The World Series is over and, finally, our regularly scheduled programming is returning. Hooray! (Sorry, baseball fans, but unless my team's playing, I'm less than engaged. Blame it on my girl-ness if you need to.) 

So Bones is back. And that's about as exciting an intro as I can muster. To be quite honest, I'm feeling sort of ranty about tonight's episode.

"The Method to the Madness" was no grand slam. Or even a home run. I'm not even sure it was a ground double. Dare I say it, I think we're seeing a lot of strikes in Bones Season 8.

Bones is the kind of show I stick with because I want to see Booth and Brennan. Hodgins and Angela are next in order of importance to me. Then Cam. Finally, Sweets brings up the rear. The revolving door of interns are also important to me, but since Mr. Nigel Murray is no more, the top spot goes to Wendell.

I'm downright annoyed by Fisher. And while I do love Sweets (more than some of the TV Fanatics who read this column each week), I'm growing angry with the focus on him so far.

The emphasis this season has been the reverse of my preferred order of characters and it's starting to irritate me. And yes, I realize it's not all about me, but I suspect I'm not alone in the way I'm feeling about this season.

To center this little rant of mine on this episode, I don't for one second buy mopey Sweets. (Nor do I buy Booth telling him to get a new girlfriend after only breaking up with Daisy two weeks prior, for whatever it's worth.) Living in his office? Pining away like his heart was broken? Not even bothering to try to find a place to live? All of that was rather idiotic and I'm irritated that it took up so much of the episode. That this story line with Sweets has taken up so much of this season.

The case this week bordered on ridiculous. The artisan marketplace felt like a way to promote an agenda much like the previous episode. I don't want my television shows, grounded in fiction, to become political statements. Not even Scandal tackles political and social issues head on like this and it's a show about politics.

Figuring out the whodunit of the applesauce-entrepreneur-turned-prostitute who, as it turns out, died by accident was both tired and tiring and gave too much screen time to Fisher and his macabre ways. Oh, look! He's channeling Jack the Ripper to read the bones! And he's made giddy by discussion of human sacrifices! Really?

This show used to keep me on the edge of my seat. Now it barely keeps my interest for an hour.

These characters, Booth and Bones, who, if they were real people, definitely deserve to be happy, are the heart of the show and they've been relegated to supporting cast members in a show about them. So if this is a series about them, where are the stories about Booth and Bones?

Booth and Bones' interactions center on discussions of parenting and the cost of applesauce or the end-of-episode sexual innuendo. They have nothing else to do. I've said it before, but it's as if the writers decided that if Booth and Bones are happy they can't also be interesting.

Give me Gormogon or the Gravedigger! Is an over-arching story line for this season about Sweets' love life or lack thereof really the best the writers can do?

Where is the drama? Where is the intrigue?

I can tell you one thing's for sure. It's not in what we've seen of season 8. Hopefully, Pelant's return will help save this season and return this show to its former glory.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Or is Bones a shadow of itself these days?

Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.