Hart Hanson Talks ‘Bones’ Season 12, Favorite Squinterns, ‘The Finder,’ and More [Exclusive Interview]

The news of Bones being renewed for its twelfth and final season was bittersweet, but creator Hart Hanson has nothing but gratitude.

I recently sat down with Hanson at the ATX Television Festival to chat about the end of Bones, his favorite squinterns, and The Finder.

Hanson said they were “delighted” when they learned Bones was renewed for a final season. “It was one of those things where when it was announced that Season 12 would be the last season, we all went, ‘oh thank you!’ Because we’re on borrowed time. We’re a very old show. We are actually the longest running hour-long scripted drama on Fox. Ever,” Hanson explained.

“So it’s like telling a 98-year-old person, ‘you’re gonna die at home surrounded by your family with no pain.’”

He also said that he was glad about it for the audience.

“We’ll be able to pay off a bunch of things,” Hanson said. Unlike so many shows that have left us hanging, or have left us with a less than satisfying ending, Bones has a chance to end with intention.

That’s important to the audience and the writers, but it’s also really important to the actors. “It means a lot to actors to not just be called up and say, ‘you know that performance you did three weeks ago? That was your last moment.’ So thank you, Fox.”

Though Hanson is no longer a showrunner for Bones, having left to do Backstrom in Season 10, he’s still been a part of the conversation, and he confirmed that he will be writing the finale but will do so with input from current showrunners Michael Peterson and Jonathan Collier.

“I’m going write the series finale,” Hanson said. “I’ll get Stephen [Nathan] to do it as well, just to see it out the way we saw it and meet with the guys to see what they think. I have my ideas of how I think the series should end, but you know, they’re the showrunners,” Hanson said.

The idea that Hanson said he had in mind from the beginning will be a part of that conversation. “That will be a version of what we discuss,” Hanson explained, saying he’d begin by asking, “Here’s what I thought, how does it fit in with where you’ve taken the series?”

“We will have a conversation,” he continued. “I always had the ending in mind because we were very, very teeter tottery in the beginning, and I thought if we have a chance then we’ll end it on this note.”

“For a while there it would be, ‘okay, if it ends, we’ll end on the wedding; that’ll be the final episode.’ But that was never the original final episode,” Hanson said.

Since Bones has been on the air for well over a decade, Hanson was also able to speak to the way Bones has changed as the way audiences watch TV has too. “When we started out it was, you watch this show on its night in its time slot,” he said. Then came DVRs, which made for a different viewing experience. “It changed from, well you’re gonna watch it a week apart, to well, you might watch two or three in a row.”

“It became important to the eyeballs, first of all, and to the story that things not feel at all repetitious, so all of a sudden, we were going, ‘how is this beginning murder scene completely and utterly different from the one preceding it and the one after it?’”

“Also, our motives for our murder — you couldn’t have two jealous wives in a row,” Hanson continued. “There are not very many motives, if you think about it, for murder.”

Of all the characters on Bones, Hanson said there was one in particular he thought he identified with most. “My sons would tell you Brennan; I always thought Hodgins. I just assumed everyone would know that I’m basically that guy. Cranky, overly interested in small things.”

Hanson was hard-pressed to choose a favorite squintern, though there is one who he pointed to for a specific reason.

“The fact that Ryan Cartwright, who played Vincent Nigel-Murray, is gone made him my favorite because he got a death scene. He’s a wonderful actor, and the only reason we killed him is that he got another show, so he wasn’t gonna be back. Otherwise, I wouldn’t kill a squintern, because I love them. I love them all. So I can’t say that I have a favorite — all things being equal.”

In addition to Bones, Hanson also created a spin-off, The Finder, which only lasted one season. As for whether or not we might see Walter Sherman pop up again on Bones, Hanson said it wasn’t out of the question, but that scheduling has kept it from happening so far.

“That has been in the air a few times, especially to have Geoff Stults come back. But you know, he’s got other things, and then it has to fit the schedule, so we’ve been unable to do that. Not for lack of trying,” Hanson explained.

“You know we lost Michael Clarke Duncan,” Hanson continued. “I worry all the time that part of his heart attack — he was a passionate man – was intense disappointment that the show went away. I mean he was so heartbroken that they didn’t pick it up.”

And if there’s one thing Hanson is bitter about, it’s the fact that The Finder didn’t last. “Generally, there’s no whining in TV and no bitterness — things come, and they go. I believe that Fox made a mistake not picking up The Finder. It has been a profitable show. It didn’t cost them. Even the fact that it’s 13 episodes; it sold enough to make its own money back,” he said. “I’m bitter about it.”

Hanson also created another show that only lasted one season, but it didn’t have the same effect on him.

“I loved Backstrom. I’m really sorry it didn’t find an audience, and I think in a different climate it would have picked up an audience. But I understand their decision not to pick it up. The math was against us. The math on The Finder was for us,” he said. “Geoff Stults deserved that show.”

As for favorite shows, Hanson had a long list of things he loves to watch. “I love Silicon Valley with every cell of my body. I love Catastrophe. I love You’re the Worst. I loved Aziz Ansari’s show, Master of None.”

He also named Mr. Robot, American Crime, and The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, among others. “I like network TV. An amusing procedural, to me — I love that.”

We have more to look forward to from Hanson as well, though he wasn’t able to give too much away. “I’m doing an adaptation of a classic sci-fi,” he said. “Then I’m looking at adapting a foreign format that I’m really excited about as well.”

You can check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. (There is a lot more to come!)

Bones airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Fox.