BONES: Stephen Nathan on Saying Goodbye to the Show (For Now)

As BONES’ tenth season comes to an end, characters could be making some major life-changing decisions.

Whether those changes come to fruition or not, the team will have to deal with a significant challenge in Thursday’s season finale: a case brings (the still-dead) Pelant back into the team’s life.

And while BONES will return for an 11th season this fall, its long-time showrunner, Stephen Nathan, is stepping down. (BONES writers Jonathan Collier and Michael Peterson will run season 11.)

When Nathan’s exit was announced, Fox shared that in the immediate future, he would be working on other projects, but he planned on returning “later” in season 11. Nathan — who has worked on the Fox drama since the first season — echoed that sentiment to me during a recent interview sharing, “It’s time to take a step back, get a little bit of perspective, do some other things, and then come back a little refreshed, hopefully.”

But with his (temporary) goodbye looming, I asked Nathan how he felt about leaving the series, for now, and what about the experience has meant the most to him/what he was most proud of. His answers are below, and speak (beautifully) to what the show has meant to him throughout the years. (And be sure to check back here after the BONES finale for a post-mortem with Nathan about what went down)…

It’s a very bittersweet experience; I could stay with the show forever. [Laughs] And I fully expect to come back in some form or another, [but] a full-on decade is a long time. It’s time to take a step back, get a little bit of perspective, do some other things, and then come back a little refreshed, hopefully.

And also, it’ll be great for the show to have some new blood. [They’ll] see things in a different way, which is always good. Jon and Michael are terrific. They’re going to do a spectacular job, I have no doubt.

But it’s difficult to leave, even temporarily, this group, which has been a close and loved family for ten years. It’s a bittersweet experience. There’s more I want to do, but I assume that’s always the case. That’s what it’s like for me [right now].

I’ll miss the actors. The crew. I’ll miss the characters…I’ve been there every episode. Before this, I don’t think I had been on a show longer than three years, which I always thought was my limit. But there was something kind of special about BONES — the show, and the collection of people who produced it, and then the life it had, and my connection to that life. It’s very, very rare, and very, very special.

I look back at the process, and the experience of the show. To me, the greatest thing was being able to be involved in the emotional life of these characters and see them grow and change as I was hopefully growing and definitely changing. [Laughs] Because the characters become a reflection of you, in a way, as you’re writing the show. And you are changed by the characters. It’s a real symbiotic experience.

It is true, when you see them in a particular situation and you write through that, you’re learning stuff about yourself. If you explore those things honestly, there’s a certain honesty that’s transmitted to the audience, that’s shared with the audience. That’s the most gratifying. Those scenes that, personally, I’ve been able to write, that hopefully touch people. That either make them laugh or show a certain absurdity to life. Or that show a sweetness or difficulty in life. Those scenes were always the most satisfying to me.

And also, there were some times we got to do political episodes. I don’t mean government[-related], but episodes that touched on issues that were very important to us. And hopefully we could do them in a way that allowed people to see many sides of an issue.

[On] BONES…the black and white issues are never interesting. And BONES is a very, very gray show. We didn’t have, on a weekly basis, a bad guy and a good guy. We always had people who were caught in terrible situations where they made bad choices. And we would frequently feel terrible for a killer, or rejoice over someone being killed. It was unpredictable in that way. Because I think that’s what life is. We tried to reflect that. And when that worked? That was the most satisfying.

Whether it’s making someone laugh or someone cry or make them see the world in a way they had never seen it before: that’s all anybody can ask for in this business.

–

BONES’ season finale airs tonight at 8 PM on Fox.

Related:

BONES Post-Mortem: Michaela Conlin on Angela’s Real Name, the Emotional Brennan-Angela Scene
BONES: Michaela Conlin Teases Angela’s Decision in ‘The Life in the Light’
BONES Season 10 Finale Photos: ‘The End in the End’
BONES Renewed: Fox Orders Season 11 with New Showrunners

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