The One Booth And Brennan Line Bones Wouldn't Cross

"Bones" was never a show that held back when it came to depicting bodies in various states of decay. This was a series that somehow managed to balance a lighthearted banter between its two series leads, FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanez) and forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel), with some of the most horrific cadavers you ever saw on network TV.

There were bodies that upset actors, such as the time Eric Millegan got grossed out, and even a dead body that was so gruesome it went too far for one "Bones" producer in particular. In other words, this was a show that did not feel the need to censor its depiction of death. But that doesn't mean the writers weren't compelled to take a more modest approach to other aspects of the crime procedural.

Take that relationship between Bones and Booth, for example. It took the writers six full seasons to actually bring the characters together, and even then fans had to learn that the pair had consummated their relationship off-screen. So, why on a show that gave us all the gory crime scene details it could did the writers feel the need to be so reserved when it came to its central characters' love story?

Asked about the timing of having Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan getting together, "Bones" creator Hart Hanson told TV Insider in 2017 that it was ultimately prompted by Emily Deschanel getting pregnant in real life. "We knew [Bones and Booth] would sleep together after Vincent Nigel-Murray's death to take comfort," he explained, "and we knew then we'd have to contend with that. That was when Emily whispered to me she was pregnant [in real-life] and we went with that."

Hanson admitted to putting off Bones and Booth sleeping together for "as long as we could." But even after the pair got together, the show creator and his writers still maintained a line that they never crossed. At the end of season 6, audiences learned that Bones and Booth had slept together, leading to the former's pregnancy, but they'd never actually been given the big sex scene everyone had been waiting for. Speaking to TVLine following the season 6 finale back in 2011, executive producer Stephen Nathan ruled out any kind of on-screen sexual encounter between the series leads, saying, "No, there are many websites that you can see [sex scenes]; you don't need to see that on Fox. That's health class in junior high." Ok, but "Bones" scenes featuring decomposed bodies in bathtubs of gross goo is something we did need to see?

While it might sound a bit silly to keep Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan's sex life off-camera for all 12 seasons of "Bones," it seems there was some kind of logic propelling that particular decision. When season 7 debuted, Booth and Brennan had been together for a few months and were expecting their child, and as Stephen Nathan went on to tell TVLine:

"This is a couple six months down the line, so you're seeing them in a way that allows them to still disagree with each other and not be so lovey-dovey that it's like, 'Eh, I don't need to see that.' They're not the couple you go on a date with that you never want to see again because they're making out at dinner. We don't want to do that."

It seems part of the reason for keeping the pair's sex life off-camera was tied into this effort to maintain their dynamic as the show moved forward. The writers had stretched a will-they-won't-they romance across six seasons, and were somewhat pressured into finally bringing the pair together due to fan expectations and Emily Deschanel's real-life pregnancy. But they obviously didn't want their show to change too dramatically in terms of the dynamics they'd established across six seasons, and perhaps felt that showing Bones and Booth in their most intimate moments might be too much of a change for some viewers. 

Still that didn't stop the writers depicting a fantasy sex scene between the pair in the season 4 episode "The End in the Beginning," wherein Booth dreams about he and Brennan sleeping together. Other than that, however, fans never got the sex scene they ended up waiting 12 seasons for. Then again, that "Bones" reboot could very much still happen, so you never know...