The WB's 'Supernatural': A Ghostly, Ghastly Trend

Naturally the lads help close the book on the woman in white and her homicidal hitchhiking. Now Kripke needs an excuse for Sam to stay with Dean and continue their nomadic brotherly misadventures. Dean apparently can't get Sam to commit to that just on the basis of locating their father, so Kripke throws a big fireball into his life that virtually forces him to reenlist. It's a pity that this involves removing Jessica, the only truly attractive character in the group. A Smurf T-shirt never looked better than it did on her.

"Supernatural" definitely gets the job done, but it's highly debatable that it's a job worth doing.

'Bones'

We can safely assume that, given the great success CBS has had with its collection of "CSI" crime dramas, executives at other networks have been wondering aloud, "Why don't we have a CSI show, too?" Now, Fox does: "Bones," a dizzy and grisly bummer set in Washington, premiering tonight at 8 on Channel 5.

As the title suggests, the principal crime solvers on this show confine themselves primarily to the skeletal remains of victims, not their severed ears or toes. The heroine, unlikely in every detail including her name, Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), goes about reassembling corpses and then divining how they got to be that way. It's precise, tedious work and so is watching this show.

Deschanel is a bland transparency in the lead role, and Temperance has been intemperately conceived as among the most super of the season's army of superwomen. It's not enough that she is the world's leading forensic anthropologist (and how many of those are there, really?), she also has to be a best-selling crime novelist, a crack shot with any kind of gun and a bullying master, or mistress, of martial arts. There's nothing she can't do except be believable.

She teams up with an old-fashioned, earthy FBI guy played by David Boreanaz, alternately leaden and wooden, and sexual sparks start to fly almost at once. Of course, there are other sparks, since the drama depends on special effects in the way the "CSI" shows do. One that's genuinely nifty is a machine that makes revolving, golden-hued holograms representing the dead people, as indicated by those skeletal remains.

The first featured corpse is a pregnant Senate intern who all too obviously was murdered by the senator she worked for. When he first appears, he practically sneers out his guilt and all but asks, "Whaddayou gonna do about it?" Here's what she's gonna do about it: When the senator tosses a wad of chewed gum into an ashtray, Temperance dives for it, hoping to obtain the senator's DNA. She absconds with the goo while the senator's aide shouts, "You'll need a warrant for that!"

Eight o'clock seems too early for a show featuring long, loving shots of desiccated corpses, but network TV doesn't abide by many genteel rules or good manners anymore. Even adults may feel the director is way too generous with views of rotting remains. And later we are treated to a holographic reproduction of a man bashing the poor woman's skull with a sledgehammer as she lies on the ground.

As often happens with shows set in Washington, this one commits a couple of geographical howlers (though they might be repaired by air time). We see a plane landing in an early shot captioned "Dulles International Airport," but this Dulles International Airport has a lovely close-up view of the Capitol dome. Meanwhile, the Senate intern must have been very, very important, because in closing shots it looks as though she has been buried on the Mall.

Where, one wonders, are the heads of state from around the world who would likely attend such an auspicious affair? "Bones" itself is definitely not an auspicious affair -- nor even an enjoyably preposterous one.

Bones (one hour) airs tonight at 8 on Channel 5.

Supernatural (one hour) airs tonight at 9 on Channel 50.