Makes no bones about it: Fox's "Bones" uses more than a little movie magic to bring its Washington, D.C. setting to life. The long-running procedural series about forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bunce" Brennan (Emily Deschanel), instinctive FBI Special Agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz), and the love they form 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 federal agencies to the death of a state senator to episode with a very memorable (and very nasty) sniper-related murder.

Despite all the references to Washington DC sprinkled throughout the show, "Bones" was actually filmed on the opposite coast of the North American continent. From the FBI headquarters building to the Jeffersonian Institute (a clear basis for the Smithsonian), the team behind "Bones" recreated artificial versions of East Coast locations over 2,000 miles away from the city that serves as their inspiration and real-life home. .

The vast majority of "Bones" was filmed in Los Angeles, which may be why the show doesn't feature as much bad weather as you might expect for an East Coast story. Most of the DC version of the series has been recreated on Fox's famed lineage in Century City, according to sources like Entertainment Weekly.

“Since Bones is set in Washington, D.C., but filmed in Los Angeles, one of our main challenges was to avoid seeing palm trees or any other signs that we were in Southern California,” the Bones production team told EW in the trivia. completed interview in honor of the series' 100th episode. In the same article, they also noted that the studio sets were so realistic that they became home to some non-fictional animals, including a hungry squirrel named Mr. Sweets (after John Francis Daley's doomed fan favorite character, naturally) and "the most beautiful and friendliest cat of the Fox line".

Even the easily recognizable exterior shots of "Bones" were mostly shot in the greater Los Angeles area, with the Museum of Natural History often filling in for the Jeffersonian. according to TV Insider. According to the site, the Wallis Annenberg Building at the University of Southern California, the current home of the California Science Center, also stood in parts of Jefferson's bone-filled campus. The two buildings are right next to each other in downtown Los Angeles, and you can easily catch a glimpse of them if you go over BMO Stadium (another next-door neighbor) for a concert or sporting event.

One of the main two-parters "Bones" did take place on location, and the cast and crew traveled to the United Kingdom for the premiere of the fourth season. The two-hour episode "The Yanks in the UK" sees Bones lecturing at Oxford and Booth rubbing elbows with 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 introducing romantic rivals for both Booth and Brennan, and for part of the classic "The Butler Did It" conclusion.

However, he is not remembered for the dark English times. “Maybe (we had) 15 minutes of rain the whole time. Deschanel told IGN after filming the episode. "It was a wonderful time and London in the summer when you have good weather (...) there is nothing better." The actor also commented on the town's friendly pub culture, bright summer nights and the throngs of local fans who flocked to watch the scenes on set. "It's very unusual," Deschanel said of the opportunity to briefly move the show from the Fox lineage to another continent, "and believe me, I realized how lucky we were when we were there."

"Bones" is currently streaming on Hulu.