House

4. House

If I would have ranked the third season of House sometime in December I am not even sure if it would have cracked the top 10. Yes that is a bit of an exaggeration but the point is that I hated both of the overarching storylines that flowed through the first half of the season. I had no faith that the House can walk would have any long-term repercussions and then it got even worse when Tritter showed up and wouldn’t leave. Still, the House format is so good that once they got back down to business the second half of the season is as good as anything that they have done so far.

My enjoyment of House is a shock even to myself. I hate these types of shows. Patient is introduced, House acts mean, no answers, House acts mean, no answer, House acts mean, no answers, House figures it out and saves the day while being mean. Yet every episode kicks ass. You may know what is going to happen next but it is the character interactions that make the whole thing worthwhile. Hugh Laurie is a machine. It may seem that he is just being a dick but he is always able to show the machinations of House’s mind. Plus I am always in favor of mean bastards playing the hero. It’s just the kind of guy I am. Hugh may be doing the majority of the work, but the rest of the cast has made the supporting characters just as fun. Robert Sean Leonard has always been on the money with Dr. Wilson. He is the perfect foil to House. I am unsure if anyone would continue to be a House’s friend after everything that has gone on between them, but it works for the show. Dr. Cuddy is another perfect foil to House. This one is different because Lisa Edelstein gets to be sexually harassed in every single conversation. Not entirely sure if that is good for the workplace environment. Finally that leaves the minions. House the show and House the character would never be the same without the three of them there to take his shit. Omar Epps has been a consistently strong House Jr. since the beginning. Jennifer Morrison was fine in season 3 but it seems that after being at the front of the three for the first 2 season she was more in the background this year. While Cameron may not have been getting as much screen-time, Jesse Spencer’s Chase was finally given a chance to shine and he took it. Everyone was clicking by the end of the season.

Time to get into more detail about the 3rd season. Like I wrote earlier, the first batch of episodes amounted to nothing. The patients and the discovery the of the illness or disease or whatever is never the problem. But having House walk without pain was something that you just knew was not going to stick. The reset button was hanging over each episode like the Sword of Damocles. Thankfully this wasn’t drug out for too long, then again anything more than one episode would have been too long. But once it finally ended I had hopes that House would get back on track, those hopes were stupid and I should have been shot. David Morse’s Tritter, in a bit of trick casting since he played a cop, appeared in the 5th episode and got a thermometer left in his ass for his troubles. He would then go on to annoy the piss out of me until the 11th episode. The whole damn storyline was unbelievable and would not go away. A detective would not be allowed to shut down a hospital over his obsession. And at the same time everyone who works with House should be shot for the thinking the man would act any other way. This is one of the few times that a show pressing the reset button was the greatest moment in television history. Christ, why couldn’t they have brought back Chi McBride instead? Once House got past all the crap, every episode after Tritter was awesome. There were some classics to be found; chick that can’t feel pain, House faking brain cancer to get painkillers injected directly into his brain, Foreman stabbing children with needles, etc. I even liked the Foreman quits being a House lackey story even if I don’t believe the ending of the season for a second. There is no show without the minions.

There was no real deterioration of quality on House for the 3rd season. The issues that were there in the beginning were fixed by the halfway point if the season and it was all smooth sailing from there on in. Because of the slip-up to start the year, this will not go down as the best season ever but it still rocked. Hugh Laurie is still one of the best actors on television and there are still great stories to be told using the House format.