Replacement(s) for Zack

Discussion of TJ's most popular venture to date!
Ellen
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Replacement(s) for Zack

Post by Ellen »

I started this to get all of your opinions and thoughts on Brennan's "New Zack".
Personally i think he will be harder for each character to trust at first and they'll all be very wary of him to start with.
Although i think he'll do something heroic mid way through S4 and win everyone's trust as a REAL good guy that even Booth has no trouble holding a conversation with. :D
What are your thoughts?
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Re: Zack's replacement?

Post by English Al »

It will be harder for the character. I remember when Cam came in and not many people liked her for ages. Hopefully Zackarony will be in a few eps to stop the hatred campaign towards the newbie. No doubt Brennan and the newbie will have differences of opinion.
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Re: Zack's replacement?

Post by Ellen »

I agree, there's no way they're going to get by with no problems, in exactly the same way they did with Zack, (Except the Obv problem later on of course, which hopefully wont happen with this Newbie.)
I think it'll be the weirdest for Brennan and Hodgins, they were probably the closest to Zack and now they have to figure out a newbie all over again. I bet he makes a mistake early on that Zack wouldn't have.
I've had a lot of thoughts about this as you may be able to tell. lol.
:D
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Re: Zack's replacement?

Post by English Al »

I think the writers might also go down the route where the intern fails, unlike Zack, and makes several mistakes before finally leaving. I can see Jack getting very irate with them personally. They will probably hate doing "experiments" too, making Hodgy a grumpy bugger for most of the season. I could almost see TJ leaving with that and the plot for him and Angela :shock:
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Ellen
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Re: Zack's replacement?

Post by Ellen »

That's probably going to be about right, although i really hope Tj doesn't leave. :D.
Grumpy bugger i can settle for, leaving the Bones team would be catastrophic!
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Re: Zack's replacement?

Post by ThyneAlone »

I think there is going to be a series of different try-outs, don't know if that will work out as it will disrupt the rhythm of the team.
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Re: Zack's replacement? Warning; spoilers

Post by Ellen »

The guy probably wont like Hodgins much. Oh that'll be fun to see now wont it. He'll probably hate the experiments.
lol.
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Grad students??

Post by Ellen »

Throughout season 4, we have seen many grad students in the lab. My favourites being Mr Nigel-Murray, and the man who was with Booth in the hockey match (I don't know that guy's name) and I was wondering if one is supposed to be selected as a full time worker of the Jeffersonian like Zack was, or will there continue to be lots of different ones? I kind of like the fact that there are a lot of them, because nobody can replace Zack of course. However, on the other hand, it would be good to just have one or maybe two final choices. That way we can get to know the characters more through their interactions with the rest of the team, i.e going for drinks etc. it would be nice to bring in a grad student as a main character in the next season to get some characterization going on. Who knows? Maybe one of them could have a very interesting background that is used in the season......

Let me know what you guys think! I'm always interested in your thoughts and theories. :D
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Bipolar Squintern?

Post by JennyLea »

Okay. I think this is one subject that can have a lot of discussion.

I was cruising my Twitter account and came across this:

HartHanson We plan on having all our interns back. Plus, perhaps one more. Possibly a bipolar intern, inspired by an encounter at ComicCon. We'll see.
8:38 PM Aug 11th from web


Based on the comic relief role of the Squinterns over the last season, I instantly dreaded this idea.

You see, I have had a very personal and difficult life experience with this particular mental disorder. I am going to share it so that everyone who reads this knows where I am coming from and why I feel as strongly as I do about it.

My maternal Grandfather had manic depressive bipolar disorder. His illness had many faces. There were days when he was the nicest person on Earth, usually when he was on his medication, but he was also very very abusive. The treatment of his illness would cycle. He would be very angry, abusive, and dispicable, then he would medicate. On his meds he was calm, collected, and a viable member of scociety. He would start to feel better and what happens then? He started to think that he no longer needed his meds and would revert to the monster that his illness could transform him into.

My mother told me the story of her childhood. Grampa was not medicated at the time. He was always angry abusive, and down right mean. My mother told me how her mother would step in between him and the children and take all the beatings. She would also direct the physical abuse away from her children. My Grandmother died when my mother was eight in a very slow moving river. She was a world class swimmer. Infact she actually swam the English channel bothways twice. So there was no way that she shouldn't have made it out of the water. To this day there is still speculation that Grampa treated her so badly that she took her own life.

Now to my experiences. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of good memories with my Grandfather. He loved us. I know he did., but he was a very volatile man. He didn't approve of my Dad. My mom was only 18 when she married my dad. Grampa would not give his blessing so Mom told him that she would just wait until she was 19 and marry Dad anyway. Needless to say, Mom was the only one of her siblings to have Grampa give her away at her wedding.

Many years later, when I was old enough to remember. My dad and Grampa. Grampa would come over to our house just to yell and scream at my parents. He never hit my sister and I, although my cousins weren't so lucky, because my mom stepped in and took the physical contact the one and only time that Grampa tried. The fighting and screaming and yelling and Mom crying got to the point where I when I saw my Grandfather's truck coming up our driveway, my bedroom window faced the driveway, I would find my little sister and we would get out of there as fast as we could. Our normal route was down the staris from the upstairs to the main floor, down the stairs from the main floor to the basement. When we were a little older we could jump over the railing from the main floor to the basement and that was much faster. Once we hit the basement we would go out the back basement door and creep along the side of our house. We had a veranda that wrapped around our house so we would crouch and wait until Grampa was in the house so he didn't see us. Once the front door closed we would dash over to the barn, go in the front door and then out the side door. We lived on a hill, so oncce we got out of the barn, we would slide down the embankment and get as far out of earshot as we could. We were lucky on the days when we thought to grab the bridlas for the horses when we were in the barn because we would catch the horses and go riding. We got much further away from the house that way.

MY Grandfather was not a bad man. He simply suffered from a sever mental disorder. He died in 1995 five days before my 13th birthday on September 13th. He always had to have the last word.

Now to get back to "Bones".

I'm sure just reading that story you can see where I would have reservations about a bipolar squintern. So far, the squinterns sole role was comic relief. They each had an identifying idiosyncrity that all the main characters made fun of. Some of them were a little sensitive.

In regards to there being a bipolar squintern, if it were to happen, it would have to be very sensitively done. Mental illnesses affect many lives in many ways. Most of the time bringing with it a lot of hardship. To me it is not something to be laughed at.

I can see a bipolar squintern, but he/she must be one of the ones that is taken seriously. A littele effort on the part of the other characters to understand him/her would be critical. There are somethings that can be taken lightly and others that are absolutely inexcusible.

I'm going to leave this here so that anyone else who would like to join this disscussion can add more to it. I'm sure I will definitely be an active poster on this thread due to my own personal life experiences.

Jen
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by Jude40 »

Hi Jenny/All

Thanks for starting this thread Jenny and thanks for the insight into bipolar which I confess I knew only a little about. I've just been watching Eric Milligan's You Tube video about his experiences and that was extememly insightful too (he is so just one of those people you wanna hug too).

I'm hoping by the fact that HH and all the cast (although interestingly he didn't actually mention DB) were very supportive of him that they will also deal with the subject sensitively if they do go with having a bipolar intern.

I just dont see that mental health problems can de dealt with in any other way. Although I didn't know a lot about bipolar I did have panic attacks a few years back now. I had just changed jobs and my boyfriend of the time was very clingy and possessive (he used to sit outside my house in his car waiting for me to come home when I went out with friends and write letters which he handed to me saying he wasn't good enough for me).

I felt ok one minute then the next the doctor was referring me to the hospital 'cos I couldn't breathe. Anyway to cut a long story short I was hyperventilating and they got that under control but when I went into work the following week I freaked out and was then off sick for three months. I used to fight against the attacks and do things like punch walls and headbutt telephone boxes, not great. One of the scariest things was when I got myself that wound up that I was convinced someone was trying to stab me. Anyway eventually medication got everything under control and I took anti depressants for two years.

It was a scary time but I actually emerged a more aware and far, far more chilled out person, but you can see why I think any type of mental health issues should be dealt with sensitively.

Thant's my opinion on the matter anyway.

Catch you later

Jude x
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by brooke34 »

Jenny, and Jude,

I'm so sorry about what the two of you have gone through dealing with problems like this...I can certainly see why rumblings of a storyline like this would touch a nerve. I can't imagine how difficult the real-life experience must be.

If BONES does decide to pursue this, I hope that it's handled with some dignity and respect. Given the changes in the show since the first season, that may be a vain hope, but it's my hope nonetheless.

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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by JennyLea »

Wow Jude that is scary. Sometimes I wonder if I should have myself test for bipolar disorder. It can be a hereditary disorder and sometimes I think I am exhibiting symptoms of it. Usually I am a very happy laid back person, but then all of a sudden I go into a very deep violent depression. As an adolescent I was often suicidal. I had started to slit my wrists a couple of times, but them thought of my family and stopped, bandaged it up, wore long sleeved shirts for awhile and carried on with my life. I think the closest I ever came to really hurting myself was the day I tried to overdose on Extra strength advil. I took the whole large sized bottle. I must have developed an immunity to it prior to the attempt because all that happened was I became VERY light headed and slept for 15 hours. Mom and Dad never suspected a thing.

Sometimes I develope fits of uncontrolable violent rage. My sister was once a victim of it. I don't remember the circumstance around it, but I do remember slapping my sister so hard that she fell backwards, had a black eye, and severely split her head open on the corner of the wall. She was hospitalized for two days. As fast as the rage hit, it was gone and I felt terrible. Nothing could ever make up for the pain I had caused someone I love. From that moment on, I vowed I would never physically hit anyone else. Now when I feel the rage, I lock myself in my room for as long as it takes and I sit on my bed with loads of paper and I shred it and shred it. Sometimes I only shred a little, sometimes I shred a lot. Sometimes i can get away without shredding any and I simply write and write. Anything that comes to mind. That grieving free writing that I wrote a few weeks ago and posted on the sofa is an example of my writing. My grief triggered an episode.

Everytime I think of having myself tested for bipolar disorder I decide against it. For some reason I always talk myself out of it, thinking that if I can recognize that my behavior is unacceptable then I can't possibly be sick. It is an internal battle.

I don't have many episodes now that I am a respected adult. Most of my episodes came when I was an adolescent social outcast. I am highly intelligent, being Valedictorian in school proves that, but sometimes I feel that something just isn't right.

There are many symptoms to bipolar disorder. If a storyline regarding a bipolar squintern does arise perhaps it will be delt with sensitively and he/she might have a more mild condition than my Grandfather. Especially with Eric Millegans experience. I would hope that a cast that will support a member of its own through such a trying time would insist that it be delt with appropriately.

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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by ThyneAlone »

Jenny, Jude, this is powerful stuff, and it's brave of you to show us why you are worried about this idea - thank you.

Since discussing this, I am astonished to know how many people have had personal experience of or contact with mental illness. My husband has had several episodes of severe depression and I wonder, as I see him still sometimes sliding between euphoria and despair, whether his family has bipolar history. I have never been depressed, fortunately, but I am an obsessive individual who can be intense mentally and emotionally and has suffered paranoia, and I have 2 brothers and a father with acute, and I mean acute, anger management issues (seems to have bypassed the female contingent, thank goodness).

Fisher and Vincent Nigel-Murray already have characteristics that could be described respectively as depressive or slightly autistic tendencies, at which we are supposed to smile. Would they be less inclined to use it as comic relief if it was a visible, physical disability? I ruminate on my slight and very well-controlled epilepsy and wonder how I would feel if anyone thought seizures funny. I was even slightly offended that time they portrayed them on the Simpsons!

Let's hope, if they do this, that it is going to be a gradual and sensitive examination of all the aspects of a genuine problem. I know the writers can do sympathetic..they just haven't been doing it of late.
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by Jude40 »

Hi again everyone

I just read this from HH and I may be getting it completely wrong but suffice to say it doesn't exactly alleviate my fears...

'Back to the new season, ...And I've got an idea for one more intern I'd like to bring in. A severely bipolar intern.

Brennan would probably have a hard time dealing with those kinds of emotional issues on a regular basis.
HH: Yeah, to her it would appear to be completely irrational behavior. So it's fun.'

If they do this and treat it like a comedy thing then I will be seriously p***ed off.

Catch you later

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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by ThyneAlone »

Is he just messing with people's minds again? You know how that's his hobby.

Anyway, that would again be a complete misunderstanding of Brennan, because ok emotional issues are not her thing, but illness? I think she knows about that. And, in fact, would she employ someone with those sort of problems to deal with in an environment where death is the main area of focus?

'Fun'. Pshaw poo. He does not know whereof he speaks. Idiot.
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by JennyLea »

FUN!?!?!?!? This just show exactly how much HH does not understand bipolar disorder or any mental illness. Bipolar is a chemical imbalance in the brain. That is the underlying cause. Reasearchers don't even under stand the how, why, and complications of this disorder.

There is no way Brennan is going to understand because it is a mental illness and not a physical one. Obviously any one who thinks it is FUN to misunderstand something like this does not understand it.

Bipolar disorder has the power to destroy lives. Often it is not the person with the illness that is truely as affected as those around him/her. There was nothing fun about running from my own Grandfather. There was nothing fun about my grandmother's death, which was by the way, witnessed by four of her five children my mom included. There is nothing fun about physical and emotional abuse. HH must think that bipolar people alternate between hysterical laughter and hysterical tears.

There is nothing fun about the parents of children with mental disorders would have to make the choice to take care of them their whole lives or institutionalize them.

I don't know. I don't think I could handle it if HH went ahead with this. I was almost in tears just thinking about it. I wish there was a way to show HH just how "FUN" something like this is. Obviously he has no idea about the very real terror that can be invoked by such a devastating illness.

I can't even continue to write right now... This is way too hard for me.

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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by JennyLea »

One last little side note. There is nothing fun about a child sitting at her grandfathers funeral on the day before her thirteenth birthday, surrounded by people that were only there to make sure the "monster" was truely dead and being buried that day. Most of those people were unaware of his illness, the rest misunderstood it. None of them kept the feelings of that little girl in mind as they discussed the travesties that this "Monster" commited. That little girl honestly loved that "man" regardless of what he did and was hurt even more than just the grief by the hateful and damaging words of those people who did not understand.

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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by jade.stormcloud »

It sucks. I wasn't going to go into it, but so many people are spilling their info here. And it was mentioned on another site,too. So here it is.

I've suffered severe depression (as well as anxiety disorders & panic attacks) my whole life. In fact, I was fired from my last job because of it. I've scars on my arms from cutting myself up in the past. I manage right now only because I almost never leave my house, & I keep my mind too busy with TV, books, internet, so that I never have time to think. I generally have the TV running while I'm multitasking online, & I'm in the middle of three different books. The media overload helps to drown out the thoughts about how much life sucks, & mostly about what a worthless, pathetic waste of oxygen I am, completely incapable of ever making a useful contribution to the world. I just keep jumping from channel to channel, site to site, & book to book until I'm too exhasted to stay awake anymore. Then, I sleep til 2-3 pm, get up & do it all again. Mainly I spend every day waiting until the day I die.

And this is why I hated Fisher... he reminded me what I drag I am to be around in real life. AURGHH!

.....Off to play facebook games & stop thinking for a while.
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by ThyneAlone »

This is disinterring some really shattering revelations. All you highly intelligent people who feel that you are heaps of garbage, who have had such appalling experiences, that's so sad.

Don't worry, I am definitely not the type of person to tell you to pull yourselves together and things'll get better, you're just feeling a bit down, and all that other crap. I have watched my other half go through hell and I know perfectly well that mental illness is not something you can 'get over'. You have all got your own ways of handling it and you humble me by managing it as well as you do; I don't think I could do that.

What I can do is promise you support and sympathy in whatever you come to express here, and that I will do my best to honour your obvious trust in this community as somewhere you can come safely and be among friends. You all contribute to it with such warmth and generosity (never doubt that TJ thinks you are special either).

I wish Hart Hanson could read everything you have said. It would be possible to make a real, moving arc about such a character - or even, if he were brave enough, show a familiar character descend into mental illness - but it sounds like he will waste the opportunity.

PS I am aware that some of this would be more relevant on the Sofa, which is where we usually offer mutual support (and we can still do it there, of course) but at the moment it is also extremely relevant to the development of Bones and where it is going. So I'm certainly not going to move this one around; who knows, one of the Powers That Be might come in and read it.
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Re: Bipolar Squintern?

Post by Jude40 »

Hi everyone

Ok I know Jenny's already sent a tweet to HH about this and I think I'll do the same, might even send one to TJ too, not that anyone ever takes any notice of them I reckon they just think its that moaning scouse girl again (literally 'cos my username on Twitter is scouse girl 67).

The way I figure it is that they kinda have to at least look at the message to ignore it, if you see what I mean. So I'm just gonna keep it straight and fairly light and say if you gonna have a bipolar intern can it be done sensitively.

Right thats a plan so I'm off to Twitter.

Jude x
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