Following his long-running role on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel,” where he played a vampire private investigator, actor David Boreanaz got a fresh start in 2005 as another type of investigator on the long-running police procedural “Bones.” There, he played FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth alongside Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan. Together, they served as one of television’s best police duos (and romantic couples) for an impressive 12 seasons.
Like many shows of its kind, from “Law & Order” to “NCIS” and beyond, “Bones” featured regular guest stars and plenty of recurring characters. Notable names like Aldis Hodge, Michelle Hurd, and Bokeem Woodbine showed up in single-episode appearances, while stars like Freddie Prinze, Jr., Cyndi Lauper, and Katheryn Winnick turned up in recurring roles across multiple episodes and seasons.
With such a long run, though, few actors outside of the principal cast were given the opportunity to appear in every one of the series’ 12 seasons. In fact, only one person managed to achieve this feat: prolific character actor Patricia Belcher. She played federal prosecutor Caroline Julian, a confident, no-nonsense lawyer who works in the US Attorney’s office. She shows up in a total of 55 episodes, arriving for the first time late in the show’s Season 1, an appearance that ended up kicking off her run as a recurring character. She may have only participated in a handful of episodes each year, but she ended up being one of the audience’s favorite characters, a stalwart presence who seemed like she was always there, whether you saw her or not.
Patricia Belcher is a frequent TV guest star
Patricia Belcher is described as a prolific character actor, but that description hardly does her career justice. While her time as Caroline Julian is without a doubt her biggest role, with the character appearing in more than 50 episodes, Belcher’s career spans more than those 12 seasons. She got her start on the big screen with a small part in the 1990 horror favorite “Flatliners,” kicking off her career.
But while she has been in some big movies, including “500 Days of Summer” and “Jeepers Creepers,” it’s on television where she made a name for herself. Appearing in single episodes more often than not, Belcher turned up in some of the biggest hits to hit the small screen. In the 1990s, she guest-starred in episodes of “NYPD Blue,” “Who’s the Boss?,” “Seinfeld,” “ER,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Married… with Children,” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The first decade of the 21st century saw her appear on “Ally McBeal,” “Malcolm in the Middle,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “Weeds.” And that’s genuinely just the tip of the iceberg, as she has more than 100 roles on TV alone.
Though her role as Caroline Julian on “Bones” is probably the closest she’s ever come to being a series mainstay, Belcher currently appearing on another series with some regularity. Since “Bones” has ended, she’s has played bothersome neighbor Estelle Dabney on the Disney Channel’s “Good Luck Charlie,” and she had a semi-regular role on the TV Land sitcom “Teachers.” She also had a recurring part on the Disney Channel superhero show “The Villains of Valley View” and a part in the 2023 reboot of “Matlock.”