The sixth season of Bones returns Thursday, September 23 at 8pm on FOX, and it’s every bit as good as you want it to be. While I will be careful to avoid any major spoilers about what happens in the episode, cleverly titled “The Mastadon in the Room,” here are five reasons you should definitely tune in.

The Twist

At the end of season 5 Booth and Brennan went their separate ways and promised to meet back at the reflecting pool in one year. That doesn’t exactly happen.

The Cell Phone Skank

If you’ve read any spoilers, you may know that Booth does not return from Afghanistan empty-handed. He spends a lot of time showing off a picture of his new lady on his cell phone and it will leave every true Bones fan begging to rip that phone out of his hands and break it into a million pieces.

The Squinterns

As much as I was looking forward to finding out what happened to the team after they went abroad, I was also curious and the team of interns, from Vincent Nigel-Murray to Wendell Bray and everyone in between. Luckily, in the premiere, we learn where they all are.

Sweet’s New Look

For the most part everyone on the team looks exactly like they did at the end of season 5, except for Dr. Sweets. His experimentation with facial hair is interesting and, by the end of the premiere, it actually grew on me.

Booth and Parker

Everywhere you turn in the premiere there are references to parents and their children, particularly in the main case where the team has to identify the remains of a child. As much as I love the romantic Booth, watching him be a dad to Parker is even better. There’s one scene between Booth and his son, Parker, eating breakfast that may not be integral to the plot, but it will certainly melt your heart and helps to show why Booth is so darn perfect.

There are plenty of other twists and turns in the premiere, but the big takeaway is that everything is very familiar, yet a little different. Jumping forward in time and splitting the team up for a while was a great way to make everything seem a little new and exciting, so it might take a few episodes to get back into the swing of things, but for now, taking a break from the procedural elements of the show puts the characters front and center.

(Image courtesy of FOX)

John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire DiariesSupernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.