Watch the House

Now that West Wing is over and done with, I had to find a new show to fixate on. So, I have latched onto House.

House is a show about Dr. Greg House, a brilliant but angry doctor, played by the talented Hugh Laurie. I had seen Hugh in the Black Adder series from his native Britain before, and found him to be a brilliant comedic actor.

In this show he has to be only slightly more serious. House is a doctor who takes the idea of detachment to the extreme - he doesn't even like to meet his patients. He is cynical and bitter, always ready with a stinging witty remark. In short, my kind of guy.

The show itself is not fantastic. The plots are very formulaic - patient comes in with bizarre mystery illness, House and his staff have to deduce from the symptoms what is going wrong, his initial diagnosis is wrong (and often nearly kills the patient), and after cajoling some secret out of the patient or their loved ones, House figures it out and saves them. And at least once per episode they show some gross surgery stuff.

The good part of this show is the interaction between the characters and the dialogue that goes on, with Dr. House always leading the way in biting cynical jokes. Hugh Laurie's lines and performance alone make the show worth watching. Add to that some interesting touches like good music, a decent supporting cast, and clever jokes, and and I have been hooked.

Anyway, enough rambling about the vagaries of my TV watching. Mattbear out.