A CBS Show Accidentally Plagiarized an Episode of ‘Bones’
After decades of TV detectives donning shades and hacking mainframes, a few shows were bound to repeat themselves. That said, an eerie similarity between CBS’ Instinct and an old episode of Bones has fans crying foul, and even the producer has apologized.
The show in question is CBS’ Instinct, a freshman procedural in which Alan Cumming plays an ex-CIA officer helping the NYPD. Sunday’s third episode featured the story of an Amish teen killed in the city, after which detectives realize from items in his room that he played the piano. If that sounds familiar, it might be because you saw near of the exact same story in a 2009 episode of Bones, “The Plain in the Prodigy.” Bones Twitter (if there is such a thing) quickly pointed out the similarity to Instinct producer Michael Rauch, who acknowledged the error and apologized to Bones creator Hart Hanson (via Entertainment Weekly):
For his part, Hanson appeared to take the similarity in stride:
Having never seen an episode of either series, I’m confident that twelve seasons of Bones could produce other uncanny similarities with TV shows past and present; it just happened this time that three or four key details lined up. We’ll see if the writing staff acknowledges any deliberate or unconscious reference to Bones, so stay tuned.
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