10 TV Shows Like Fox’s Bones Fans Should Binge-Watch Now

If you’re reading this, congrats on having likely finished watching “Bones,” whether it’s for the first or fifth time. The Fox show about a forensic anthropologist (Emily Deschanel), an FBI special agent (David Boreanaz), and the love and rotting skeletons between them is a daunting watchlist prospect, topping out at a whopping 246 episodes, but it’s worth it if you love a good procedural. “Bones” debuted during an arguable high point in crime drama history, premiering in 2005 and wrapping up its lengthy run in 2017. The show isn’t often recognized as particularly groundbreaking, but it certainly (re)started a trend toward forensics-based crime sagas led by partners who make moon eyes at each other every episode.

So what do you do when you finish watching a show this long? If you love TV as much as we do, the answer is naturally to find another show that’ll make you feel the same thrill as “Bones” did. There’s no shortage of investigative dramas on TV, but the list of shows that check some of the same boxes as “Bones” — including dynamic odd couple duos, characters with specialized expertise, an alternately breezy and serious tone, enough episodes to watch until you pass out, and so forth — is a bit shorter. Below, we recommend ten shows that will keep the crime procedural watch party going.

No other show on this list has garnered as many “Bones” comparisons as “Castle,” the ABC series that premiered in 2009 when “Bones” was still extremely popular. The shows have so much in common that, according to Tell Tale TV, David Boreanaz once joked that “Castle” was a “Bones” ripoff — and he wasn’t the only one. The shows had a lot in common at the start, from a pairing featuring a law enforcement official and a by-the-book best-selling author to a will-they-won’t-they romance that was often as captivating at the case of the week. Both shows also alternate between lighthearted procedural elements and sobering plotlines that put the characters in real danger.

Across its eight-season run, “Castle” eventually became its own thing, using the chemistry between stars Nathan Fillion (who played mystery novelist Richard Castle) and Stana Katic (as New York cop Kate Beckett) as the jumping off point for a fully-developed romance and a bunch of zany murder mysteries. Okay, so when I put it that way it doesn’t exactly sound like “Castle” became its own thing, but still: it’s set in New York, not Washington, D.C. Totally different.

If you like your crime dramas with some added Southern charm, try “The Closer,” the TNT series starring Kyra Sedgwick that ran for seven seasons starting in 2005. Sedgwick plays CIA-trained interrogator and famous law enforcement “closer” Brenda Leigh Johnson, who brings a little piece of Georgia to Los Angeles when she begins working as the Deputy Chief of LA’s Priority Homicide Division.

Like many of the shows on this list, “The Closer” was made during the cable TV heyday of uncritical copaganda, so don’t expect it to interrogate the real-life LAPD’s deeply checkered history as much as something like “The Shield.” Still, the series is an absorbing watch thanks largely to Sedgwick’s cool, confident, sassy performance, a strong supporting cast (J.K. Simmons, G.W. Bailey, Mary McDonnell, and “Breaking Bad” actor Raymond Cruz costar), and plenty of memorably climactic storylines. If you dig “The Closer,” it’s worth noting that McDonnell’s character eventually got her own spinoff series, “Major Crimes.”

Adding “Criminal Minds” to a list of police procedurals feels about as basic as recommending extremely long-running franchises like “CSI,” Law & Order,” and “NCIS” (all of which would be perfectly fine “Bones” chasers, by the way), but the show is an undeniable binge-watch favorite. With 17 seasons under its belt and no sign of stopping, the CBS and Paramount+ series about a group of FBI profilers chasing around exceedingly creepy “unsubs” — serial killers and other baddies — is basically a TV institution.

“Criminal Minds” has gone through several casting changes over the years, with Mandy Patinkin, Shemar Moore, Paget Brewster, Joe Mantegna, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Jennifer Love Hewitt all doing some time in or around the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Aside from its endless parade of deranged serial killers and creatively nightmarish crime scenes, “Criminal Minds” is perhaps best known for fan favorite character Dr. Spencer Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler. A young, multi-talented genius who’s on the autism spectrum, Reid is the FBI’s secret weapon and one of the show’s only constants throughout its first 15 seasons. After two years off the air, the show was recently rebranded as “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” which premiered on Paramount+ in 2022.

Nothing hits the spot quite like a modern “Sherlock Holmes” riff. From BBC’s “Sherlock” to Fox’s “House,” aughts and 2010s TV was piled high with playful takes on the classic Arthur Conan Doyle detective. The most underrated version of the era — at least in terms of its pop culture footprint — may have been “Elementary,” a smartly plotted CBS procedural that dug deeper into its central relationship than most “Holmes” adaptations before it. This time around, John Watson became Joan, Holmes’ sober companion played by the always-excellent Lucy Liu. Holmes himself, here played by Jonny Lee Miller, starts the series as a newly recovering addict and NYPD consultant.

“Elementary” keeps everything that makes “Sherlock Holmes” stories great, from detail-oriented investigations with tricky solutions to a complicated, engrossing relationship between its two crime-solving partners. It also spices up the century-plus-old stories with some clever changes, like an added romantic element to the Holmes and Moriarty relationship (Natalie Dormer plays the famed villain, named Jamie this time around). The show earned rave reviews across all seven seasons, ultimately bowing out in 2019.

Dr. Brennan may use her brains to solve mysteries in “Bones,” but the heroine of “iZombie” eats hers instead. Despite its dorky name, the CW series from “Veronica Mars” creator Rob Thomas and writer Diane Ruggiero-Wright is a new cult classic with much more to offer than its wild premise. That premise, though, is worth a mention: “iZombie” follows Liv Moore (Rose McIver), a former medical resident whose life is cut short when a party gone wrong turns her into the living dead. Unlike most cinematic zombies, though, Liv is able to remain fairly incognito and keep her wits about her, and she assumes a job as a coroner in Seattle to maintain a steady supply of brains.

Here’s where things get weird: when Liv eats brains, she can temporarily get inside the mind of the recently deceased, taking on some of their traits and remembering flashes of memories that could help solve their murders. During an era of crime dramas written around increasingly competitive gimmicks, “iZombie” executes a high-concept idea with wacky wonder. On the surface, it doesn’t have much in common with “Bones,” but the show’s five-season run delivers great characterization and relationship development, plus a mix of gross-out science and mystery-solving. Plus, frequent Mike Flanagan collaborator and perennial internet crush Rahul Kohli plays Liv’s bestie.

Crime shows love to make iffy investigative methods sound foolproof, whether they’re inventing crime-fighters who solve mysteries with math (see: “Numb3rs”) or predicting their solutions with a high-powered computer (see: “Person of Interest”). The “human lie detector” idea is a subgenre of its own, and while it’s rarely been done better than in Rian Johnson’s freewheeling recent “Columbo” riff “Poker Face,” one of its best appearances in a more traditional procedural has got to be on Fox’s “Lie To Me.”

“Lie To Me” follows the adventures of body language and microexpression expert Dr. Cal Lightman, played by the inimitable Tim Roth. More an ensemble than a one-man-show, “Lie To Me” follows members of The Lightman Group — Cal’s private investigative practice — as they take on cases ranging from an investigation of the porn underworld to the murder of a federal witness. Like most crime shows, “Lie To Me” can sometimes play fast and loose with its central “science,” but it is inspired by a real (and flashy) method of suspect assessment. With only three seasons to its name, “Lie To Me” is one of the shortest shows on this list, but since it premiered in 2009 when long TV seasons still existed, it still makes for a good-sized marathon watch.

On the other side of the scientific spectrum is “The Mentalist,” a show that uses many of the same “human lie detector” techniques as “Lie To Me” but does so under the guise of the supernatural. The CBS series stars Aussie Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, a fake psychic medium who consults for the California Bureau of Investigation by applying his sharply honed powers of deduction.

Interestingly, “The Mentalist” is only half a procedural. While its first few seasons take a more predictable case-of-the-week format, seasons four through six develop an overarching plot about the serial killer Red John, who murdered Jane’s wife and daughter before the series began. If you were a fan of the “Bones” plotlines that slowly unspooled stories about evasive killers like The Puppeteer and The Gravedigger, you’d dig the way “The Mentalist” approaches its most emotional and rewarding storyline. The show also has serious shipper potential thanks to the steadily developed relationship between Jane and Special Agent Teresa Lisbon, played by Robin Tunney.

To enjoy the USA Network’s beloved quirky crime series “Monk,” you have to forget everything you know is true about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The series about a highly neurotic and obsessive private detective (Tony Shalhoub) is funny, clever, and touching, but it does OCD dirty by portraying it largely as an outrageous, scaredy-cat obsession with cleanliness. Still, early-2000s sins aside, the series is a hoot, and it feels designed for binging. Shalhoub’s Adrian Monk is both the thorn in the San Francisco Police Department’s side and its best asset, and episodes are structured in the breezy, banter-filled way that USA perfected with shows like this one and the final entry on this list. “Monk” does get serious on occasion though, especially when talking about the anxieties underpinning its titular character’s condition and the loss of his late wife.

“Monk” has a solid cast of lovable people who will inspire you to say, “Hey, it’s so-and-so from ‘Monk’!” for the rest of your life. From Bitty Schram’s Sharona to Traylor Howard’s Natalie (both level-headed and intelligent assistants to Monk) to Ted Levine’s police captain Stottlemeyer (who you’ll also know from “Silence of the Lambs”), every member of the ensemble adds something to its strange but effective brew, and the show somehow manages to remain entertaining throughout eight seasons and a recent Peacock movie. The show also won eight Emmys during its run, including three for Shalhoub himself.

If you’ll allow us to push rewind for a moment, your best bet for a 20th century show with “Bones” vibes is going to be “Moonlighting.” To be clear, the one-of-a-kind ABC series couldn’t be more different in tone than its Fox analog, as it dabbled regularly in surreal fantasy sequences and fourth wall breaks. Despite its now-classic status, “Moonlighting” was too weird for some people when it premiered in 1985, but it was kept afloat thanks in large part to the element “Bones” borrowed from decades later: two hot leads with crackling sexual tension.

Bruce Willis stars as David, an initially grating private detective who ends up having a thing for his newest investigative partner, Maddie. Formerly a rich model, Cybill Shepherd’s Maddie loses everything but the detective agency — which she previously bought as a tax write-off — in the show’s pilot, and is forced to go to work there herself. The pair’s relationship is often a lot more caustic than Bones and Booth’s (in the same sexy way that Sam and Diane were at each other’s’ throats in “Cheers”), but they’re the blueprint for pretty much every chemistry-laden crime-fighting duo that came afterwards.

USA Network pretty much cornered the market on fun and frothy procedurals in the aughts, and “White Collar” is no exception. The show that made Matt Bomer a star debuted in 2009 and ran for six seasons, delivering on its original premise of a con man-lawman odd couple teaming up to take down bad guys. Bomer stars as Neal Caffrey, a savvy criminal who evades prison time by striking up a deal with FBI Agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay). Neal works as a criminal informant for Peter, clueing him in to the ins and outs of white collar crime in New York City.

Like “The Mentalist,” “White Collar” isn’t a full-blown episodic procedural for its entire run, and it weaves in more serialized plot points as it goes. It’s also the only show on this list whose bantering duo is made up of two men, though Peters’s wife Elizabeth (Tiffani Thiessen) fills out the third side of the show’s prickly but entertaining relationship triangle. Over the course of the series, “White Collar” covers everything from kidnappings to art heists, but its strong core relationships and light touch make it a good time no matter what the case may be.