NBC’s 6-Season Crime Procedural Is the Perfect ‘Bones’ Replacement

Published Nov 9, 2026, 11:57 PM EST

Giovana Gelhoren is a High-Trending Topics Writer at Collider, covering the most-talked-about stars, movies, and TV shows. Before joining Collider, she was a Digital News Writer at People Magazine and served as Associate Editor at SheKnows, where she honed her expertise in celebrity coverage and entertainment journalism.

A proud Latina from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Giovana graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and International Studies. She has interviewed countless celebrities, including Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brenda Song, and is known for her encyclopedic knowledge of film, TV, and pop culture.

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For 12 riveting seasons, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz solved crimes and lit up the screen in the beloved crime show Bones. The series, which first aired back in 2005, was a true testament to the power of procedurals; a formula that works and keeps viewers locked in season after season. But before Bones ever made it to the air, there's another series that follows a similar premise, and is equally a must-watch. Starting in 2001, NBC aired Crossing Jordan, another crime drama with a forensic pathologist at the center, and unexpected crimes and mysteries at every turn.

What Is 'Crossing Jordan' About?

Crossing Jordan, created by Tim Kring, follows Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh (Jill Hennessy), an unorthodox forensic pathologist in Boston who's so determined to solve her cases, she's not afraid to ruffle some feathers. In each episode, she launches hard-core, in-depth investigations into each crime and becomes obsessed with finding the truth. But while her determination and stubbornness make her great at her job, it often ticks off the cops or her co-workers.

COLLIDERInteractive

Five wards on call

TV/Medical Drama/Shift Assignment

Collider · TV Medicine Which Fictional Hospital
Would You Work Best In? Eight questions · five wards · one assignment

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television: brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for, and eight questions will work out exactly where you belong. Wards accepting

PTMCThe Pitt

CGHER

GSMGrey's Anatomy

PPTHHouse

SHHScrubs

Find your hospital

Rhythm strip01 / 08

Question 01 of 08APPROACH

01 A critical patient comes through the door. What is your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you really are.

AStay completely present. Block everything else out and work it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate. Get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move. I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring. What is the thing that does not fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, then get to work. Panic helps nobody.

← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance

Next

Rhythm strip02 / 08

Question 02 of 08MOTIVATION

02 Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you would give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most, right at the edge, when a life is on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it: the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is, and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference, and also, honestly, I did not know what else to do.

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Next

Rhythm strip03 / 08

Question 03 of 08COLLEAGUES

03 What do you want most from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm. I need people who do not fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability. When I pass something off I want to know it is handled. CConnection. I want colleagues who become family, even when that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged. People who just agree with me are useless. EFriendship. People I like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are happening anyway.

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Next

Rhythm strip04 / 08

Question 04 of 08LOSS

04 You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who has worked a long shift has had to answer this one.

AI carry it. All of it. I do not look for ways to put it down, because that weight is part of doing this honestly. BI process it and move. You have to, or the next patient pays for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me. Nobody is supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision, not to punish myself, but because I need to know what I missed. EI grieve it, find something unrelated to laugh about, and try to be kind to myself. Imperfectly.

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Next

Rhythm strip05 / 08

Question 05 of 08STYLE

05 How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present. No small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable. Not the flashiest in the room, but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic. Brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult. Right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating. Not the most intimidating presence, but good at this and easy to like.

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Next

Rhythm strip06 / 08

Question 06 of 08RULES

06 How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling. I follow it until the patient needs something it cannot give. BI respect it. The system is broken in places, but the structure exists for a reason and I work inside it. CI follow it until my instincts say otherwise, and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause trouble. DRules are for people who have not thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do, with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

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Rhythm strip07 / 08

Question 07 of 08TOLL

07 What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What is yours?

AEverything outside these walls. I gave this job my full attention and the rest of my life went around it. BMy idealism, mostly. I came in believing the system could be fixed and I made a complicated peace with that. CStability. My personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that is not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships. I am not easy to know, and the people who tried would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity. I use humor as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

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Next

Rhythm strip08 / 08

Question 08 of 08PURPOSE

08 At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this one is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it is real. Nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients. Individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with. I have walked through impossible things with them and I would do it again. DThe next unsolved case. There is always another puzzle, and I am not done yet. EBecause despite the exhaustion, the loss and the absurdity of it, I love this job.

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Reveal my hospital

Assignment madeYou belong in

PTMC · Admitted The Pitt Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center This ward asks whether you can stay in the room for the whole shift, and come back tomorrow.

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has shown, the one that puts you inside a single long shift and does not let you look away. You need your work to be real rather than romanticized, and you find your purpose inside the work itself rather than in the chaos around it. You have made peace with a job that takes from you constantly and gives back in ways that are harder to name. What this ward asks of you

• Meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
• The discipline to stay present when the department is at its worst.
• A tolerance for weight that does not get put down at the end of the day.

From the Collider file

• Each episode covers roughly one hour of the same emergency-department shift, in order.
• Noah Wyle has now won the lead drama actor Emmy for it twice, in 2025 and again in 2026.
• It reunites the ER team of Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, thirty years on.

Fully present No romance Built to endure

CGH · Admitted ER County General Hospital, Chicago This ward asks whether you can hold the line long enough for the next person to take it.

You are the one who keeps the whole floor moving. Not the most brilliant in the room, possibly the most essential. You show up, do the work, absorb the losses and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is. You care about patients as individual people rather than as cases to solve or dramas to live inside, and you believe in the system even on the days it fails you. What this ward asks of you

• Reliability above brilliance, every single shift.
• Faith in a structure that is visibly imperfect.
• The stamina to treat the hundredth patient like the first.

From the Collider file

• Fifteen seasons and 331 episodes, from 1994 to 2009, created by Michael Crichton.
• It holds the record for the most Emmy nominations of any drama series, with 124.
• George Clooney, Julianna Margulies and Noah Wyle all broke out of County General.

Shows up Endurance Patient first

GSM · Admitted Grey's Anatomy Grey Sloan Memorial, Seattle This ward asks whether you can do the work with your whole self in the room.

You came to medicine with everything you have, your ambition, your feelings, your relationships and your history, and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door. You form deep attachments to the people you work with, and your personal and professional lives stay permanently, chaotically tangled. That tangle drives both your worst disasters and your most remarkable saves, because you understand that extraordinary medicine often happens where clinical skill meets human connection. What this ward asks of you

• A willingness to feel all of it rather than seal any of it off.
• Colleagues who become family, with everything that costs.
• Comfort with mess, in the OR and everywhere else.

From the Collider file

• Shonda Rhimes' series passed ER to become the longest-running primetime medical drama on US television.
• It is on season 22, with ABC having already renewed it for a twenty-third.
• Ellen Pompeo has played Meredith Grey across three decades of television.

Feels everything Found family Beautifully messy

PPTH · Admitted House Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital This ward asks whether you can be right when everyone in the room needs you to be wrong.

You are drawn to the problem above everything: the symptom that does not fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one. The patient as a person is not your first motivation, though you are capable of caring more than you would admit. You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong. Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary and impossible mind, and everyone near it is there because they can keep up. What this ward asks of you

• Thinking harder than anyone else in the room, then defending it.
• A high tolerance for being disliked while you are right.
• Interest in the puzzle that outlasts your interest in being comfortable.

From the Collider file

• Eight seasons built on Sherlock Holmes: House and Holmes, Wilson and Watson, and an apartment at 221B.
• Hugh Laurie taped his audition in a hotel bathroom in Namibia while shooting another film.
• By 2008 it was the most-watched television show on earth, with an audience around 82 million.

Chases the puzzle Difficult on purpose Usually right

SHH · Admitted Scrubs Sacred Heart Hospital, California This ward asks whether you can hold the tragedy and the absurdity at the same time.

You understand that medicine is devastating and ridiculous in roughly equal measure, and that the only sane response is to carry both at once. You are warm, self-aware and funnier than most people in your field. You use humor to get through terrible moments, which at Sacred Heart is a survival strategy rather than a flaw. You lean on the people around you and let them lean back, because here the laughter and the grief are inseparable. What this ward asks of you

• Humor that never curdles into cruelty.
• The honesty to admit you are still learning how to do this.
• People you can lean on, and the willingness to be leaned on.

From the Collider file

• Nine seasons from Bill Lawrence, filmed largely inside a real decommissioned hospital in North Hollywood.
• Working doctors have repeatedly named it the most accurate medical show on television.
• Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke returned for an ABC revival that premiered in February 2026.

Laughs to cope Still learning Leans on people

Shift report · your top three

1

2

3

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Chart signed byCOLLIDERCollider.com · The TV Desk

Beyond the cases, Jordan has a checkered past of her own, and has walls up to protect herself from doing any more damage. In fact, her driving force in the series is the one crime she's never been able to solve: her mother's murder when she was a child. In addition to Jordan, the show also features her sarcastic yet disciplined boss, Chief Medical Examiner Garrett Macy (Miguel Ferrer); Assistant Medical Examiner Nigel Townsend (Steve Valentine), who is just as passionate about his job as Jordan, but with an eccentric edge; and Detective Woody Hoyt (Jerry O’Connell), a Boston PD detective who serves as the total opposite to Jordan on the field, which ends up sparking a romantic connection between them.

Crossing Jordan, much like other procedurals like Law & Order: SVU or NCIS, saw many soon-to-be Hollywood stars at the beginning of their careers. Among them were Kathryn Hahn as later recurring character Dr. Lily Lebowski, Mahershala Ali as Medical Examiner Dr. Trey Sanders, and Leslie Bibb as Detective Tallulah Simmons. Some notable guest stars throughout the seasons include Josh Duhamel, Sebastian Stan, and the late Chadwick Boseman.

'Crossing Jordan' Is Darker and Edgier Than 'Bones'

While the premise alone might have viewers thinking that Crossing Jordan and Bones are shockingly similar, think again. While both TV shows have a female forensic expert in the lead, they differ in tone, focus, and narrative. For starters, while Bones, despite the crimes and dead bodies, still manages to be lighthearted, with humor and an exciting chemistry between Booth (Deschanel) and Brennan (Boreanaz), Crossing Jordan is much more somber and emotionally raw. Instead of seeing investigations as exciting puzzles, the show doesn't shy away from portraying the reality of the deaths, and the feelings of guilt, grief, and morality that come with them.

The more realistic and less chipper tone is reflected in every aspect of the show, including the unstable dynamic between Jordan and her team. While Bones thrives by showing the forensic team as a well-oiled machine and chosen family, Crossing Jordan has the forensic team often at odds, creating friction between characters and highlighting Jordan's emotional and biased tendencies by doing so. The same goes for Jordan's relationship with Woody, which, instead of being Booth and Brennan's enticing slow-burn, portrays their relationship as flawed, turbulent and divisive.

Therefore, while NBC's Crossing Jordan is certainly a great replacement for Bones fans looking for another bingeworthy procedural, the show is singular in its own way. With an erratic and impulsive lead, the TV show follows crimes and investigations with a twist, seeing the protagonist work through her own struggles, move past her mistakes and find the truth, no matter how much it costs her. Crossing Jordan has a darker edge to the classic procedural, but it's well worth the watch.

Cast

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  Jill Hennessy

  Jordan Cavanaugh

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  Garrett Macy

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  Steve Valentine

  Nigel Townsend

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  Ravi Kapoor

  Mahesh 'Bug' Vijay