TV & Beyond on 2025-06-04 13:00:00

“Stargate SG-1” was cancelled by the Sci-Fi channel in 2007, “Bones” had been on the air for two years. That show’s creator, Hart Hanson, had worked on “SG-1” back when it was first getting started and it seems he took several lessons from his time on the cult classic sci-fi series.

After Roland Emmerich’s “Stargate” became a box office hit in 1994, “SG-1” was created to continue the story of the titular crew, and Hanson penned one episode for the first season back in 1997, before departing the show altogether. As the series drew to a close, Hanson was overseeing a much different show in “Bones,” which began airing in 2005. The offbeat procedural paired the intellectual, socially awkward Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) with the fully grown jock that was FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz). Through an incongruous mix of humor and horror alongside an effortless chemistry between the two series leads, “Bones” set itself apart from other shows in the genre, and remained popular for its entire 12-season run.

While “Bones” seems like it couldn’t be more removed from the fantastical intergalactic adventures of “SG-1,” Hanson took quite a bit from his brief experience on the sci-fi series and employed it on his massively popular Fox show.

The plot-focused Stargate SG-1 helped Hart Hanson on Bones

Richard Dean Anderson's Jack O Neill, Amanda Carter's Samantha Tapping, and Christopher Judge's Teal'c stand in front of the portal in Stargate SG-1

MGM Television

Prior to creating “Bones,” Hart Hanson wrote on multiple Canadian series, having moved to the country as a child and growing up north of the border. Towards the end of the ’90s he found himself contributing to two sci-fi series based in Canada in the form of “The Outer Limits” and “Stargate SG-1,” the latter of which was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, causing some big location scouting problems for the VFX supervisor on “SG-1.”

Hanson wrote on “The Outer Limits” in 1997, the same year he joined the “SG-1” writing staff, where he’d stay until 1999. During that time he wrote one episode for the first season, entitled “The Nox,” excerpts of which appear in the episodes “Politics” and “Out of Mind.” That would be the only episode credited entirely to Hanson, but it seems that brief experience had a lasting effect on the writer.

Speaking to UGO back in 2005, Hanson was asked about his science fiction television experience, with the writer naming “Outer Limits,” “Stargate SG-1,” and “Poltergeist” as three of the big sci-fi shows to which he contributed. Evidently, he found it all worthwhile and specifically discovered that his experience on those shows played directly into “Bones.” “Those experiences were very good for me because they were very plot heavy,” he said. There’s no doubt “SG-1” had a lot of plot to wrangle. Each week the crew would visit a new alien world and embark on a new adventure, requiring the writers to introduce entire new species and worlds while referencing an ever-expanding lore, which clearly helped Hanson with “Bones” — a show that introduced entirely new murder mysteries with each episode (even while the show also had some “nightmare” overarching storylines to include). But it wasn’t just navigating convoluted plot lines that Hanson transferred from “SG-1.”

Stargate SG-1’s special effects influenced Bones

The Bones cast gather round a holographic projection in Bones

20th Television

With its sci-fi storylines “Stargate SG-1” used extensive special effects, from CGI shots to prosthetics (one “SG-1” actor played nine different characters on the show thanks to the talented makeup team). Similarly, “Bones” was full of effects shots, most of them practical as the series pulled no punches when it came to showcasing some of the most alarmingly detailed corpses you’re ever likely to have seen on network TV. At one point, the “Bones” crew used practical effects to make a dead body glow, and the VFX team would frequently create fake bodies that went too far for even the producers.

Even though certain of these bodies took things a little too far, Hart Hanson clearly valued the VFX side of “Bones,” which also made use of CGI in scenes involving the “Angelator,” a holographic projector used at the fictional Jeffersonian Institute and invented by Michaela Conlin’s Angela Montenegro. It seems Hanson credits his understanding of special effects to his time on shows like “SG-1.” During his UGO interview, the “Bones” creator said:

“The other thing that was good about writing on those shows were that you had some sense of how special effects were used. On ‘Bones,’ between the dead bodies and then the special effects with the holographic display, it gave me some sense of what could and could not be done. Although I immediately had to be reeducated when we were picked up because things change monthly.”

Clearly, then, we’d have a very different “Bones” were it not for “Stargate SG-1.”

TV & Beyond on 2025-06-04 13:00:00

The plot-focused Stargate SG-1 helped Hart Hanson on Bones

Stargate SG-1’s special effects influenced Bones

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