LOS ANGELES – Temperance and Seeley are the couple we took for granted. We knew they were meant to be together before they did, beamed when they finally gave in to the inevitable, celebrated milestones with them — and then slowly let them drift out of our lives.

Now it's too late. Well, almost too late.

Tuesday evening, the married couple will officially move on when "Bones" — one of the 20 longest-running dramas in network history — airs its series finale.

Despite a 12-year run, Fox's most durable procedural is going out with about as much fanfare as you'd give a goldfish on its second birthday. No retrospective special. No final laps on the talk-show circuit. No commemorative edition from Entertainment Weekly.

On a recent episode of "Billy on the Street," truTV's hilarious series in which New Yorkers are accosted with obscure pop culture references, host Billy Eichner spent four minutes trying to find "Bones" fans to share in his mock dismay over the show's cancellation — with little success.

Emily Deschanel was flattered.

"I thought it was hilarious," said the actress, whose portrayal of Temperance "Bones" Brennan was overshadowed ages ago by little sister Zooey Deschanel's "adorkable" star turn on "New Girl." "It was so fun that he included us, even if we were the butt of the joke. Some people are passionate about the show and others have no idea what it is, which is kind of awesome. Half the people I encounter when I go grocery shopping and stuff don't know who I am, which is nice."

For the uninitiated — or forgetful — we first met Brennan in 2005 as an emotionally distant but savvy forensics anthropologist, recruited by FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to aid in the case of the week. Some 250 corpses later, the pair have gotten married, had two kids and, as of last week, withstood a terrorist explosion that destroyed much of their crime-fighting lab and, possibly, some of Brennan's brain cells.

Near-death experiences are nothing new for the pair.

The series ranked 60th in overall ratings in its first season, a feat that's even less impressive considering it was paired with "American Idol." Still, it resonated well enough among younger viewers to get renewed. There are currently 13 million "Boneheads" on social media. But over its run, it never climbed higher than No. 29 and faced the ax at least twice.

"We were on the bubble all the time," said creator Hart Hanson, who left the series in 2013. "And I was angry all the time. I was calling the network and asking for more promos. I was having huge fights with Preston Beckman [then Fox's executive vice president of program planning], who is not someone you want to fight with."

Over the course of a dozen years, the show changed time slots 11 times. That might have saved it, in fact.

"Every time we moved, I thought, 'This time it will fail,' but it didn't," Hanson said. "People followed us around. In that way, I think it proved to the network that we were bulletproof, although I didn't see it that way at the time."

Critics weren't quite as loyal. In my initial 2005 review of the pilot, I praised the zingers between the two leads and noted Deschanel's "tomboy swagger that young girls everywhere should soon be aping." I've barely mentioned the show since.

Over its long run, it earned only two Emmy nominations, both in technical categories.

Perhaps the tastemakers never forgave Bones and Booth for not being carbon copies of Fox and Mulder, who had ended their original "X-Files" run three years earlier and were still sorely missed. Booth even makes a crack about the comparison in the nostalgia-driven finale, directed by Boreanaz.

Unlike "X-Files," there's no talk of feature film or a spinoff series. An attempt at the latter, 2012's "The Fixer," was yanked after 13 episodes.

That's just fine with Boreanaz.

"I only like to go backwards when I've got ice skates on my feet and I'm playing hockey," said Boreanaz, who recently signed on to play a Navy SEAL leader in a still untitled CBS drama. "In general, I don't like reunions. For me, it's about moving forward."

Deschanel is more open to getting the band back together. But only a little.

"I'd like some time before I would consider that," she said. "It's very emotional to be saying goodbye and then be like, 'OK, we're coming back.' "

njustin@startribune.com

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Twitter: @nealjustin