"He wasn't a goose. He was a man."

Tonight's "Bones" was actually recycled from last season, and here's my opinion: I want to see the original. It was called "Player Under Pressure," and it was originally going to run last April - right after the shootings at Virginia Tech. Of course, due to changes in storylines, facial hair and possibly regular haircuts, it had to be rejiggered to fit into Season 3.

My opinions on why I'm supremely disappointed about what's coming up on what I still contend is the "perfect show," despite its imperfections after the link, and a warning: possible spoilers follow.

Here is the original (April 2007) summary from tv.com:

All team members are working to identify the bones from a college athlete who suffered a lot of fractures. After the body is identified they talk to his sister and somebody who acted as a sort of an adviser for the deceased. Angela and Hodgins have an important talk. Zack is overwhelmed by having to reconstruct the crushed bones to form a skeleton.

The latter of the two plot points didn't happen, and were apparently replaced with what should have been an awkward situation between Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Cam (Tamara Taylor). Normally, I'd be a little freaked about my boss showing me a security video of me having sex. Angela seems to be A-OK. I know Angela's carefree and stuff, but honey...um...weird!

Obviously, the "important talk" was about Hodgins proposing to Angela (for the first time), which they've already resolved, so that was clearly in need of a fix. But what happened to Zack's storyline? Was the sex DVD awesome enough to overwhelm the minutes spent letting Eric Millegan finally do some acting this season? I don't know about that, but it points to the theory that made my heart hurt. (And it's ironic that the episode is, in fact, called "The Pain in the Heart.") I'll go into this more further down and continue with tonight's episode, for all three of you who might read this. Bottom line: there was an opening for a serious "King of the Lab" smackdown between the good Drs. Addy and Hodgins (TJ Thyne), and we were denied.

Anyway, this was an interesting story, and Booth (David Boreanaz) and Bones (Emily Deschanel) both made me laugh out loud. I love the fact that Booth is still hanging onto his macho, jockular youth and Bones very plainly tells him he's really no different than a caveman, what with his penchant for competition and practice battles. But she never does it to insult him, she's just stating anthropological fact based on her observations as a scientist. This is my favorite part about her character, and the other best time Bones ever drew conclusions like this was in "The Man in the Wall," when she was talking about how she loved the "tribal" nature of hip-hop music. Oh, silly white girl. I can so relate.

Other notes:

*As someone with a degree in Political Science from Hofstra University, as well as someone with a significant collection of tattoos (15), I was kind of insulted by this "not hot" "poli-sci tutor" who looked like she fell in flour and then sucked on a popsicle, then got freaky and tore her own hair out. Some of us wear blush and, I don't know, don't yank our own hair out.

*When I was in high school, I always thought it would be so macabre to discover a corpse behind the bleachers. They seemed dangerous, and kinda sick, but maybe this fascination came from getting mocked by jocks and being a big fan of "Scream."

*The girl who played the dead guy's girlfriend apparently went to the Renee Zellweger School of Acting, what with her blonde squintiness and whiny voice. I liked the fiancee of the other player/"Cutter" Cutler's daughter better. "I don't like you...I hate her."

*These boys and their meat. No, I'm not talking about Booth and his "Cocky" belt buckle. I'm talking about how Zack and Hodgins use meat products - actual pigs, Spam and now a turkey - to test how tissue reacts in certain situations. And this time, the turkey, like, popped. I've never seen that happen before. Fascinating.

*Heh, Booth said "Dippin' his wick."

*Come to think of it, Hodgins seemed to be as strangely unfazed by the discovery of his lunch hour supply closet tryst by his boss as his tryst-mate. What's with these people? Are they all really that close? Did the strike cause the producers and writers to have to gloss over a really wild, intimate night that they all had that would have explained why no one had any sort of look on their face upon knowing their boss saw them totally doing it? Am I just completely prude?

*Blending maggots+Cam's personal blender=Best ick face by Tamara Taylor ever. Millegan made a cute one during a body fluid discussion, but Tamara Taylor looked completely disgusted, confused and annoyed by the fact that her blender was labeled, damnit, and it still had fucking maggots in it. I like you now, Cam.

*On the subject of Virginia Tech, I suppose that a crime scene on a college campus would have seemed a bit wrong, especially two days after the shooting took place. Though the last scene was much more disturbing in the context of the shooting, when the person eventually revealed to be the criminal tried to turn a gun on himself. I was also thinking about the loss of the Washington Redskins' Sean Taylor, though that was obviously way after this episode was written. It was the right decision to pull it. Though I still think it was stupid to pull that "Buffy" episode after Columbine. It was snake demons! Come on!

Back to the speculation: I think I have some pretty good ideas about what could happen, and I'm preparing myself for it. And yes - I've become so attached to this show that I need to emotionally brace myself for something I've deduced from investigating online spoilers and putting Season 3 in perspective. Yeah, that's sarcasm. I will just say one thing: If Eric Millegan has decided to leave the show, or ended up being written off, then it was a real waste of a good character. I'll be really sad to not be able to watch this guy act, because I'm so curious about what else he's capable of. But if it means that he gets to find something where he does get to show his chops, all the better for him. But Zack Addy could have been a real fun character.