished its final season, but it wasn’t always such meticulous and organized lab work. The first season of the long-running sciency detective show (which is streamable with a Hulu subscription) was apparently a mess behind the scenes thanks to a spiraling lead actress, frustrated crew members and a network that was losing confidence. It all worked out in the end, of course, but lead Emily Deschanel just got candid about how bad things got.
The reveal came during a conversation with popular actor David Duchovny on his podcast, Fail Better. Duchovny himself directed an episode of Bones and has known Deschanel and her family for years, as her dad worked on Twin Peaks. He’s also friends with Bones creator Hart Hanson; so, he was familiar with a bit of the problems during the first season and asked Deschanel about it.
working 14 to 16 hours a day with limited time to memorize dialogue, and she apparently would regularly joke about going home to “cry in a bathtub every night.”
working with co-star David Boreanaz on weekends to get more in sync.
Bones ultimately ran for twelve seasons and is, by pretty much any definition, one of the more popular procedurals of the last few decades. Fans still cannot get enough of the chemistry between Deschanel’s scientist Dr. Temperance Brennan and Boreanaz’s Special Agent Seeley Booth, which pushed the show in a different direction than was planned. In retrospect, she was quietly clearly the right person for the role. It just took a few panic attacks and a lot of long nights to get there.