Stewie Bones up for TV crossover
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/05/2009 (6319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OMG! Seriously?
In a dazzling, audacious stunt that hasn’t been tried on TV since, well, the last time Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was rerun in the wee hours of the morning, an animated character is about to cross over to a live-action show.
Baby Stewie, the foul-tempered, homicidal baby from Family Guy, appears on tonight’s episode of the police procedural Bones (Fox, 7 p.m.). Suddenly, Izzie’s ghostly hallucinations in Grey’s Anatomy and Dr. House’s spectral visitations by the dead Amber in House don’t look so out-there.
David Boreanaz’s alter ego, Booth, suffers the hallucination after his partner-in-crime-solving Brennan (Emily Deschanel) asks him to father her child, which would be a gut-check moment for just about anyone. It takes the concept of workplace romance to a whole new level, and of course it sends Booth spinning into a world of his subconscious making.
Stewie’s appearance is tied to a sperm donor clinic — the mind boggles — in what’s being billed as a crossover episode you have to see to believe.
Certainly, tonight’s Bones/Family Guy experiment makes previous TV crossovers — Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, etc. — look positively lame by comparison.
The idea was the brainchild of Bones‘ Canadian creator and showrunner Hart Hanson. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, no stranger to pushing TV’s envelope, was receptive to the idea. That’s important because, while Stewie isn’t played by a real actor — he’s an animated character, after all — MacFarlane provides his voice, with its snobby, Brit-twit upper-class overtones.
Conventional TV is often accused of being plodding and predictable, a label some have used to describe the procedure-heavy Bones.
There are always casting stunts and high-profile guest appearances this time of year, as most series prepare to wrap up their seasons.
Nothing comes close to this, for sheer zaniness, though. The Fox network has certainly jumped into the spirit of fun and gamesmanship, as it put out an official press release earlier this year, complete with a statement from Stewie himself.
“Oh, have you seen it?” Stewie is quoted as saying. “Was I good? Because I heard they said I was amazing, and they want me to replace Emily.”
Relax, Bones fans. That will never happen — not even in a world where animated homicidal babies suddenly turn up in semi-serious police procedurals.
In the real world, where ratings count for everything, Bones has boosted Fox’s Thursday night numbers by 74 per cent over last year’s numbers at this time. No bones about it, Bones is on an upward curve.
— Canwest News Service
