A jones for “Bones”

Michaela Conlin as Angela Montenegro and Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan in "Bones."

The best thing about DVDs is the opportunity to fall in love with television shows a season or two, or even more, after they've already been on the air. Erin and I are currently hooked on "Bones," a Fox series starring David Boreanaz, who paid his dues in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the spinoff show "Angel." In "Bones," he plays an FBI agent, Seeley Booth, who works with Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), a forensic anthropologist/murder mystery novelist from the "Jeffersonian Institution" (a loosely fictionalized version of the Smithsonian Institution) to identify victims and causes of death from bones -- rotting, slimey, decayed corpses. The kneejerk reaction is to expect that "Bones" is a warmed-over version of "The X-Files" with that series' professional camaraderie and sexual tension between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI agents who track down cases of paranormal phenomena. But as much as I loved the first seven seasons of "X-Files," "Bones" is a first-class show of its own. It doesn't hurt, either, that the series features my new favorite Asian American character on TV: Angela Montenegro, played by half-Chinese actor Michaela Conlin.