Where was Bones filmed? An explanation of all the main filming locations

Make no mistake: Fox’s Bones uses more than a little movie magic to bring the Washington, D.C. setting to life. The long-running procedural series about geeky forensic anthropologist Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel), instinctive FBI special agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz) and the love they spark while looking at rotting human remains is a quintessential DC show. It has everything you’d expect from a story set in the US capital, from the shenanigans of a federal agency to the death of a state senator and an episode with a very memorable (and very unpleasant) murder involving a sniper.

Despite all the references to Washington, D.C. sprinkled throughout the show, Bones was actually filmed on the opposite coast of the North American continent. From the FBI headquarters building to the Jefferson Institution (an obvious stand-in for the Smithsonian Institution), the team behind “Bones” recreated faux versions of East Coast locations more than 2,000 miles from the city that serves as their inspiration and real-life home.

The vast majority of Bones was shot in Los Angeles, so perhaps the series doesn’t have as much bad weather as you’d expect from a story set on the East Coast. According to sources such as Entertainment Weekly.

“Since ‘Bones’ is set in Washington, D.C., but filmed in Los Angeles, one of our main challenges was not to see any palm trees or any other indication of being in Southern California,” the Bones production team told EW of the details. : a full interview in honor of the show’s 100th episode. In the same article, they also noted that the studio’s sets were so real that they became home to some non-fictional creatures, including a hungry squirrel named Mr. Sweets (after fan favorite John Francis Daly, naturally) and “the prettiest and friendliest cat on the Fox lot.”

Even the easily recognizable exterior shots of “Bones” were taken in much of Los Angeles, where the Museum of Natural History often stood in for the Jefferson Institute according to TV Insider. According to the site, the University of Southern California’s Wallis Annenberg Building, which now houses the California Science Center, also replaced part of the bone-filled campus of Jefferson. The two buildings are right next to each other in downtown Los Angeles, and you can easily see them if you pop over to BMO Stadium (another neighbor) for a concert or sporting event.

One of Bones’ big two-parters did take place on location when the cast and crew traveled to the UK for the season four premiere. The two-hour episode of “Yankees in Great Britain” shows Bones giving a lecture in Oxford while Booth talks to Scotland Yard detectives. However, their escape turns serious when an American heiress is found dead in the River Thames. The episode is best remembered for the introduction of romantic rivals Booth and Brennan, and the classic “the butler did it” ending to the first episode.

However, he was not remembered by the gloomy English weather. “We might have (had) 15 minutes of rain the entire time,” Deschanel told IGN after filming the series. “The weather was lovely and in summer in London when the weather is good (…) there is nothing better.” The actor also commented on the city’s friendly pub culture, bright summer nights and crowds of local fans who flocked to watch the shoot. “It’s very unusual,” Deschanel said of being able to briefly move the show from the Fox location to another continent, “and believe me, I realized how lucky we were when we were there.”

“Bones” is streaming on Hulu now.