Those Bitches Tried to Cheat Me

"House"
"Bones"
Fox via DVR

What the hell, Fox? What the hell! First, Kris Allen over Adam Lambert -- well, more about that later. But for now, let me say simply that I disagree. But also this thing with not one but two of your top-rated dramas teasing long-awaited consummations in or around their season finales and then BOTH of them revealing that the sex acts in questions were really lame "Newhart"-like fakeouts. Shenanigans!

First, "House." It was a weird season that spun around like a top from one group of supporting characters to another. Wilson left for a bit and they brought Michael Weston in as a private eye who was House's replacement sidekick, sort of. They should bring Weston back. While this was going on Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) was getting way more screen time than Taub (Peter Jacobsen) and Kutner (Kal Penn). Much of this involved the development of a relationship between Thirteen and Foreman, which seemed distracting and sensationalistic at the first. As the season went on Wilson came back (in an uproarious road episode) and Taub began to emerge as a worthy foil for House. Thirteen and Foreman backed off a bit, and the new major concern became Cuddy's burning desire for motherhood. Wandering around in the abyss, grabbing a scene apiece an episode, Cameron and Chase consoled themselves with the knowledge that they were far and away the two best-looking people at the hospital.

Before ever having much of a chance to make an impression as a living character, Kal Penn's Kutner left the show suddenly, in the first act of an episode discovered as a suicide. This followed fake-outs for both Taub (might take a better job) and Thirteen (could die at any moment). This definitely helped the series regain some of the momentum it had lost doodling around with the new supporting cast dynamic. "House" hardly neglects its title character; Hugh Laurie gets to pillage, burn, and salt scenery like five times an hour. But it did seem as if he was in a bit of a holding pattern -- having not processed, despite Wilson's prompting, his role in the Season 4 death of Amber (Anne Dudek). Amber's ghost randomly showed up to haunt House as this season began to race to the finish; Dudek's return had some nice visual punchlines but wasn't entirely necessary. (They did manage to shoot one insert for the big reveal in the finale before Kal Penn left, hooray!)

So... all of this bricklaying for serious dramatic movement forward feels wasted now, because for all of its narrative sleight-of-hand (see: one where he got shot, bus crash one, one where he tells the med school class the story of his leg and two others) "House" had never before stooped to the "it was all a dream," whoopee cushion mislead to this degree. In this case it wasn't a dream precisely but rather a drug-induced hallucination. Still, not fair, and the writers will have a lot of work to do next season to pay back this decision. Spoiler alert: For one whole week, we were allowed to believe House and Cuddy had relations carnal. One whole week and 9/10 of an episode! But no, drug-induced hallucination. Super lame. And one stupid pre-wedding jitters subplot and a short wedding montage aren't nearly enough Cameron and Chase, still. Next season better be, like, all patients who die unless enough hot people are around.

I'm not quite as mad at "Bones," even though they used a way lamer cliché still -- the coma fantasy! At least Hart Hanson, the procedural's creator and writer of the Season 4 finale, didn't let his audience believe for a whole week that his hero and heroine had finally worked their interpersonal issues out to their logical conclusion. (Well, sort of. The teaser for this episode shown at the end of the one the week before suggested than Booth and Brennan were going to sleep together, for reals. But it wasn't for reals, it was a coma fantasy.) Instead, he had fun using his whole expanded cast (with all the different recurring lab assistants) in radically different roles as Booth dreamt about a reality where he and Brennan were married club owners. As a mystery, it was subpar for the show's standards, because the characters had to solve it from nonexpert roles. And the sets and some of the acting suggested a "Saved by the Bell" dream sequence. That's OK, it's a light, fun show. I maybe wouldn't have done it as a finale, and I wouldn't have pumped it up (heh heh) as The One Where They Do It.

What both finales had in common, besides being massively disappointing, is that they both upped the ante despite not coming through all the way (heh heh heh). On "House," House's delusion and his public disclosure of it have forced him into rehab -- which won't be complete until he and Cuddy have maturely addressed the tensions that led to this conflagration in the first place. As for "Bones," Booth and Brennan have been inching ever forward towards couplehood for some time now, with the episode just a week before addressing the possibility of their becoming parents together. And Booth's brush with death is the likely sort of precipitating event that will lead him to explore further the feelings he discussed in that one with Stewie Griffin. Yes, exactly.

"Bones" has always been -- or nearly almost always -- a light, vaguely goofy show, where the grotesque nature of the crimes investigated contrasts with the good humor of the two leads and the evolving supporting cast (strengthened this season with a full year of John Francis Daley and those interns). "House" is more serious, more grown-up. It's also funnier, but that's probably in no small part because it's more serious and grown-up. But I forgive "Bones" for a silly cheat, particularly since they made it clear it wasn't real right out at the front of the episode and they went on to feature both Mötley Crüe and Daley's precious indie rock band. I'm genuinely mad at the "House" writers, who owed us a better device for such a major event in their fascinating subject's life. Too bad Kal Penn was too busy saving the world.