The next episode of Bones, set to air on December 3rd, is to be called The Gamer in the Grease and appears to be jam packed full of Avatar product placement. There’s a promo clip on Youtube, which you can see embedded below the break.

The show airs on Fox which is, of course, a sister wing of Newscorp. to 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the film and I don’t think we can blame them for wanting to promote this phenomenally expensive piece of product as well as possible. But it’s not just a product, it’s a piece of of creative expression too - hopefully an honest one - and it would be nice to think Bones is too, so it’d be quite sad to see them crossed-over in an empty, cynical way.

So, let’s watch this clip and then count the references to Avatar together.

• There’s the title, on the cinema canopy and behind the woman crossing her arms.
• There’s a queue of folk up to some deep blue Na’vi cosplay.
• There’s a guy inexplciably saying “Avatar” between two words of the voice over man’s “Strange… New… World”, which is itself an evocation of Pandora.
• “This is so much more than a movie” doesn’t relate explicitly to the film, but I’m sure Fox are trying to plant the association in our minds.
• And, of course, there’s Joel David Moore, a Bones regular who also plays Norm Spellman in Cameron’s movie.

What did I miss?

I’m going to resist a certain online slang word for Avatar fans. I wish I could coin another - Savantars, maybe? Okay, didn’t work.

This is going to have to be some seriously gripping episode of Bones to take the audience’s mind off of all of the product placement. If it’s too distracting, of course, Fox might find a lot of viewers turning off and even brewing up a little resentment.

Via Cinematical