‘Bones’ season 9 spoilers: Will Ralph Waite’s passing be addressed this season?

Obviously, the TV world is still reeling from the death of Ralph Waite, who has become a titan in the industry thanks to “The Waltons” and a variety of other shows. For “Bones” fans, he is known for the role of Booth’s father, and most-recently appeared at his wedding a little earlier this year.

But will the show honor the late actor this season? This has probably been the most-asked “Bones” question over the past month, and we now have a firm answer to it. Speaking to TV Guide, executive producer Stephen Nathan cites timing as the primary reason why the show is going to wait until season 10 in order to fully touch on the end of the character’s arc:

“We couldn’t really do it justice this season. At this point, we’re under such pressure to finish the year. To rip apart a story and do a half-baked attempt at it seemed to be disrespectful to us … We want to honor Ralph and his existence in our family in the right way, and we’ll try to find a way to do that next year.”

So much of this sort of thing really comes down to if you have the flexibility available to you in order to change scripts around at the last minute, and in the case of “Bones,” the team clearly did not feel that they could do a good enough job in time. Certainly understandable, and the character and Waite will have their moment in the sun at some point most likely in the fall. We know already that Waite will be fully honored on “NCIS” during the season 11 finale, as the team over there was able to change up enough of their script to include Jackson Gibbs into the story.

Do you think that this is the right move for “Bones” to make? As always, be sure to share your thoughts below, and we will have some more news related to the show as it comes out.

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