not actually three separate posts, i am making ONE point about all of them!

[cimorene]

In the season finale of Bones this year, the season-long arc of the cannibalistic serial killer is finished up when we find out that the bad guy - the serial killer's "apprentice" and inside help - is Zack. Zack is a series regular from the season one pilot. He's Bones's own "apprentice" in a way - her assistant, formerly her doctoral student. I've been getting behind-the-scenes information about Bones from the fan community 206bones, and the following pieces of behind-the-scenes info are also, I think, relevant:

• The serial killer arc was finished up in a rush because they decided they needed to do it this season, even though it was much shorter than expected due to the writer's strike. Creator Hart Hanson had promised the viewers that the serial killer plot would be resolved and wanted to keep his promise, even though there wasn't really a lot of maneuvering room left to develop it when the strike ended.


• The cast change wasn't done because the actor wanted to leave - he was fired on somewhat short notice. During filming of episode 311 (out of 15), the creator/producer (Hart Hanson) called him (Eric Millegan, the actor) and requested a meeting. Millegan called him back out of consuming curiosity and asked if his character would be back in season 4 and HH said no.


• The rest of the cast were unhappy about it. TJ Thyne (Hodgins) told Millegan he "was not ok with" the change; Michaela Conlin and Tamara Taylor (Angela and Cam) reportedly cried a lot during filming of the finale; David Boreanaz told an E! reporter that he was "very surprised" at the decision to make Zack a killer.

Asked to explain his character's behaviour, Millegan couldn't because he didn't understand it, although he was polite and said that he simply didn't question the writers because he never had. Nobody could explain his behaviour adequately, however. He's been characterised as a genius of exceptional intelligence, an extremely analytical and logic-oriented mind. The writing for him has changed over time to be slightly more cartoonishly exaggerated. Yeah, he was probably emotionally affected by his experience and failure to "integrate" in Iraq, and he's poorly socialised and affectively impaired, and probably has some other things wrong with him, but we've seen no evidence that he's the sort of weak personality to be easily and almost instantaneously swayed, within days of meeting a complete stranger, to accept COMPLETELY BOGUS LOGIC that a pre-schooler could see through simply because of the force of their personality - and to agree on that basis to become a cannibalistic serial killer when he (1) works in law enforcement and (2) has no cannibalistic impulses of his own. But the finale revealed that for three months he's been helping the cannibalistic serial killer and has even stabbed one of his victims to death, all because he was swayed by the following logic: 1) secret societies exist; 2) these societies have an adverse effect on human society; 3) this effect can be ameliorated by attacking and killing (AND EATING) a few individual members of these societies. He affirms this to Bones, and it's never addressed that, you know, that DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL.

Now, I can't think of any other crime shows I've ever watched that haven't done this - that is, gotten rid of a regular actor - and done it well. There was nothing about Bones's handling of the situation that went well, although perhaps with more forethought and more episodes, they could have made what seems like an outlandishly out of character choice work. A better jumping-off point, when writing a character out (or at any other time), however, is to make characterisation the veto vote. Consider characterisation first!

Criminal Minds has lost two regulars in three seasons, both to burnout from the stressful job. Elle snapped, took the law into her own hands and shot a bad guy who might have slipped through the cracks and richly deserved it. Gideon lost someone close to him, retired and went off the map. These choices were sad but they were both totally, flawlessly believable, if not flawlessy presented in every respect. CSI just recently wrote out Sarah Sidle, more problematically since they had only recently consummated her slowly-built-up romantic relationship with another regular, Gil Grissom. But Sarah was a nuanced character, an ex alcoholic with a number of emotional vulnerabilities and weak spots, and her burnout wasn't unbelievable or unexpected either. The way she skipped town completely and broke Grissom's heart felt unnecessarily cruel, abrupt and rather surprising, but a strong gesture like that, a drastic decision, wasn't unbelievable. It fit in with her patterns of behaviour.

And coincidentally, CSI has just written out another regular - Warrick. He's been with us from the beginning and is a highly developed and much-liked character, too. Warrick's past wasn't flawless, and the mess he was in in the season finale stemmed from a bit of vigilante behaviour, going after a mob boss on his own buck after forbidden to investigate him. A P.I. Warrick had hired turned up dead, and Warrick was lured into a dangerous situation and framed. The evidence looked damning, and his own amnesia and outbursts of violence during the episode were sympathetic but alarming enough to create some doubt. It turned out he'd been framed, it was proved and charges were dropped, but he received a much-deserved punishment - before the higher-up behind the frame job caught him alone in the parking lot and shot him. There was drama and doubt in this episode, there were moral shades of grey in with the black and white and tons of suspense, but the episode didn't depend for its big flashes of shock and surprise on out of character behaviour from the characters. On the contrary, everyone acted exactly according to character - yet it was still possible for them to keep the viewers off balance, engage their emotions and short-circuit expectations. That was a sterling example of it should be done.

While meanwhile, Bones pretty definitively jumped the shark. That was thoughtless decision-making and some seriously flawed writing there, apparently all in pursuit of attention-getting shocking shenanigans. Basically, it was cheap, and insulting to the viewers.