Television crossover events have had many ups and downs over the years. For every “Crisis on Infinite Earths” or “Scoobynatural,” TV studios typically make a half-dozen ill-advised cash-ins in a desperate attempt to expand each show’s unique audience. So what about the oft-forgotten conversion between one of Fox’s most beloved procedural series, Boneand one of the most forgotten, Sleeping Hollow?

“SleepyBones,” as some fans have taken to calling it, saw forensic anthropologist Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and her longtime FBI partner Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) team up with the pragmatic FBI agent Abbie Mills (Nicole Berharie). and his 18th-century time-traveling partner, Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), to investigate a crime that only their combined might can potentially solve. This unexpected collaboration came as a shock to fans of both Bone And Sleepy Hollowand it ultimately resulted in one of the strangest – and most underrated – crossover episodes in television history.

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How did the Bones and Sleepy Hollow crossover happen?

The story of two cities becomes one

The television event of the decade (or at least October 2015) took place through Bone’ Season eleven, episode five, “The Resurrection in the Vestiges” and Sleepy Hollow Season three, episode five, “Dead Men Tell No Tales.” The overall story sees Brennan and Agent Booth reluctantly help Crane and Mills solve a mystery involving a 200-year-old headless corpse linked to a much more recent murder victim, all taking place around Halloween (naturally ).

In the first episode of the crossover, Brennan and Booth are surprised to receive a visit from Abbie Mills and her new partner, Ichabod Crane, as the duo arrive to claim a body that the Bone The team has already started investigating. Now that they’re working together, they must find a way to discover how a two-century-old corpse is linked to a more recent murder victim. In the second part, the two groups of partners team up again to prevent the Sleepy Hollow villain, Pandora, to unleash a literal army of the undead.

Generally speaking, the biggest impact left by this crossover was to imply that both Bone And Sleepy Hollow exist in a shared universe. The implications of this would mean that Brennan’s long-standing skepticism regarding magic, demons, witches, angels, and virtually anything spiritual or superstitious are all, in fact, real. As for Sleeping Hollowwell, this series has always been willing to dabble in the occult, so the novelty of teaming up with Bone was to see how 21st century science could help unlock the secrets of the 18th century.

When asked to discuss the thought process behind combining these two disparate series, Bone producer Michael Peterson used The X Files by analogy, telling Entertainment Weekly that they approached the mash-up with Bone representing the Scully side of the equation (logic-based perspective) and Sleepy Hollow introducing the Mulder part of the story (supernatural belief). Sleepy Hollow Showrunner Clifton Campbell also pointed out that the two shows weren’t as different as everyone thought, saying THIS,

While it’s clear that the impetus for a crossover as unusual as this was purely monetary, it was nonetheless hard not to be intrigued by its potential. And yet, despite everyone’s best intentions, the tone of this crossover was never quite right.

How did the crossover highlight the strengths of each series?

In all honesty, it was more of a trap than a treat

The goal of each crossover is for the audience to enjoy something new that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get in a series that they know inside and out. In this regard, it is difficult to call the crossover between Bone And Sleepy Hollow a complete failure. He presented Bone fans get the chance to see first-hand as the supernatural finally invades the otherwise grounded and real world of this universe. Or at least that’s what we thought. But by the end of this crossover’s first hour, audiences discover that the 200-year-old body of Ichabod’s old Revolutionary War enemy, General William Howe, has less to do with the supernatural and more to do with the occult murder of a college. medical student by her flesh-and-blood male friend.

In the second Sleepy hollow-crossover-centric episode, things naturally take a ghostly turn. After solving the first part of the crime through science, the body of General William Howe finds himself reanimated, and now it’s up to Abbie and Ichabod to take down the undead military leader for good with a little help from Bones and Booth – sort of.

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Actress Emily Deschanel had just given birth before filming this crossover event, so instead of heading to Atlanta, where Sleepy Hollow was usually filmed, Nicole Berharie and Tom Mison were summoned to Washington, D.C., where the majority of this episode of Sleepy hollow was filmed, resulting in an episode that doesn’t quite feel like the same play as the rest of the series. Once Ichabod and Abbie obtain all the scientific evidence they need to solve the case, they mostly deal with the undead army on their own.

So in a sense, “SleepyBones” was the type of crossover that attempted to have the cake and eat it too. He desperately wanted to try to combine the Bone And Sleepy hollow audience, but he was not willing to directly combine their two formats into one, deciding instead to keep each show in its separate lane as much as possible. Although both series are ostensibly intended to crossover with each other’s universes, it really feels like the Sleepy hollow the team visited the Bone side of the equation and not the other way around. This probably has something to do with Fox’s desire to protect Boneits most valuable asset, which, at that point, had existed nearly three times as long as Sleepy hollow.

Was the crossover ultimately a success?

One season later, both shows are dead

While the Bone And Sleepy hollow The crossover may not have been what we expected, it’s impossible to ignore that it had some merits. For example, watching time-traveling Ichabod Crane and the supernaturally-inclined Brennan make small talk proved to be as awkward and amusing as longtime fans of both series no doubt presumed. Likewise, the way the writers connect the two FBI agents, Booth and Abbie, by calling on the latter’s mentor, Corbin, is a nice touch.

In general, the two episodes of the crossover largely succeeded in doing what Bone And Sleepy hollow did its best: embracing the central mystery of each episode with a strong sense of humor and a willingness to suspend disbelief (if only for a short time). Considered as individual episodes of their respective series, they might even almost make sense. In the Bone In this episode, Booth and Brennan dig up a body, as they usually do, and nothing out of the ordinary happens (i.e. the supernatural). Meanwhile, in Sleeping hollow, an entire army of undead finds itself reanimated and poses a threat.

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Independent of each other, both of these things make sense. But crowded together and looked at back to back? The crossover results in a jarring tonal boost. That said, the entire event is composed with a lightness of touch and with her tongue planted so firmly in her cheek that it’s impossible for anyone (or, at least, any fan of either or the other series) not to be entertained at least a little bit.

As for the ultimate success of this crossover event in terms of the franchises themselves, well, it’s safe to say that it didn’t have much of an impact. Bone was then renewed for a final season of 12 episodes, and Sleepy hollow found itself suffering a similar fate, being renewed for one final season (sans star Nichole Beharie) before heading off into…well, not sunset, let’s say the full moon.

In the end, “SleepyBones” never found the right combination to justify its existence. This is not to say that its creation was a mistake, only (at worst) a notable failure. Reconciling science, faith, and the supernatural proved to be too difficult a juggling act, which, given the history of humanity and society in general, almost anyone could probably have guessed would be that would be the case.

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  FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth teams up with the Jeffersonian’s top anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, to investigate cases where all that’s left of the victims are their bones.

  Release date

  September 13, 2005

  Cast

  David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin, TJ Thyne, Jonathan Adams, Tamara Taylor, John Francis Daley, John Boyd

  Main genre

  Crime

  Seasons

  12

• 

  Release date

  September 16, 2013

  Cast

  Tom Mison, Lyndie Greenwood, Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones

  Main genre

  Adventure

  Seasons

  4