David Boreanaz

Series television ain’t easy. The characters have to remain consistent and the story line cohesive from week to week, yet each episode has to be different while playing off the show’s unifying themes.

In short, it’s its own peculiar art form, and for an idea of how it’s done look no further than this week’s episode of "Bones" at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WFLD Channel 32.

This is a very fine, very admirable series - nothing flashy, but with an almost effortless sense of grace, which is a rare quality in television (and especially rare on the Fox network). Now midway through its second season, it stars David Boreanaz, a series veteran from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and his own spin-off, "Angel," and Emily Deschanel, a relative newcomer who projects a stunning beauty without even thinking twice about it.

They play FBI agent Seeley Booth and forensics academic Dr. Temperance Brennan, whom Booth has dismissively nicknamed "Bones" for her area of expertise. See, Booth is a gritty G-man, and he has little patience for "squints" - pedantic experts called in to aid with cases. Even so, the two respect each other as colleagues, and they have a tangible sexual chemistry, although thus far they’ve refused to act on it. What they share is a fondness for their work - and for working together.

This all comes into play in Wednesday’s episode, "The Boneless Bride in the River," which finds Brennan on vacation with Eddie McClintock’s FBI agent Sullivan, a colleague of Booth’s who took a shine to her when he briefly replaced him following a testy case earlier this season. In fact, Booth is still seeing a therapist to deal with the emotional aftermath.

Brennan gets called in on the case of a woman’s body discovered entirely deboned. Yet that gives her an out. "No bones, no Bones," she says. She goes back to vacation on Sully’s boat. Yet more evidence is uncovered, and Booth comes knocking while the boat is rocking.

"We got a bone," he says.

"Tell me about it," replies Sully, unamused.

There are a couple of things of note here. First, "Bones" might be about gruesome murder investigations, but it has a much lighter, more playful, less ponderous touch than any of the "CSI" or "Law & Order" series. Boreanaz and Deschanel have a lovely sparring interplay, and they’re not the only ones allowed to crack wise. Brennan’s colleagues at the Jeffersonian Institute have their comic moments as well. Similarly, Boreanaz makes it plain Booth feels pangs about Brennan’s new relationship, but he doesn’t go in for any macho posturing. Again, there’s a light touch. When he first hears Sully has bought a boat, he tells Brennan, "Next thing you know, he’ll be shipwrecked and talking to a volleyball."

Yet, when Sully decides he’s leaving the FBI to cruise the Caribbean and invites Brennan to go with him, it’s no laughing matter. "There is more to this life than corpses and murder," he tells her. "If you do this too long, you get warped."

While a cynical viewer might dismiss the idea of one of the stars leaving the series, Brennan’s co-workers do not. "You have been working every day since I met you," says Michaela Conlin’s Angela. "It’s time to let another part of you out in the sun." Even Booth - yes, Booth - tells her she should go.

I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I am going to point out that what’s interesting - and elegant - about this episode is the way it all comes together. If Booth makes a play for Brennan - and in his own way he does - it’s by luring her back to work, again and again, from the more frivolous pleasures to be had with Sully.

The mystery revolves around a Chinese ritual in which the bones of a man and a woman are buried together so that they’ll both have companionship in the afterlife. Some might call that a highly unlikely - if not slightly racist - motive for murder, but look at what the show does with it. While Brennan is mulling what to do, she finds herself alone in her lab looking at the two sets of bones as they’re laid out side by side on examination tables: the symbol of romantic union in the setting of her workplace.

"Bones" doesn’t draw any attention to how clever or even poignant that is. It observes Brennan in the moment and goes on, letting the viewer draw his or her conclusions.

The Italians have a word for something done with effortless ease: "disinvoltura." "Bones" is one of the few TV shows I can think of to display that highly admirable quality. Sometimes, even your Friendly Neighborhood TV Critic has to remind himself that, for all the hype exerted over groundbreaking shows like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire," "South Park" and "The Riches," the subtle pleasures of a well-made TV series are their own reward, make no "Bones" about it.