Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Continuing our TV theme, let’s talk about the House season premiere.

My love for House knows no bounds.  I was hooked all the way back on the first episode, when this happened:

House begrudgingly reports to the clinic desk on Dr. Cuddy’s orders.

House:  You know, it looks like we’re running a little low on Q-tips.  If you want, I could run home and-

Cuddy:  (Glancing at House’s cane.)  No you couldn’t.

House is in many ways the polar opposite of Heroes.  House may be an extraordinarily unrealistic medical show (it does for medicine what CSI does for criminal investigations), but it’s buoyed by a stellar lead in Hugh Laurie and razor sharp writing.

In general, I’d say we’re off to a stronger start than Season 3 had.  This opening episode finds Dr. House without his team, having lost his three long-suffering underlings to a combination of firings and resignations.  Drs. Foreman, Chase, and Cameron don’t even make an appearance in this episode, effectively cutting the cast in half (though they will, of course, be back soon).  Despite this, the episode remained strong, with lots of great interplay between Wilson, House, and Cuddy.  You know what I like about Lisa Edelstein?  She can do drama one second and comedy the next (”Don’t enable him!”).  Ditto the rest of the cast.  NBC should hire whoever did the casting on this one.

The Medical Monster of the Week, blessedly, turned out to be reasonable.  Last season was marked by some pretty outlandish medicine (DNA from a defective, reabsorbed twin causing cellular damage, anyone?), but for the time being we seem to be back in the realm of plausibility.  In this case, the semi-comatose patient’s medical problems were caused by the fact that she had been misidentified at the site of a building collapse.  House was essentially treating the wrong patient, thus complicating her medical situation.  Outlandish, you say?  It actually happened.  Also, can we take a moment to praise our Wise and Glorious Leader Google?  All I typed was “bus accident mistaken identity,” and the event I was thinking of was right there on the first page.

It’s easy to nitpick any given episode of House.  It’s also fair to say that it’s lacking any real continuity between episodes.  Still, the writing is some of the best on television and the whole cast is a pleasure to watch.  Tuesdays at 9:00 are booked.