Bones Was Forced To Digitally Edit A NSFW Scene In Order To Air It
Bryan Fuller's "Hannibal" is a series about serial killers who, much like the titular cannibal famously featured in "The Silence of the Lambs," approach their grisly crimes as a sick, twisted form of personal creative expression. One killer, for example, arranges their victims into a totem pole on a beach, while another turns a person into a human cello. You would think the show's gorgeously grotesque crime scenes would be the thing that got it into trouble with censors ... but you'd be wrong.
The show's fifth episode, "Coquilles," features what might be the most head-scratching example of censorship in a series full of them. As the episode begins, a couple is discovered murdered in a motel room. Their corpses have been beheaded and positioned so that they appear to be kneeling in prayer in front of a bed, the skin on their backs having been torn away to form angel-like wings that are held aloft by strings attached to the ceiling. It's a deliberately bizarre sight that feels perfectly believable in the dream-like world of Fuller's procedural and one that doesn't appear to be watered-down or made to seem less gruesome.
So, what was altered? If you compare the TV version of this scene to the "producer's cut" released on home media, you will note that the victims' naked bodies have been covered with digital blood to hide their buttcracks. Yes, in what will likely come as a shock to absolutely no one familiar with the modern U.S. television ratings system (which, like the MPA, still bears the clear influence of the Hays Code), NBC's censors were mainly concerned with ensuring no one watching at home was traumatized by the sight of unclothed buttocks.
This, at last, brings us to "Bones" and its own ridiculous run-in with TV censors.
Solving crimes in the streets, getting CGI'd in the sheets
Before forensics expert Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) completed their will-they/won't-they courtship on "Bones," Temperance had a comparatively casual romantic fling with FBI agent Tim "Sully" Sullivan (Eddie McClintock) during the show's second season. One of their intimate rendezvous would ultimately lead to trouble with the censors at Fox, specifically a scene where an undressed Brennan and Sully are lounging about under the sheets in bed.
Speaking at a 2007 Q&A with the "Bones" cast and crew (via IGN), executive producer Stephen Nathan recalled that it was not one of the ghastly crime scenes investigated by the FBI or human remains studied by the employees of the Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab that got the show in hot water. Rather, the network's censors complained that they could see far too much of Deschanel's uncovered breasts during the scene in question, despite her being very careful to cover herself with a sheet (as all people are post-coitus in real life, obviously!). As such, the sheet was digitally expanded so it would cover more of her body, which was good enough to satisfy the censors.
Let that be a lesson to everyone. The disturbing antics of serial killers like those featured on "Hannibal" and "Bones"? Those are just a part of everyday life and are perfectly acceptable for network television. But if you even think about sneaking in so much as a glimpse of the exposed curvature of someone's dumper or a tit that isn't strictly a member of the Paridae bird family, well, then you've got another thing coming.
All 12 seasons of "Bones" are currently available to stream on Hulu.