`BONES' GOES FINE WITH HIT `HOUSE'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

BE PATIENT with ``Bones'' in its opening minutes this evening, as it indulges in the usual attention-grabbers a network-TV pilot invariably must in order to hold its audience (or, at least, the crass executives who'll greenlight it). It'll eventually be worth it.

We're treated to the spectacle of a sassy, attractive woman ripping open her blouse to get an airline employee's attention, not to mention cavalier treatment of a moldering human skull.

The principles - Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute, and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz, late of ``Angel'') - meet hostile rather than cute, even though they've dealt with one another in the past.

Making amends, Booth allows her to participate in all facets of a murder investigation, not just the forensic research - the only duties with which ``squints,'' as he dubs scientists, are usually entrusted. ``We're Scully and Mulder,'' he tells her.

``I don't know what that means,'' replies Brennan, who we learn is also a pop-novelist and ``one of the Jeffersonian's most valuable assets.'' As tonight's episode unspools, however, the two invade one another's personal space quite cozily during a number of discussions, suggesting Brennan and Booth will be getting even cozier much sooner than Scully and Mulder did on ``The X-Files.''

Otherwise, ``Bones'' is just another variation on the ubiquitous crime procedural, only involving crimes in which precious few remains are available of the victims, necessitating sci-fi science - that saucy bodice-ripper (Michaela Conlin) has invented a gadget that creates holographic versions of the victims based solely on their bony remains.

Tonight's episode offers a Chandra Levy-type mystery involving the skeleton of a long-missing young woman who was a senator's lover. Overall, ``Bones'' is competent in the crime-busting stuff, but the real draw here is Deschanel and Boreanaz, who essay clever, nicely drawn characters who ooze chemistry as they deliver series creator Hart Hanson's smooth dialogue.

It's a more than serviceable lead-in for ``House,'' the sharply written and solidly performed medical drama that last season became a late bloomer, ratings-wise, emerging as Fox's first bona fide hit out of ``American Idol.''

Hugh Laurie deserves an Emmy for his work last year as Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant - and brilliantly acerbic - physician who has little use for protocol and most of the rest of the human race. House pops Percodan like so many Pez, ostensibly to lessen the pain in his bum leg, but mainly to alleviate all the rest of the misery in his life, but he's a genius at divining the causes of the most bewildering of medical maladies.

Last season ended with House's former lover Stacy Warner (Sela Ward) getting hired, while her ailing husband undergoes therapy, as legal counsel at his hospital, House's gruff bedside manner apparently inviting many lawsuits. It seems a bit of a hokey device to generate both friction and frisson for a show that generally tries to eschew rote drama, but her character barely figures into the first two episodes of the season.

Tonight, House tilts at the ultimate windmill - trying to save the life of a Death Row inmate (played by LL Cool J) - with a minimum of preachiness, and that essentially consigned to a colleague's cheeky observation that the way to end the capital punishment debate is to ``kill more white people.'' Next week, he comes to the aid of a young cancer victim, prompting him to grouse that all said patients are predictable in being invariably cherubic and courageous; none are ever bratty and whiny.

Week in and week out, Laurie's character's tortured wit makes the show always worth watching. Yet ``House'' manages a feat almost as heroic as those young cancer victims - it assumes its viewers are smart and treats them to high drama that's simultaneously bracingly comic and unnervingly moving.

David Kronke,[phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

BONES - Three stars

What: Crime procedural featuring the efforts of a ``forensic anthropologist,'' who helps the feds solve crimes with a shelf life too dated for the average CSI-er.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 8 tonight.

In a nutshell: Solid storytelling elevated by the performances of and chemistry between stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz.

HOUSE - Four stars

What: Second-season premiere of the snarky medical hit starring Hugh Laurie.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Both hilarious and heartbreaking, this could be network TV's best current series.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz have chemistry to spare, adding interest to the forensic procedural ``Bones.''

(2) The acerbic Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie, left) tries to save a Death Row inmate (LL Cool J) tonight on ``House.''