This evening's episode of Bones on Sky was greeted with slightly more than the usual level of anticipation in our household because of the presence on the show of Stephen Fry. Naturally, Stephen didn't disappoint, and proved that while, as he has recently argued, for some people a British accent may substitute for acting skill, in his case he needn't berate himself for relying on a stiff upper lip instead of emoting. His acting style was well suited to Bones' combination of character driven dialogue and light humour, and gave the character the layers behind the surface of jokey tea-drinking Britishness that were needed.
This is what US dramas do well; in the series story arc they need to take a character somewhere (in this case, David Boreanaz's character needed to have his self confidence knocked); to do this, the character will need to come to certain realisations; to allow the character to do that, the writers will create often quirky subplots and intriguing guest characters that allow that to happen. Lost's flashback devices are perhaps this idea taken to extreme. British TV really doesn't get this. To take the character somewhere, take them out of the main plotline for a bit, adjust them, then put them back. And if you're going to, say, send your main character to see a psychiatrist for a few episodes to do so, why not make it a slightly eccentric British psychiatrist and get Stephen Fry in to play him?
I fear that the coincidence of Stephen Fry and David Boreanaz on a screen together may prove too much for my poor wife, already weakened as she is with a vicious sore throat. There are two more weeks of guest appearances yet to come, so we'll see how she fares.
Stephen's appearance on the show did prompt me to do a little Googling, however, because I wanted to see if I could figure out how he came to be on Bones in the first place. Obviously, David Boreanaz has played opposite a couple of different 'stuck-up Brits' before in his Joss Whedon days, so the idea of giving him a cut glass accent to bounce off may have seemed pretty obvious. But why Fry? How would he even have come to the attention of the producers? Surely the 'safe' thing to do would have been to call up Tony Head... The only apparent connection that came to mind was that Stephen contributed the voice of the book to the Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy film, in which Zooey Deschanel blayed Trillian, and Zooey's sister Emily is the star of Bones... surely too tenuous a connection to lead to a part in Bones so clearly written with him in mind...
Of course, I hadn't realised (as they air on different channels over here) that Bones and Hugh Laurie's House are both Fox shows. Stephen visits Hugh on set at House, they try to arrange a guest spot, schedules don't work out, but they are able to sneak him into the show next door. Hart Hanson, Bones' lead writer, apparently relished writing for Stephen:
You mentioned you loved writing for Stephen Fry? When did this happen?
Hart: On 'Bones'. Booth does something he shouldn't have done and the FBI has him evaluated by an in-house shrink ... it's Stephen Fry. He's a very large presence, a brilliant scholar, a great novelist, and he's writing Peter Jackson's next film. Tell me that ain't daunting!
via uninflected images juxtaposed
Wait a minute... writing Peter Jackson's next film? really?
Apparently, yes:
"It's a new film on the subject of the dam buster raid in 1943, with Barnes Wallis developing his famous bouncing bomb, the training of the squadron, and the raid itself...
...I'm writing a script for Peter in New Zealand, and for David Frost who's an executive producer. I loved the original, so this is great for me."
from Filmstalker
Stephen Fry is writing a remake of The Dam Busters. Peter Jackson producing. Oh my. I might have to go and have a lie down now...