'Bones' mini-season ordered by Fox
Published Sep 16 2011, 13:16 BST | By Morgan Jeffery
© Fox
Series star Emily Deschanel (Brennan) confirmed in March that she is expecting a child with husband David Hornsby.
As a result, the show's 13-part seventh season was originally intended to air in two parts, with six episodes airing from November 3 and seven more planned for broadcast in the spring.
New spinoff series The Finder - starring Geoff Stults and Michael Clarke Duncan - was planned to fill the winter gap.
However, executive producer Stephen Nathan has now confirmed to TV Line that four extra Bones episodes have been ordered, though it is currently unclear when they will air.
"It's a very odd situation we're in," he said. "[Fox] has scheduled us for 13 episodes, but they want as many episodes as we can produce."
He continued: "We're constructing the season so that the finale is episode 13, and then there will ultimately be four more episodes that we can play with. [Fox] could run them on a different night, they could run them in the summer, or they could hold them for fall [2012]."
Nathan added that the four new episodes will be standalone and could function as a "mini-season".
"Because the show is centrally episodic, and we know what's happening with Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan, we can do four great episodes that are almost like a mini-season," he said.
"We can do a four-episode mini season after the 13-episode regular season. It's weird, and it's a challenge, but we'll do it."
Bones returns to Fox on Thursday, November 3 at 9/8c.
> Boy Meets World Ben Savage for Bones role
Watch a promo for the new season of Bones below:
Strange....will be interesting to see how this works. Maybe they'll make the 4-episode 'mini-season' consist of episodes that are set in seasons past, or prequel episodes or something. Or they should be a completely contained story that runs through them and should take place away from the Jeffersonian and maybe even not involve Brennan and Boothe. Altho I guess that'd defeat the whole purpose of getting as many episodes out of Emily Deschanel as possible....Frankly I think they should either just have the 13 episode season, or they should order the regular 22 episodes and just have some without Brennan. I mean sure it'd be a bit strange having 'Bones' without Bones, but it could also be quite cool to see how the rest of the gang get on without her..... Ramble over! :D
September 16th 2011 at 10:15pm
awesome show, could watch them from start to finish (although not finshed yet) without giving away spoilers the end of the last season was kind of out of character for brennan.
September 16th 2011 at 8:57pm
Ep 1: Bones.
Ep 2: Booth.
Ep 3: Hodge and Angela.
Ep 4: Cam & Sweets.
September 16th 2011 at 3:48pm