What’s next for Booth and Brennan, and what can we look forward to on this season of Bones? (Spoilers ahead.)

Executive Producer Michael Peterson and leading lady Emily Deschanel recently spoke with reporters about what’s to come this season, including a stronger focus on the relationship between Booth and Brennan.

“That was definitely the focus coming into this season, was when Jon Collier and I met with and talked to David and Emily, our focus 100% is making sure to have as much time as possible with Booth and Brennan. That is the heart of the show,” Peterson explained.

“We will challenge ourselves to make sure to get as much screen time as possible. David gave us a note early on, and he said go back and watch early seasons, like Seasons 1 and 2, and just really kind of see all the interactions that we were able to have early on and it was great, I did. I spent my hiatus watching all these episodes over and over again and it also inspired a lot of storylines.”

We’ll also see a greater purpose in the storyline that kicked off Season 11, which will be resolved pretty quickly. And despite the fact that Booth has lied to Brennan, we don’t have to worry about any trouble between them at the moment.

“In discovering where she belongs she also understands Booth better, that Booth is this man of action. The way that we say it internally here is Booth is a little bit of a Superman, and Superman can’t just sit by and watch as people suffer,” Peterson said.

“There really is no retiring for him, so by the end of the second episode, Brennan understands that she belongs in the lab and that her Superman, Booth, belongs out there in the field saving people. She understands him in a way that probably nobody else could, so while a lot of people would yell at him saying you lied to me, she understands it’s just who he is and she wouldn’t want him to be any other way.”

After eleven years, chemistry between Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz still continues to grow, something that Deschanel stated was due in large part to the actors’ conscious efforts to make it happen. “For maybe six seasons would always work together on the weekend, and building our chemistry has always been a focus of ours for our performances,” Deschanel explained.

“Onscreen and off, it’s been important for us to get along and build that chemistry on camera. If you see chemistry, that’s not just an accident. We’ve worked on that, but, you know, it’s not that hard to have chemistry with David Boreanaz, I’ll be honest with you.”

As for the other characters moving forward, we can expect major changes for Cam and Arastoo as well as for Angela and Hodgins.

“Hodgins and Angela in Episode 10, there will be a major shake-up for them and it also is going to be related to Aubrey. That’s our mid-season finale,” Peterson said. “It’s an episode that was actually, originally we were considering for our season opener, so we’re going to start with a quite literal bang, but that episode will be very interesting as far as how it will change the trajectory of the rest of the season.”

Something Peterson said both he and Collier are especially mindful of is to not become complacent. “We don’t want to get complacent in the fact that Booth and Brennan are married and everyone is coupled up. We want to challenge them, but not in any kind of artificial way. We want it to be character-led.”

Something else we have to look forward to the Sleepy Hollow crossover. “That’s a very interesting version of a big bad, which is in that one we’re going to find two sets of remains,” Peterson stated. “One of them is going to be very, very old, and that’s going to be more of a big bad from the Sleepy Hollow universe.”

This season is also going to include some very special guests. In these first two episodes of the season, Kim Raver (24, Grey’s Anatomy) plays an FBI Agent who has no trouble seeing Booth as a possible suspect. Deschanel shared her experiences working with Raver as well as why Raver’s character was so important to the story.

“I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time. She also went to BU, Boston University, where I went, so I’ve just been following her. I was very excited to work with her personally, and she’s a delight,” Deschanel said.

“And it was cool to have a character who challenges Booth and his motives and is really suspicious of him. It’s interesting to kind of come up against that, because all of our characters do recognize Booth as the good man that he is and the hero at times, so it’s interesting to have a dynamic like that where somebody comes from a totally different perspective.”

Later this season, we’ll also see the addition of the legendary Betty White as a squintern, who Deschanel called a “dream come true” to work with. “She’s 93 years old and she came in, was so professional, she knew her lines. She was just so lovely to talk to, and she’s just a jokester,” Deschanel explained.

“It was a dream come true to work with her. I mean, we had Cyndi Lauper, Betty White, these people I adored from when I was much younger, and so it’s so much fun to get to meet these people in person. And also they don’t disappoint in terms of their kindness and fascinating personalities. It was a great joy to have her on set.”

We can also expect another undercover episode, which Peterson hopes will become Deschanel’s newest favorite (her current favorite is the circus episode). “It’s going to be a different version of undercover than we’ve ever done before, so it’s going to be very playful, competitive. It’s unlike any undercover we’ve done before, so we’re very excited.”

Bones is now FOX’s longest-running one-hour drama, and Peterson spoke to some of the ways the show has had to change over the years.

“The biggest thing I think everything just, you know, the quality of TV is fantastic right now and you want to keep up with all the great shows, your Mad Mens, your Game of Thrones; I mean everybody since The Sopranos. The bar has been raised, and you want to bring better and better work all the time,” Peterson explained.

He also described some subtle differences to the way the story is now being told.

“We were cutting a show recently, and the transitions between acts, I think, are, for instance, a little bit more subtle because many people now are going to watch things without commercials. You want to make sure that it plays well for those people as well as somebody who is watching with a three-minute interruption in between the show. You want to cut the shows just slightly different so that it’s seamless, if you’re watching it streaming or if it works with a break in between it.”

Peterson continued, “Back in the day, you’d almost have a recap to remind people what happened in between the three minutes of commercial airtime and now it’s got to be a lot more just continuous.”

It definitely sounds like we’re in for amazing season, and it’s going to be one that allows the show to ultimately return to its roots. We couldn’t be more excited!

Bones airs Thursdays at 8/7c on FOX.