House MD

I’m usually late getting into a show or a band. I didn’t watch The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or The Wire until years after they went off the air. I just found House MD in May and I’ve been binging on it. It ran from 2004 to 2012. It was one of the most intelligent shows on television. Hugh Laurie did a fantastic job on his show along with the rest of the actors.

Gregory House is a doctor with a horrible bedside manner and that is putting it mildly. He is a genius, mad doctor. House is the head of a diagnostic team that was put together around him. They get the most challenging cases in the hospital and solve them more often than not. On the surface, he has little interest in patients and instead, it is about solving the puzzle of their ailment that draws him in but we see many subtle instances which prove he does have a heart for both his patients and his friends. That is the root of the show that extends not only to patients but to his life and friends. He seems to have Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD).

The writers based the show on Sherlock Holmes and Watson. House could have been a master detective because his ability to read people is incredible. Even the names were common…Holmes-House and his best friend on the show was an oncologist named Wilson who was House’s Watson.

The parallels are very close. Both House and Holmes are drug addicts, and both are tortured musicians. But more fundamentally, House is really a detective show, not a medical show. It’s about solving the cause of mysterious diseases in the face of numerous misdirections (which often turn out to be caused by flaws in human nature) as opposed to solving mysterious crimes.

House goes around the hospital popping Vicodin because he is in constant pain. He suffered a leg injury that left him with severe pain for the rest of his life. The injury was caused by an infarction incurred while golfing. He is cynical, often cruel, but yet undeniably a genius. The actor behind House, Hugh Laurie, openly admitted to experimenting with Vicodin to “get closer to the character.” Speaking about his experience, “I wouldn’t recommend it – we have to be careful. But then again … if you’re not in pain it gives a floaty, pleasurable feeling.”

Although House appears to be uncaring to his patients he will do unethical procedures to save them, risking his own career. That could be to solve the all-important “puzzle” also. He does rub off on people. The team that stays around him starts to become him in some ways. They want to work with him because of how great he is at what he does. He spies on their personal life and tells their secrets but they keep coming back. My theory is they would do anything to be around greatness…and have that rub off.

Lisa Cuddy is the Dean of Medicine in the hospital. She tries to reign in House and that is almost impossible but she is strong and sometimes wins the battle. She makes House do “clinic duty” in the free clinic hoping that will improve his relationship with patients but he actively hates it and tries to dodge it because usually, there is no puzzle. As he said… that job can be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Here are a few clips from the clinic duty. These are not serious cases…but they are funny. Be on the lookout for the lady with an asthma inhaler.

His best friend Wilson is a kind person who is the only friend who can put up with House long term. Wilson is not stupid…he is intelligent and can be manipulative in a way but is not in the same league as House in that department. They are totally different but play college pranks on each other and need each other to be whole in a lot of ways.

The show stays fresh because his team changes through the years but the original team does rejoin at different points. It’s not just about cases…in fact, some episodes don’t even have a case at all.

This is a true ensemble show. Yes, it centers around House but the characters Foreman, Chase, Cameron, Thirteen, Taub, Kutner,  Masters, and more are just as important and you get an insight into their lives as well. You can see them slowly change into House’s logic that “Everybody Lies.”

Medical shows usually bore me but this one kept my attention all the way through. The cases they handle are based on real cases but they are very rare. It’s not a comedy…it’s a drama with comedy thrown in…the writing is second to none. The writers go deep into the characters.

Would you want him as your doctor if you had something terribly wrong with you? Would you care in the end if it was just a puzzle for him to solve or if he cared about you or not? I’ll end it here with just a simple statement…watch this show.

This is a show where you can store up quotes. I used one on the guy who works for me at work when we were both trying to solve a problem together. “I thought I’d get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual.”

The look on his face was priceless.

Here are a few short clips together from the first season.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

25 thoughts on “House MD”

  1. My introduction to “House” came when I turned off the VCR after my kids and I watched Hugh Laurie in “Jeeves and Wooster”. The TV was showing “House”. I called the kids back into the room and asked, “Who’s that?” They stared at the screen for a minute before erupting in wide grins and said “Bertie Wooster!?”. This American doctor was played by the very British Hugh Laurie. This was the first they realized one can fake a “typical” American accent.

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    1. He did do a great American Accent… The director stated he not want a British actor in this…he made that clear but he got Laurie’s cheaply made audition tape and he won him over. He was perfect for it…and you can see Sherlock all over this show.

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  2. I remember hearing of the show when it was on, and that it got quite good reviews but never watched it. Your mentions of it finally got me to track it down on streaming services a week or two back & I have been impressed with the few episodes I’ve seen. He’s a memorable character. I wasn’t a big Sherlock Holmes reader so I didn’t know he was supposed to be sort of a parallel to him.

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    1. After watching the Sherlock movies and the BBC series…two of them…yea it IS just like him. It’s a sophisticated show…and he character is up there with some others as memorable.

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      1. My first introduction to him I guess was a brief bit on ‘Friends’ when he’s sitting beside Rachel on the flight to London, he’s very British in it. But my sweetie knew him from some BBC productions of Jane Austen novels. Actually pretty solid acting of him to be able to pull of an American so well after being so typecast as the Brit he is.

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      2. Benedict Cumberbatch played him most recently on the BBC I think…and I like the 80s series also…it is closer to the books. The newer one is in modern times.

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      3. I believe my stepmom liked that modernized version, but I never saw it. I may have read a book or two of Holmes mysteries, but I can’t remember them specifically. I seem to have gone more for the Agatha Christie mystery books, though Sherlock Holmes is very iconic.

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      4. If you get a chance watch it…it is pretty cool and well written. Just like House…he is an ass at times.

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    1. Yea I did also…just finished it a couple of weeks ago…..he is an ass…a brilliant ass but one all the same. It wasn’t a stupid sitcom for sure…some really good writing.

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  8. Yeah, it is a very good show- House takes no prisoners. If you were on his team you’d need an iron constitution and an impregnable ego. I probably mentioned ‘Blackadder’ too in a past comment, he and Stephen Fry are class A asses, especially in ‘Blackadder Goes Forth,’ and Rowan Atkinson is far more than a mugging Mr Bean.

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    1. To work for him…oh yes but you would put up with a lot…but they put up with his crap to learn…like Chase…he was a punching bag at first. My favorite thing though is when he drugs Wilson…House is a genius with a 12 year old mentality.

      I did see some of their random comedy sketches when you mentioned those one day and loved them. I do knew to see Blackadder… I’ll make a piont of watching that.

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  9. This was a good show. Funny you bring up The Sopranos as we are currently watching it. The last time I watched it was when it originally aired on HBO. Funny enough nothing is on now so why the hell not…

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