house

[laene_lif]

I don't know why I decided to write a response to this episode, after passing on the last couple. I started to write up a review of last week's two or three times and was overcome by laziness. I think I said enough in comments at other people's journals anyway.

I'm not going to write anything long or intelligent about tonight's episode, just that overall I think it was a good, solid episode and that it had those old reliable elements of your standard House episode - teenagers having sex and one of them having something go horribly wrong, parents who won't go along with the procedures, etc.

I liked the fellows tonight. Cameron usually gets way too much spotlight compared to the other two, but tonight was a great ep for Foreman instead. And Chase got in an intelligent little moment of playing House. Even if it didn't completely work. :) And I liked the patient too.

I loved watching House scoot around in a wheelchair - of course he'd do wheelies, get in a chicken fight and roll down stairs. Part of me thinks House had a point - as long as the woman in the wheelchair could get on the sidewalk from her space, she'd be fine getting to the door. That moment of worry as House got out of the car and onto the ice with his cane looked pretty genuine, and warranted. Not saying one condition is worse than the other - House has way more mobility than her, no question, but there's no way constant pain doesn't suck - but a parking space isn't about which handicap is worse, it's about which one is which one makes getting across a parking lot harder. So, again, House had a point, I thought. (Aaand I liked how silly he looked in his winter hat. Apparently it's as cold in Houseland as it is here right now.)

And yet, even feeling that way about the issue, that "guilt card" he pulled on Cuddy at the end, and the way he was able to joke about it after like he didn't actually even care and was only pretending to be bothered by any of it... Does anyone else feel personally hurt and let down when House does something like that? Like the vicodin in rehab reveal at the end of "Words and Deeds." At least then they played silly twangy music and let House and Wilson say goodnight sweetly to each other as the episode ended - took the bite out of it and made it a "Haha, oh House" moment. Almost. The song selection for the montage at the end of this episode left me feeling kind of weird. Changed the tone. It wasn't "House pwnz!" it was "House is cold, cold, cold."

I think I take this show too seriously. I think that the fanfiction is too good. I think the writers need to stop trying to raise the bar and live up to the "Look what a bastard our main character is!" reputation they've set up. I think I'm repeating myself because this has been my main worry and complaint about the show for months and months. I think one of the main problems with the show, really, is that it tries to be way too many things and please too many different people - they know that some people do really feel attached to House, and that some people just adore him in an iconic Johnny Rotten cartoon way and want to high-five him, and that some people actually wanted to see him go to jail, and they know that some people like to watch the blood and guts and doctor stuff, that some want to follow the mystery, and that some people love the philosophical tangents that come up every once in a while and the ongoing Search for Meaning, and that some people ship this person and that person and others this and that, and it's just this bizarre balancing act with too many cooks in the kitchen and it's "evolving" while "staying the same."

fhmd made a fanvid for House, which can be seen here, which contains a few of my very favorite moments with House (House getting a bulemic woman to realize and admit she wants to live, and then risking his license to get her a heart that no one else would want to give her; House lying and taking the fall for a mom who called social services when she felt she couldn't take care of her son; House realizing that a baby is suffocating and without even having to think about it, running to save it and give it CPR, forgetting the pain in an adrenaline rush...) But then again, I guess I shouldn't complain since last week's episode had him having a sincere heart-to-heart with a rape victim and saying that he'd "like to hear" her story.

Maybe it was just the unexpectedness of it. The whole episode tonight was fun and cute and cool, and then suddenly this turn toward unsettling and depressing and then ending right there. Bad taste in the mouth.

Followed by another unpromising ad from FOX - I need to stop watching those fucking ads. They're so bad they almost ruin the whole thing.

I'm way too emotionally invested in this stupid show.

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I think your paragraph with all the "I think"s is marvelous. The "too many cooks" thing may be true. The feeling I get from this show is that there are a lot of writers crafting scripts without enough team meetings with the producers to keep everything focused and consistent. The balancing act that keeps all the different groups of fans happy can be accomplished with enough control from the top -- not too much, because then all the episodes will start to sound the same, and you want the individual flavor of the writers -- but more than they're maybe exerting now.

[sabbrielle.livejournal.com]

It was called "Needle in a Haystack."

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. Well, that's clever (as every title must be). I forgot to mention in my rant up there that I liked the final diagnosis. Unexpected and original (no ridiculous hormones combined with broken-heart syndrome caused by some other weird brain problem...)

[dangomango.livejournal.com]

I'm way too emotionally invested in this stupid show.
Know what you mean...

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I think that the fanfiction is too good.

Hee! I agree. It raises the bar all that much higher for the show. And this episode, IMHO, didn't make it.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Mm. I've been going through other people's reviews the past few minutes and it seems other people disliked it even more than I did. I actually really enjoyed it for the most part. It didn't go too over the top with much, and it had some scenes I really liked - House sliding into his car and grinning, House and Wilson banter in the bathroom, etc. I was just irrationally distressed by the change in tone at the end. But aside from that, it was a fluffy, filler ep - nothing amazing, but solid enough and entertaining. Nothing too wince-inducing.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I was just irrationally distressed by the change in tone at the end.

I'll have to rewatch that bit. The first time around, it hardly registered because I was raring to get to my computer to talk about the episode.

[joe-pike-junior.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you on the soup/too many chefs scenario.

You should have seen the ad channel Ten here ran for No Reason. Oh my God.

I think I take this show too seriously.
You probably do. But like I always say, it's better than being obsessed with trains.

Cheers.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I think you've got it, with that coldness.
I so hope they're going somewhere with it. That House does actually at some point lose badly. He has to. It can't keep on like this. It's too frustrating. It's not good for the other characters, and if we don't like and respect them, then it's worth nothing that they like House.

When we were sure that Cuddy could deal with House and could see when she was being manipulated, then it was fine when he got around her, it was part of the game, and she knew it. Likewise Wilson, when House had something to offer Wilson, then everything he did for House was understandable.

[joe-pike-junior.livejournal.com]

I think they've shown that House can lose, is capable of losing. That if he pushes too hard something's going to push back.

I think the reason the whole 'Cuddy as a deus ex machina' thing came in at the end of the Tritter saga is that TPTB want to show that House is unstable, but they're on to too much of a good thing to want to kill him or dramatically change the character yet.

There's the potential for a lot of pathos in House, even if it's something that only the audience sees. I hope they use this to good effect before the series ends.

And you're right, stephantom. I can handle House dying, but I don't want to hate him when it does. Kind of a crappy ending for a character like House, right? Even the audience hates him.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I was completely thrown off by the ending too, but I don't think in the same way you were. I thought Cuddy was this close to nasty in her 'you're not getting it' attitude, which I didn't quite understand, but I suppose it was to make us feel better when House 'played' her. But I actually think it would have been cool to see him NOT getting the parking spot for once, and then just dealing with it. But then, that ties into the whole risky business of actually creating real change instead of nominal change.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Cuddy's response bothered me too, but then I was even more bothered by House's response. Instead of thinking, "Well, he was somewhat justified," I thought, "Whyyyy are they being so meeaann to each other over nothing?! Why is the world so unhappy!?" lol. It was just kind of weird. I don't know why she wouldn't have acknowledged that he did the right thing to pause a silly game in order to save someone's life, or bothered explaining that while yes, it's admirable that House shows up every and does his job, so does whats-her-name-the-other-handicapped-doctor and she deserves a good space too.

I almost think House's horrible remark to Cuddy about her not being cut out for parenthood may have been somewhat accurate... Not that she couldn't do it, but she'd have a lot to learn. (Not that I'm an authority on parenting... lol). House is so difficult to control and so irritating and gets his way so often that when Cuddy does get her way, she gets kind of... petty about it. And she chooses her battles rather randomly. And is too inconsistent. I would have liked House to have not gotten it at the end either. Oh, well.

[joe-pike-junior.livejournal.com]

Other characters seem to make a point out of the fact that House behaves like a 12-year-old, but in that scene at the end, both House and Cuddy were like a couple of kids!

I didn't think they were being mean, as such, but they were playing a game. Other than Wilson, I think that Cuddy is probably the character that House is so familiar with. That exchange was almost friendly. What did bother me was the way House limped off with Wilson, leaving his vacant wheelchair sitting in the middle of a snowy path. WTF?

[joe-pike-junior.livejournal.com]

The whole episode tonight was fun and cute and cool, and then suddenly this turn toward unsettling and depressing and then ending right there. Bad taste in the mouth.
I thought this, but not that it ended on a bad note. It's good to see 'playful' House after so much angst, but I didn't think that he seemed cold or out of character at the end. When he said something about earning that space every day, I thought he seemed very earnest. I think the rest of it was the combination of playing a game with Cuddy and the way he's very rarely serious, echoing back to the 'serious' face he made in Cuddy's office at the beginning of the ep. House jokes around a lot.