By Jamie Ruby

The hit series Bones returns to Fox with all new episodes, starting tonight with "The Source in the Sludge." The episode focuses on the murder of a CIA informant, which leads to the return of CIA Agent Danny Beck (guest star Freddie Prinze Jr.), who must work with Booth (David Boreanaz), Brennan (Emily Deschanel), and the team to solve the case. Creator and executive producer Hart Hanson and executive producer Stephen Nathan talked to the digital media about the series and what fans can expect moving forward.

The two talked to SciFi Vision about how much Bones has changed from how they first conceived it. Hanson said, "I knew when I wrote the pilot what the ending to Bones should be. It's something I have to do to know what a series is...It's just something I have to aim at.

"So far, so good. We did not in any way expect to get this amount of time. So we strung out how long Booth and Brennan would be together for as long as we could. We're very pleased with the number of stories that are generated by them being together. But every single season right from the get-go we have been ready, if it looked like it, to end our series. And Stephen and I were just talking about this the other day, I think, that if Season 10 is our final season then at least the macro version of what I had in mind, we'll be able to use. If we go past Season 10, the series will need a bit of an invention. We can't tread water, a reinvention...We know where it's going unless it goes past Season 10. Then we have to rethink where it's going."

Nathan added, "I think throughout these nine years, it's always the best laid plans. We have an idea of where we want it to go, but since the finish line keeps moving all we can really do is continue to examine the characters and follow them where they lead. And so far they've surprised us often, and it's changed the course of the show. But we do know where it's going. We ultimately know where it's going. I mean it's not the Dharma initiative [from LOST]."

Something that a lot of fans of the series want to see is how Booth and Caroline first met, and they talked to the site about the possibility of exploring that. Nathan said, "We have been toying with the idea for quite a while of visiting the past with Booth and Brennan and with the other characters. We did have something in the works, but we couldn't really do it because you can't do too many weird ones in one season. But next season, especially if it's the last season, I think we can do a couple."

Hanson added, "And we have to be careful for our very loyal fans, which many of them are; Caroline first appeared as the federal prosecutor in New Orleans. And we just loved her so much that we dragged her up to D.C. So we're going to have to see how well they knew each other there, if they did. Well, I can't remember. So we'll have to take a look at that."

Nathan also teased SciFi Vision a bit with what fans can expect in the season finale. "It will redefine Booth's relationship with his crime-fighting. The heroes and villains will be reversed, and they will not be operating the way they have for the past nine years. Now how long that will sustain is something that will be answered the beginning of Season 10, but really all bets are off at the end of Season 9."

Hanson also talked to the site about his thoughts of what might be in the 200th episode of the series, which will air next season. "We've been talking about stuff, but we haven't landed on anything yet...We have a few ideas. We'd love to do something special. Like the 100th episode, it would be great to do something that was really, really aimed at our very loyal, crazily noisy, and invested fans. Another love letter to them, but we have to figure out what it is. We have a few ideas."

FOX Conference Call
Bones
Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan

March 7, 2014
2:00 p.m. ET

QUESTION: What’s coming up with the Ghost Killer? Is that going to be part of the season finale?

STEPHEN NATHAN: It will be tangentially a part of the season finale. We’ll be revisiting the Ghost Killer in Episode 20. And we will find that the Ghost Killer is just the tip of an iceberg.

HART HANSON: You’re being so forthcoming.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I know I am. And we’re going to have an actual iceberg on the show, and those are big. We’re celebrating the tenth season with using a real iceberg. But it is going to lead us into a big conspiracy that appears as if it goes back to the F.B.I. So the Ghost Killer—it’s no secret that Hart and I are not madly in love with serial killers, so it’s a way for us to do a continuing story that doesn’t revolve around one murderer. It takes us down the rabbit hole in a way that’s a little more complicated and a little darker than we have in the past.

QUESTION: Are there are any returning guest stars coming up in these remaining episodes?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, the one that’s on Monday night has Freddie Prinze Jr. He’s back as Danny Beck.

HART HANSON: That’s a good one to fall on the return to Monday nights, too. We’re really pleased.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes, it’s a wonderful episode. Ian Toynton directed that. It’s a great way to return and to come back to our old home Monday night. Although, it was nice to visit our summer home on Friday—

HART HANSON: With our pals from Enlisted.

STEPHEN NATHAN: —with our pals from Enlisted. We all had a great time.

HART HANSON: We just go to know each other and then we were wrenched apart again.

STEPHEN NATHAN: That’s right. We got to stay up late and drink, and now we have to go back to Monday.

HART HANSON: They liked us. We got some credit for raising their numbers. So they liked us, but now back to Mondays we go.

QUESTION: This question is for Hart Hanson, and actually I wanted to ask you about Backstrom.

HART HANSON: Okay. If that’s allowed, I’ll answer.

QUESTION: Okay. Well, I understand that it’s set in Portland, but I guess it’s filming in British Columbia. I just wanted to ask about how that decision came about?

HART HANSON: It was very simple. The incentives to shoot in Vancouver are too good to pass by. Rainn Wilson comes from Seattle and his wife, Holiday Reinhorn, comes from Portland. And we tried very hard to figure out a way to shoot in Portland because it’s always best to shoot in the place that you are pretending to be, but the incentives up in Vancouver— it’s a familiar story for everyone. But the incentives in Vancouver were just too good to pass by, and sadly Oregon could not compete just on a financial level. So that’s what it comes down to.

And the reason we’re not shooting in L.A. is that we really wanted—unlike Bones, the outdoors is a bigger part of Backstrom, and we wanted the look of the Pacific Northwest: a little bit of weather, some gray skies, and all that atmosphere. So we’re shooting in Vancouver.

SCIFI VISION: How much has what you originally planned in the very beginning with Bones has changed from what you have now?

HART HANSON: I knew when I wrote the pilot what the ending to Bones should be. It’s something I have to do to know what a series is. I know what the end of Backstrom is, too. It’s just something I have to aim at.

So far, so good. We did not in any way expect to get this amount of time. So we strung out how long Booth and Brennan would be together for as long as we could. We’re very pleased with the number of stories that are generated by them being together. But every single season right from the get-go we have been ready, if it looked like it, to end our series. And Stephen and I were just talking about this the other day, I think, that if Season 10 is our final season then at least the macro version of what I had in mind, we’ll be able to use. If we go past Season 10, the series will need a bit of an invention. We can’t tread water, a reinvention.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I think throughout these nine years, it’s always the best laid plans. We have an idea of where we want it to go, but since the finish line keeps moving all we can really do is continue to examine the characters and follow them where they lead. And so far they’ve surprised us often, and it’s changed the course of the show. But we do know where it’s going. We ultimately know where it’s going. I mean it’s not the Dharma initiative.

HART HANSON: We know where it’s going unless it goes past Season 10. Then we have to rethink where it’s going.

STEPHEN NATHAN: And it very easily could go past Season 10.

HART HANSON: Well, wait a minute; are you making that announcement too?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Wait, you know what? I did reschedule the show. I’m now picking it up for Season 11 and 12. It might end in Season 12, but I’m going on record right now.

HART HANSON: I want you to think about how much work that is, Stephen, before you—

STEPHEN NATHAN: I’m not going to do it. I like how I just became Kevin Reilly.

HART HANSON: You’re very important.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I’m giving you a back nine on Backstrom right now.

SCIFI VISION: Are we going to get to see at some point how Caroline and Booth met? Because I think that’d be fun.

HART HANSON: That’s a fun idea. Let’s pretend the answer to that is yes, we’ve been planning that for years, and not give you any credit for the notion.

STEPHEN NATHAN: We have been toying with the idea for quite a while of visiting the past with Booth and Brennan and with the other characters. We did have something in the works, but we couldn’t really do it because you can’t do too many weird ones in one season. But next season, especially if it’s the last season, I think we can do a couple.

HART HANSON: And we have to be careful for our very loyal fans, which many of them are, Caroline first appeared as the federal prosecutor in New Orleans. And we just loved her so much that we dragged her up to D.C. So we’re going to have to see how well they knew each other there, if they did. Well, I can’t remember. So we’ll have to take a look at that.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I think Booth was in New Orleans though when he was in the army. Maybe they dated.

QUESTION: The episode for this coming week is great, but my question is more general. What can you tell us about Wendell and the cancer storyline?

HART HANSON: Nothing. Don’t say anything—

STEPHEN NATHAN: Wendell will be coming back this season. He’s coming back. I think it’s in Episode 18.

HART HANSON: It’s an unfolding story.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes, we will not tell you how it ends, but we will revisit Wendell. And he will come back mid-treatment and be working at the Jeffersonian still in his old job. Although, that will get very, very complicated, and it will not unfold the way, I think, we expect it to.

HART HANSON: Well, maybe the way we expect, but not the way the audience expects.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, I don’t know. I forget the episodes, and then when I watch them I’m shocked.

QUESTION: Why did you choose to go with the cancer route?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, Wendell is sort of the most all-American guy, and he and Booth are so close. To have two guys who are so strong deal with a vulnerability that intense, just seemed to work for the two of them. And it really did in that first episode, that scene in Booth’s office was just so moving and so rich for those two characters. And then now to continue with it with everyone on board, it just gave us a lot. And it was also a way to explore that disease on the show. I mean, not to be exploitive, but we have had a lot of feedback from people who are cancer survivors or families who have been dealing with that, and it meant a lot to them. And if we could do that every now and then on the show, it means a lot to us to be able to do that.

HART HANSON: Wendell’s one of our most sympathetic characters. And he has the most relationship with Booth and Brennan, so he was the best candidate to do a sad and intense story.

QUESTION: There’s some information that Clark’s going to be working on his own book coming up. What can you say about that storyline and how Brennan will be dealing with it?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, it’s not going to land directly on Brennan, but it is a new wrinkle within the politics of the lab. So I don’t want to say too much about that story.

HART HANSON: It’s such a part of the story, what’s going on there.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I can tell you the name of the book is “Murder Made Me Do It,” so you can imagine what Clark has done.

QUESTION: You guys introduced Hodgins’ brother recently and that was really a serious storyline. Do you have the room to bring him back at the end of the season?

HART HANSON: I don’t think he’s coming back before the end of this season, but he’s definitely someone we would consider dealing with again.

STEPHEN NATHAN: We will definitely see him next year, but there’s just no time. There’s so much going on at the end of the season because really the end of the season is going to take place over four episodes. And it’s peeling back the layers of the onion, so it’s difficult to deal with that.

HART HANSON: Not a lot of extraneous stuff getting in, there’s a lot of story.

QUESTION: I heard Ignacio Serricchio is guest starring in a future episode, and he’s going to play—

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes. He’ll be a week from Monday.

QUESTION: And he’s going to play a character who’s actually Brennan’s equal. How’s that going to work for her?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, it’s really great. He’s playing a Cuban defector who was the chief forensic anthropologist in Havana, but his credentials don’t work here. As often happens with people who come from another country, they have to get accreditation again.

HART HANSON: So the idea of your taxi driver sometimes was a brain surgeon in another place.

STEPHEN NATHAN: So the Secretary of State has asked the Jeffersonian to give him the position because he needs an internship before he gets his accreditation. So he essentially is an equal with Brennan, but Brennan is his boss. And he is in fact an intern. Yes, and Ignacio’s fantastic. He’s just terrific. We can’t wait to have him back. He will return.

QUESTION: A couple of times you both mentioned the word Season 10 and the end. So does it feel as though to you guys Season 10 might be the end? Who makes that call? Is it you guys telling Kevin Reilly that that’s the end or working in collaboration with him? Because the ratings are still there for the show, so it would seem strange for them to okay you guys leaving after its tenth season.

STEPHEN NATHAN: No, we don’t make that decision, but as is always the case, we approach each season as if it’s not going to be the last.

HART HANSON: Well Stephen, I actually approach it as though it is going to be the last.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I guess that shows you a little bit about our personalities.

HART HANSON: Yes, that’s it right there. They can’t possibly go another season. We have to be ready, and then Stephen has been proven right nine seasons in a row.

STEPHEN NATHAN: You have to write the unfolding story, and then if someone tells you to fold it up; you fold it up. But we’re not approaching this season as if it’s the end.

HART HANSON: I am.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Well, it’s the end for you. You’re off doing Backstrom. But I just gave you the back nine pick up, so you’re really going to have a lot of work.

HART HANSON: Yes, thank you. I’ve got to get to work.

There are other forces too. We have deals, or I should say the network and studio have deals with the actors through Season 10, so those would need to be renegotiated. It’s whether or not the actors are still motivated. So far it appears they are, but you can’t speak for them. And renegotiations can be the reason something goes away. The network can just not want it anymore, which is a reason it would go away. Or there are plenty of shows where the show runners and the actors get together and talk about whether or not they want to keep going. It’s just the end of Season 10 is a natural place either for us to end or for us to make a decision to get over all those hurdles to go for another season or two.

QUESTION: Can you just briefly talk about the dynamic between you two next season? Because, Hart, you’re going to be doing the lion’s share of work on Backstrom, so Stephen, will you take over the day-to-day show running duties? Or are you already doing that?

HART HANSON: He’s doing it. The last time I did, Stephen, correct me if I’m wrong, the last time I did a pass at a script was the Wendell Gets Cancer script, I think. And then since then Stephen’s had his grubby little fingers all over it.

STEPHEN NATHAN: We’ve always shared it. Hart and I are next door to each other, so even when he went off to do The Finder and I was doing Bones, we still talk all the time. We have coffee in the mornings, so that we get all hyped up. We’ve been down this road before. So yes, basically I’ll be doing the day-to-day stuff here, and Hart will be doing the day-to-day stuff on Backstrom. And if we get bored we’ll switch.

HART HANSON: We do. And yes, we might do that. We share a little terrace…terrace is kind of grand…it’s more like a little walkway between our offices. And we talk a lot every day about the show, but Stephen will be the heavy-lifter for sure on Bones. It’s weird for me, but that’s the way it goes. And he’s good at it, and he’s been doing it a long time.

SCIFI VISION: Do you have anything yet planned for the 200th episode?

HART HANSON: We’ve been talking about stuff, but we haven’t landed on anything yet. And one of the things that would really help is if we actually figured out exactly which episode it was. It’s in the first ten of—

STEPHEN NATHAN: No, it’s twelve I think.

HART HANSON: Is it twelve? See, we don’t know.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I think it’s twelve, but it keeps changing— because I don’t know why, but we’ll get there. There’ll probably be a murder.

SCIFI VISION: Yes, I kind of figured that. That’s what you should do, try to do one without a murder and see how it goes.

HART HANSON: We have a few ideas. We’d love to do something special. Like the 100th episode, it would be great to do something that was really, really aimed at our very loyal, crazily noisy, and invested fans. Another love letter to them, but we have to figure out what it is. We have a few ideas.

SCIFI VISION: And is there anything that you can tease specific about the season finale?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes.

HART HANSON: Yes, Stephen will do this sort of thing. I always go no.

STEPHEN NATHAN: The season finale will redefine—

HART HANSON: Television in the 21st century.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes, it will redefine television. You’ll be watching it from behind rather than in front this time. No, it will redefine Booth’s relationship with his crime-fighting. The heroes and villains will be reversed, and they will not be operating the way they have for the past nine years. Now how long that will sustain is something that will be answered the beginning of Season 10, but really all bets are off at the end of Season 9.

HART HANSON: Well done, Stephen.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I didn’t say a thing.

HART HANSON: I know, but it sounded—

STEPHEN NATHAN: I basically didn’t say anything. I thought I was saying something and then—

HART HANSON: I was afraid you were going to say something, but you came through, man.

QUESTION: Will there be a new love interest for Sweets?

STEPHEN NATHAN: We’re toying with that for Season 10. Certainly not at the end of Season 9, but Sweets’ life is interesting. So we’re going to examine him and all of our characters. We’re ending this year with—not ending, ending, but we’re going to examine Cam and Arastoo in a way we haven’t before when we meet Arastoo’s parents. So we try to give all the characters their due. They’re all interesting to us. They all vie for attention, and we try to do as much as we can.

HART HANSON: Of all the characters on the show Sweets has changed the most. We watched him go from—every once and a while we have to remind ourselves he’s a full grown man now. He started as a wunderkind, a boy wonder, Jimmy Neutron type of guy. And now every once and a while you look at him and go, “Holy crap, John is leading man handsome.” So we got to give him a grown up, big boy love interest.

QUESTION: Are you guys planning on anything to show that Booth’s grandfather [Ralph Waite] died?

HART HANSON: I’ve got to tell you that we started being asked that question on the very day that Ralph Waite died. I have to tell you, I myself personally was just horrified because here’s this lovely man. I guess people forget that actors exist outside of their roles, at least for the team that they’re on. So we’re all like “Ralph is gone…,” and America is going “Pop’s is gone…”

I’m sure we will, in Season 10, deal with it. I don’t know about Stephen, but I have to tell you I quailed at the thought of somehow it felt exploitive or something to immediately—so we’ll deal with it in Season 10 in some way, but he’s a real person to us. And it was very painful to lose him, and it was unexpected. I mean he is an old guy, mission accomplished. He was an old fellow in the best possible way for an actor. He died in the traces. He was a working man and still in demand.

But I’m sure we’ll do something in Season 10. We’ll figure out something. I know David is very keen of course. He was really, really fond of Ralph. And so we will deal with it, but we have to do it when we’re not still going “aww…” about Ralph.

QUESTION: And I certainly didn’t mean…

HART HANSON: No, it’s long enough now. Your question is very valid. I was really commenting on the very day that he died that we were getting these questions on social networking and stuff. It’s a fair question now I think.

STEPHEN NATHAN: We were asked whether we were going to do it by the end of the year, but really all the scripts were in the works. And the last thing you want to do is shoot from the hip or brush something off. He meant too much to us.

QUESTION: Right, it needs to be a tribute.

HART HANSON: Yes, it has to be a real—yes, exactly.

QUESTION: You guys were talking a little bit earlier about Sweets. I’m just wondering is there a character on the show where you’ve been particularly proud of the evolution of the character over the last nine seasons?

HART HANSON: Wow. One of the great things about Bones has been our secondary characters. Every single one of them is plumbable, if you know what I mean, useable. So, wow.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I don’t think there’s any one character.

HART HANSON: I’m really pleased with where Clark went from the beginning to the end. But I have to say really the queen of change as a character over Bines has been Emily Deschanel, playing this incredibly tough part of a bifurcated human being: one part very, very rational and the other part volcanically emotional, to very slowly come along to let her kinder, gentler, sweeter, human part leak through the exterior. I’m amazed by it.

So there, I’ll stop talking. So everybody is my answer.

QUESTION: Stephen, you always delight at the grossest bodies. So what do we have coming up, which case delights you the most for its disgustingness?

STEPHEN NATHAN: Oh my. I don’t know. We try to make them all equally revolting. It’s hard to choose. The season finale has a delightfully revolting body. I don’t know. We have somebody coming up who has been discovered wrapped in kudzu. But really I think one of the most revolting places we find some remains coming up is in a septic tank.

QUESTION: Pretty gross.

HART HANSON: It is. We are still amazed that it got by standards and practices.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I mean it was a little tough for us to watch, but—

HART HANSON: Did you not actually cut back on it yourself on that one?

STEPHEN NATHAN: I did a little bit.

HART HANSON: I mean think of that. Stephen Nathan said this is too much before standards and practices did.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I’ve only done that one other time. Two times in the history of the show. One was when the reporter, that was The Gravedigger, when the reporter was brought down from the flagpole, and his face had been shot off or something. We don’t do fresh, live bodies, so when we see them it’s just too terrible.

HART HANSON: When there’s gushy parts it’s even worse.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes. We like a nice animal to be able to crawl out of the remains.

HART HANSON: Sadly, every once and a while doing research you look at actual, real human remains or from the body farm. Nothing we’ve ever done on Bones comes close to the reality of just how awful human remains can be.

STEPHEN NATHAN: We frequently have to change them a bit to make them more enjoyable to watch because sometimes they’re just too gross.

HART HANSON: There has to be a tinge of comedy to it, strange as that sounds. That’s why Stephen, for a while, he was very keen on eyeballs falling out because that’s just funny.

STEPHEN NATHAN: Yes. And we sit in a production meeting, and we have a forensic anthropologist on staff who is our technical advisor. And she’ll go, “Oh hey, look at this; this is exactly what you’re talking about.” And you go, “Oh great, I’d like to— oh my God!” And it’s horrifying.

HART HANSON: I stopped looking. She cannot make me look at anything.

STEPHEN NATHAN: I don’t want to see anything. We just have her talk to other people.

HART HANSON: She’s a very sweet-faced woman, and she’ll say, “This could help you in the burn story” and don’t look. Don’t look. You won’t eat for two days.