The other night I watched the latest episode of the television show Bones and was surprised to see a substantial product integration by none other than the soon-to-hit-theaters James Cameron epic movie Avatar. It started off pleasantly, but then degraded, in my opinion, into an hour-long commercial for the movie. It got to the point that I wondered which plot I should be following, the movie one or the show’s.

Bones on Fox

Now, I realize that James Cameron is a big shot (there were two separate articles about him and the movie in the most recent issue of Wired magazine, for example), and that the movie is being released by Fox sibling 20th Century Fox, but really? It felt over the top to me. There were times where they could have stopped, having gotten their impressions and audience engagement, but instead they chose to go on and give us too much of a good thing.

Avatar Movie

Anyway, take a look at the show on the Fox website or on Hulu (it’s episode nine from season five, “The Gamer in the Grease”) and see what you think. Perhaps I’ve just lost it, but if it weren’t because I was able to fast-forward through the commercials, I would have watched more commercial messaging than program content. I’m all for product integration as a way to help pay for good content we get “for free” on television, but I’m also for restraint thereof.