With both shows off the air for a couple years now, and going through both of them multiple times (including a current run through Castle), I got to wondering - which show do people prefer? They're both similar shows, one more scientific, one more procedural, but they really played to the same audience. Castle had a pair of great M.E.'s in Lanie and Perlmutter, Bones has a whole staff of forensic anthropologists who do much the same thing, only on another level altogether.

Both shows had great casts and solid writing and directing.

So which show did you prefer? Which one do you prefer now? Do you care? Is this thing on? Hello? Hello??

Bones VS Castle - may the better show win.

I never saw either but they felt in the same vein enough that it doesn't surprise me they're in the same poll. Seems like they'd have similar audiences. Did they ever crossover?

I loved Castle for the first 4 seasons. After that, didn't really care for the show. I don't know if real life got in the way for the 2 main leads, but I just got tired of writers coming up with ways to keep both Castle and Beckett apart.

I watched all 12 seasons of Bones on Netflix before they took it out so although I didn't love it initially like Castle, it ended up being a more enjoyable show for me. However, it had it moments of bad writing too as the show made some of the characters unlikable during its run.

I thought Castle remained a very high quality show up through it's sixth season. I just finished re-watching the sixth season, and if there's a dropoff on the show from the fifth season it's very slight, and the dropoff in quality from the fourth to fifth seasons was even smaller (if there was a dropoff at all).

Bones was really good for years, but around year 7 or 8 they had a season or two where they'd have a good episode, then a really bad episode, then a good episode, then a really bad episode. It was wildly inconsistent. The highs were lower than before, and the lows were painfully low.

When Castle dropped off in quality in seasons 7 & 8 there were still some really good episodes in the mix. The highlights were higher than the highlights of Bones' weak, inconsistent season(s), but the lows were rarely close to the lows of Bones.

Ultimately, I like the characters more on Castle (Beckett and Castle are great, and you can't beat Ryan & Esposito, and Lanie, and Alexis, and Martha, and Montgomery, and Gates, and, hell, even Perlmutter), and the writing for Castle is just a little better, IMO.

A crossover would have worked really well, but having both different production teams AND a different network made that just about impossible. If it had been possible, though, it would have been a great fit and could have been a lot of fun.

I never cared for either of them tbh.

Bones has hotter chicks and I woudn't mind exploring their castle.