I'm just getting through Season 6 and it seems like there is a bookend episode every couple of episodes. Personally, I do not care for them---I like to follow JB Fletcher around, and if she's not there the story isn't as interesting and feels very generic to me.

Also, I often get the feeling that these bookend episodes were "back-door pilots," meaning that they were setting up kooky characters for their own possible series. My instinct is to just skip over the bookends....

I agree with you for the most part. I do like some of the episodes but most of them fell flat.