While you might have expected Fox to double down on the success of “Bones” with some spin-offs, there were really only two attempts over the show’s 12 seasons. One was the short-lived “The Finder,” which should have been a big moment for “Bones” but quickly petered out, while the other is a sorry example of what we would call “lost media.” If you haven’t heard of “Bones: Skeleton Crew,” that’s not surprising since the short-lived spin-off is impossible to find.
Launched a year after “Bones” in 2006, this companion show was actually a web series that featured none of the original cast. The show was available via a subscription through the since shuttered Sprint TV service and emerged from Fox’s partnership with Sprint and MasterCard, though it was later uploaded to the official “Bones” website which has since been archived. The site described the series as following “three twenty-something employees of a prestigious Washington, D.C., museum” who “discover a mysterious box containing an incomplete animal skeleton and a threatening message.”
Yes, the “Bones” web series – not at all related to “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” – focused on three young employees of the same Jeffersonian Institute that employed Emily Deschanel’s Temperance Brennan and her group of “squints.” However, the real mystery is what happened to this little-known web series in the years since its debut.
Bones: Skeleton Crew is almost impossible to watch today
Comprised of 26 two-minute episodes, “Skeleton Crew” starred Thomas Smith, Ryan McGivern, Alison Simpson, Jon Briddell, and Reghan Alexander. The story played out across a single Saturday night, which meant the young squints couldn’t contact any characters from the main series. This allowed the show to get around the fact nobody on “Bones” actually appeared in “Skeleton Crew.”
Not that fans would have been too bothered. In fact, most likely never saw the web series due to it being available solely on Sprint TV. Even when it was added to the official “Bones” website, it was subsequently removed and has since become lost media. YouTube is suspiciously lacking in clips from the web series, with “Skeleton Crew” having been largely lost to time.
In the years since “Bones” was canceled in 2017, fans have tried to track down any remnants of the web spin-off. Thus far, only three episodes have been unearthed and saved by the Internet Archive. Interestingly enough, as reported by Entertainment Online, it seems “Skeleton Crew” was originally considered for the title for the main series before creator Hart Hanson nicknamed Temperance Brennan “Bones,” leading to the network deciding that should be the name of the show.
