First, I want to think MGK for inviting me to stay on as a guest contributor and all the readers of this blog for a terrifically positive experience. I was nervous, at first, but you’re awesome.
Second, this is Will Entrekin, and I’m cross-posting this entry to my own blog, Will in the World.
This entry concerns House, M.D. I thought that since I had already written about Doctor Who and Supernatural, I really should devote some screentime to my favorite show, especially since I’m so worried about it.
I don’t quite remember when I became a fan of House, but I certainly remember how: my best friend in my writing program at some point, told me I needed to watch it and lent me the first season on DVD. I don’t remember why, nor how it came up, but man, it hooked me right away.
Some background: I was, during college, premed. I got right up to the MCATs before I realized I’m not a doctor, and by then it was late enough that I ended up graduating with a secondary major in science. My primary major was literature, and I did my thesis on the connection between medicine and writing as embodied in the work of Arthur Conan Doyle and William Carlos Williams. Looking back, I think what ultimately made me give it up was realizing that I really couldn’t handle that responsibility. It’s not the blood or the guts or anything; it’s the fear of making a mistake the cost of which would be a life.
I was skeptical when my friend lent me that DVD, but then I started watching the show, and I found I very quickly couldn’t stop. I’d say I’m not sure there’s a better show on television because I’d have a very limited sample set (I haven’t really owned a television in several years), but I know I just kept going, straight on through. I watched the entire first season in a weekend, and then watched most of the second over my first USC winter break, my first Christmas and New Year’s on my own and in LA.
And I loved it.
For anyone not watching; House is less a show about medicine than it is about diagnostics, problem solving, and detective work, and House himself has less in common with, say, Doug Ross (or choose a favorite doctor character) than he has with Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. One can pretty much pick up the series with any episode; most are completely self-contained, and all focus primarily on a single case. With nearly perfect three-act structure in every episode. Plus, House is acerbic, sarcastic, and brilliantly curmudgeonly.
But after last season, I’ve been wondering if he hasn’t limped over the shark.
The first three were mostly terrific, and the third ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger in which he lost his entire team (Omar Epps, Jesse Spencer, and uber-hot Jennifer Morrison). It was set up well enough to be a dramatic development, and season three began first with House on his own, until his boss forces him to hire a new team. In typical House fashion, he basically has a marathon interview with, like, forty applicants. The third season pretty much became survivor in a hospital with House as Jeff Probst, with several odd-ish complications along the way.
I started to notice it most when House used a hunting knife and a wall socket to electrocute himself. I’m not sure how he did it, though; my father is an electrician, and so far as I know (do not try on your own), one needs at least two such implements, one in each slot of a socket, to complete the circuit and get a shock. How he managed to kill himself with just the knife is anyone’s guess (though, I guess, being House, he probably accounted for it), but moreso it took the character to a weird extreme. House is a Vicodin addict, certainly often a prick, and by most accounts self-destructive in some ways, but destructive enough to set aside survival instinct to see if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? It felt very much against character.
I can really only hope that the issues that occurred midway through the season did so for the same reasons that I speculate occurred with Supernatural; that writers’ strike messed up productions several ways to Sunday, and about the only show I’d guess it didn’t affect would have been The Bachelorette and its “reality”-based ilk.
The season ended with the death of a character too prevalent and well developed, over the season, to really be called minor but not really exactly major, either. It seemed to come a bit out of left field, but it did complicate various relationships in the show in a lot of ways.
With a few weeks left before the new season starts, I hope they’ve gotten their act together and pull it off well. I’m interested to see where it goes. The friction between House and Wilson (played by Robert Sean Leonard– Swing Heil!) could be insanely tense, and Laurie and Leonard are two actors I’d love to see holding nothing back while going for each other’s throats. They have as dramatic and amazing a chemistry as Laurie ever had with Fry (and if you haven’t seen A Bit of Fry and Laurie, you must).
I’m also wondering if they’ll ever demonstrate just what Taub actually brings to anything, because so far, I’m not totally clear on his use in the show, and why he’s there.
I’m also hoping to see more of Jennifer Morrison. But that’s kind of an obvious request, probably.
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And, of course, much more of Doctor Cuddy in her Lap-Dancing Cheerleader outfit. For, y’know, purely dramatic and character based reasons.
BTW – I would dearly love to watch an episode of House with an American who had no idea who Hugh Laurie was, and then pop on an episode of Blackadder the Third or Blackadder Goes Forth. Heads, methinks, would explode in a suitably hillarious manner.
I concurr with Mr. J that House needs more Cuddy in a schoolgirl outfit. What better way to bring someone out of a coma?
And I am firm in my belief that everything Hugh Laurie ever learned about playing a lovable asshole was from his time with Rowan Atkinson on Blackadder. I would love for Atkinson to guest as a patient (as Mr. E. Adder) in an episode just so he can show the world who the master of sarcasm is.
An additional problem with the knife-in-the-outlet experiment was that House had already flatlined once — years earlier, during his infarction treatment — and discounted what he saw that time as hallucinations. It’s one thing to screw up characterization, but that’s just plain glaring.
Out of curiosity, would you say the medicine / diagnoses depicted on the show are accurate?
Speaking of Hugh Laurie, did anybody else know he had a book out called The Gun Seller? I was rather surprised, but I bought it. I was hoping for a bit of the Black Adder, I think.
I too would love to see more of Jennifer Morrison – more pounds! That girl needs some meat on her bones. At least they address her almost anorexic look on the show sometimes, but she keeps getting skinnier.
And I love to tell friends who have watched House that I believe Hugh Laurie is our greatest living American actor. I can tell by their reactions how well educated they are.
I recently reviewed his earlier attempt at a sarcastic doctor in “Fortysomething” at Ink19.
http://www.ink19.com/issues/august2008/screenReviews/fortysomething.html
@Tony and Lister: that’s a great idea! What about Fry and Atkinson as an old gay couple? I can only imagine the hi-jinks. And I love when things go all meta!
@Colin: I hadn’t even thought of that. But now that you note it: totally.
@Skemono: I haven’t a clue. But there’s a comics site, Polite Dissent, maintained by a guy who’s either a medical student or an actual doctor who examines the medicine in various media (including comics and movies) for accuracy. It’s really rather good.
@W.E.B>: dude, The Gun Seller is awesome! Such a good book, and way better than it has any right to be. Slightly flawed toward the middle-to-the-end, but utterly hysterical. I hear he’s working on a script of it.
Skemono: Here’s an excellent site for reviews of House from a medical standpoint:
http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html
Many of them come out on the short end of the stick, occasionally in glaring ways. He also writes reviews of medical procedures and depictions in comic books, and it’s never less than interesting.
House itself can get formulaic and I confess to be more worried about what the show’s creative team will do in search of breaking the formula than I am about the formula being perpetuated. It’s a compelling cast (I’m not sure they know what to do with the new ducklings, but I find Amber’s arc in the last season to be enthralling when you watch it again, beginning to end, knowing what’s in store) and a rote by-the-numbers episode is still quite watchable. But when they go for long continuity arcs they fail (Vogler, Tritter) more often than they succeed (Amber, to a lesser degree Stacy), but that could be the difficulty in introducing a character as mustache-twirling villain versus just a relatively-normal person caught in the emotional disaster area that is Princeston-Plainsborough.
*high-fives Will for his excellent taste*
I concurr with Mr. J that House needs more Cuddy in a schoolgirl outfit. What better way to bring someone out of a coma?
Cheers to that!
Seriously, is there a single episode of House where someone doesn’t pass up the opportunity to flash tail?
House itself can get formulaic and I confess to be more worried about what the show’s creative team will do in search of breaking the formula than I am about the formula being perpetuated.
It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario. 8 episodes a season of medical mystery works great at the start of a show, because it gives you an opportunity to get to know the characters and personalities. But eventually, you have to break out, because you run the risk of retread – like the House killing himself a second time thing – that leaves the audience feeling bored.
Breaking out gives you fresh plot and a chance to develop a real story arc – I thought the last three episodes of the last season were right on – but they had to kill someone to make it happen, and that inevitably pisses people off. They just need some happy middle ground. :-p
Haven’t you noticed? Taub had the right diagnosis, or was going in the right direction, in practially every one of the episodes after the strike. It got a little eerie.
So Taub is there to keep things (and by things I mean The Medical Mystery) progressing while House goes Completely Off the Deep End.
Personally, I don’t see the point of Plastic Surgeon Guy.
Taub is Plastic Surgeon Guy. (Kutner and 13 being the other two new Cottages.)
Funny, I am hoping to see even LESS of Jennifer Morrison, because Cameron is SO GODDAMN ANNOYING.
Although, I am not a male and also not a lesbian… so, I admit that what factors into my dislike may be entirely irrelevant to you.
I’m still hoping that Fry gets a guest spot as House’s elder brother, continuing the Sherlock Holmes theme
I stopped watching House around about the time he was having a feud with some policeman, but if Stephen Fry turned up playing an upper class twit that House could talk down to I think I’d probably be obliged to tune in.
Adding Fry, even as House’s brother, would probably be less about making Holmes nod then just a shout-out to the two’s old show. Though I like itbox’s idea of reversing their original roles…
“a character too prevalent and well developed, over the season, to really be called minor but not really exactly major, either.”
Dear -=writing major=-, do you mean a… “supporting character”? I think you probably do.
@Jonathan: sure, that’s one term for it. I tend not to think that way, though; one of the things I most learned in the writing study you mentioned is that one should never treat any character as supporting–all have their own specific motivations and desires. Also, in terms of supporting, I think of the original team, Cuddy, and Wilson; the new team has, so far, seemed more of a gimmick to sustain the show through the writers’ strike than much else.
On other notes, I love these ideas of getting Fry into the show. Particularly itbox’s.
The way you phrased it, though, does sound terribly pretentious and I think that’s what John’s really getting at.
@Andrew: Oh! Geez, really? Sorry. Honestly, I fought with that sentence when I wrote it because I worried it was spoiler-y for anyone who hadn’t seen it. I probably should have avoided it altogether, but then again I thought those last two episodes of season 4 were incredibly weak (“What’s my necklace made of?” “Resin.” ??), and left a bad taste in my mouth, which was a bit of what set in motion my real worrying about the show.
But anyway, yeah. Ouch. I mean, it might be worth noting that one of the reasons I went back to school to become a writing major was that I kinda sucked at it and, well, old habits etc.
BTW – I would dearly love to watch an episode of House with an American who had no idea who Hugh Laurie was, and then pop on an episode of Blackadder the Third or Blackadder Goes Forth. Heads, methinks, would explode in a suitably hillarious manner.
I’ve actually done this. With a canadian, not an american, but I’d expect the result to be roughly the same.
It was actually a fortuitous coincidence. My housemate was watching TV, I was flicking through the channels after an episode of house had finished, and Dish and Dishonesty was just starting. My housemate watched for over 2 minutes before realizing that it wasn’t just someone who looked kind of like hugh laurie. The expression on their face pretty much defined cognitive dissonance.
Though I agree that the show has been getting a little over-the-top lately, I think the worst offending gimmicks are mostly a result of the writer’s strike…trying to keep the audience’s attention and all that. All in all, I think they’ve managed to strike a good balance especially throughout the Amber arc which I found surprisingly moving.
As for the knife-thing…I believe the writers lampshaded the whole “House, you’ve killed yourself before and had, what, two near-death experiences already?” thing in that episode by having Wilson give this exact argument at House when the guy finally woke up after the shock. Also, if memory serves, I think the main reason House shocked himself was NOT to have a near-death experience (that would just be a perk) – it was to persuade the crazed, paranoid suicidal patient that he could trust House. Which is completely insane itself of course, but such is House MD. While it may have been gimmicky, I think it may be less so than you may think.
Course now I have to go back and watch that episode again and make sure I’m not just totally talking out of my ass. I can’t seem to find this episode in particular yet but this site is quite helpful for episode summaries and quotes: http://www.housemd-guide.com/episodes.php
And can someone PLEASE call Stephen Fry STAT and get him on this – I’m going into heart palpitations just thinking about the possibilities!
I was a little confused that you refer to season four as season three repeatedly here.
Personally I thought the low spot came in season three with the subplot about the cop persecuting House. He appeared to have no superiors to have to justify his actions to, and unlimited powers to harass people without any evidence of wrongdoing (what with them not having done anything illegal and all). All building up to a massive anticlimax, where nobody got any comeuppance.
By contrast, I thought season four took an entertaining change of direction, and ended with a strong finale.
@Marionette: ooh, sorry, good call. Yeah, I watch them all at a shot (I think I watched three seasons in a week at one point), so the seasons blurred. Which is why I only vaguely remember the cop in question but the hospital-survivor sticks out. Thanks for pointing that out.
I think the message of season four was No Woman Comes Between House and Wilson.
Nip/Tuck has nothing on the Slashy McSlashalot of those two.
Still, a House/Cuddy romance would be fun, because it gets Lisa Edelstein to wear tight clothing.
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