February 10, 2011

The Sin in the Sisterhood

The most recent episode of Bones ("The Sin in the Sisterhood") features a plot taken straight out of Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist: Fundamentalist Mormon with three wives has an affair and ends up dead (okay, not that last part). Booth and Brennan also go out of their way to distinguish between polygamous Mormons and the mainline church. The handful of Mormon-specific references are used correctly.

This is the second time Bones has used "Mormon" material, which leads me to believe they've got a Mormon writer, or are plugged into a realiable Mormon source. Okay, it only affects a tiny fraction of the audience, but that tiny fraction of the audience appreciates a serious attempt at verisimilitude. Though it may be invisible to everybody else, any kind of writing is improved by getting the little details right(er).

Like the old "Engineer and the Guillotine" joke, when encountering bad anti-Mormon material (whiny, repetitiously dull, making arguments no actual Mormon cares two figs about), I'm often seized by the desire to volunteer to write them some good anti-Mormon material.

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