Television: House, M.D., best hospital drama on the air Options

[WolfeFPS]

I liked it when House relised that he had made the entire night up.

The look on his face was priceless.

I'm curious to know if anybody's going to be leaving the cast. Chase and Cameron seem obvious possibilities, but even with them, there are only 8 regulars, which doesn't seem that hard to balance.

Still, there used to only be 6, so who knows?

[RaiderDave2112]

I'm curious to know if anybody's going to be leaving the cast. Chase and Cameron seem obvious possibilities, but even with them, there are only 8 regulars, which doesn't seem that hard to balance.

Still, there used to only be 6, so who knows?

I don't see why someone would leave, although I could see "13" leaving.

[WolfeFPS]

I don't see why someone would leave, although I could see "13" leaving.

Actors tend to be vain about screen time, and Cameron and Chase have been getting the short end of the stick lately. I hope they stay, but it won't surprise me if they take off.

13 might be the next to die, eh?

[RaiderDave2112]

Actors tend to be vain about screen time, and Cameron and Chase have been getting the short end of the stick lately. I hope they stay, but it won't surprise me if they take off.

13 might be the next to die, eh?

Well 13 is the one with the desease, but I wouldn't mind the old team getting back together.

[WolfeFPS]

Well 13 is the one with the desease, but I wouldn't mind the old team getting back together.

Especially if they play up the "Cameron still loves House" angle. That drama sells itself.

[Rowan]

I haven't watched either for a while. House was much better than Grey's because Hugh Laurie is the best actor in the bunch, and because the personal aspects that were revealed about House were well-written and had depth. The rest of the show was occasionally funny, but not that remarkable. Grey's lost me when Meredith came back from the dead. I detest when people come back from the dead.

I can't watch House, Hugh Laurie's character is so toxic and abusive it galls me that they show him keeping his job let alone any woman (with any self respect or esteem) loving him. The medical situations are so ridiculous, he'd be getting sued on a daily basis if he were a real person. I only feel that way because they try and present it as being hard hitting realism. If they took a lighter approach I would be less critical. (of the medical stuff)

Grey's Anatomy makes me cry in every show, the emotional angst is palpable for me. There are messed up characters but at least they show them working on their issues and overcoming them, that at least is healthier. Grey's has made several poor story line choices as do most long running shows at some point. But the characters are pretty solid and their personal histories emotionally complex and involving. That story line about Meridith was an attempt to explore her lack of desire to fight for her life due to the extreme lack of love she received growing up but the execution was badly delivered. Derek gets Meridith in a way that makes me crazy to find that in real life but it's so incredibly rare even in tv characters that I find myself really drawn to those two.

[WolfeFPS]

I can't watch House, Hugh Laurie's character is so toxic and abusive it galls me that they show him keeping his job let alone any woman (with any self respect or esteem) loving him. The medical situations are so ridiculous, he'd be getting sued on a daily basis if he were a real person. I only feel that way because they try and present it as being hard hitting realism. If they took a lighter approach I would be less critical. (of the medical stuff)

Except that the medical situations are all actual documented cases, no? I can remember reading about several of the real situations before seeing them a year or two later on the show.

And, believe it or not, I can speak to being "indispensable" and being a dick about it.

Grey's Anatomy makes me cry in every show, the emotional angst is palpable for me. There are messed up characters but at least they show them working on their issues and overcoming them, that at least is healthier. Grey's has made several poor story line choices as do most long running shows at some point. But the characters are pretty solid and their personal histories emotionally complex and involving. That story line about Meridith was an attempt to explore her lack of desire to fight for her life due to the extreme lack of love she received growing up but the execution was badly delivered. Derek gets Meridith in a way that makes me crazy to find that in real life but it's so incredibly rare even in tv characters that I find myself really drawn to those two.

You bag House for not being realistic, but let GA off the hook? C'mon, now.

[Rowan]

Except that the medical situations are all actual documented cases, no? I can remember reading about several of the real situations before seeing them a year or two later on the show.

And, believe it or not, I can speak to being "indispensable" and being a dick about it.

The episode I watched tonight had House slam a needle in the shin area of a man refusing treatment and in defiance of three other doctors. Initially he was going to give the meds IV but then did this sort of maybe IM thing with the same drugs, of course the patient reacts in seconds which we both know an IM injection doesn't do. That kind of medical thing is what I"m talking about.

Being a dick is one thing being a toxic individual spewing hatred and cruelty at every turn is something else. His bitterness consumes him and he dumps it on everyone around him. It's called a toxic working environment in a union and those aren't tolerated. I'm sure in a real life situation an individual like that would be put on stress leave or have the union coming down on him or something. His character is too fantastical in the extreme I guess this is why it disturbs me. I don't mind fantastical situations (obviously since I like scifi) but I detest fantastical characters unless it's a fantasy, which House is not.

You bag House for not being realistic, but let GA off the hook? C'mon, now.

Because it's light fluff medically it doesn't really try to be taken seriously on the medical stuff. This show is about the characters in a medical setting more so than a medical show.

The same rational as to why I come down on BSG and let other scifi shows get a pass. BSG claimed to be something more than it delivered, everyone else keeps their mouth shut and has fun with the material. *shrug*

[Rowan]

For Wolfe...

'House' is world's most popular TV show

PARIS (AFP) - US drama "House", starring Britain's Hugh Laurie as unconventional medical genius Doctor Gregory House, outgunned rivals in 2008 to become the world's most watched fiction show on television.
ADVERTISEMENT

According to ratings agency Eurodata TV Worldwide, House and his team of canny diagnosticians last year gathered more than 81.8 million viewers.

That was far more than the 2007 and 2006 winners in the same TV drama category, "CSI: Las Vegas", about a team of forensic experts, and its spin-off "CSI: Miami".

The agency bases its figures on data collected in 66 countries from Austria to Georgia to Norway to the United States that represent a potential audience of 1.6 billion couch potatoes.

In the TV comedy category, the US female-star cast of "Desperate Housewives" for the second year running beat "Monk" (US) and "Ugly Betty" (US), attracting 65.3 million viewers worldwide in 2008.

"The Bold and the Beautiful", also a US show, with 24.5 million viewers was the most popular soap for the second consecutive year, thrashing Mexican telenovela "Marina" and US competitor "The Young And The Restless."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090612/ente...n_media_ratings

interestingly I don't watch any of the shows mentioned as most popular.

[herbsinger42]

I did watch House... the first two seasons, I was a devoted fan... then, truth is, there was just too much goin on, and I lost the thread.

Now, Rowan, you are absolutely correct that House, the character is outrageously toxic. i don't know if my history makes me more accepting of having such a character around... I worked the trades for seven years, and my father was my boss for a time, as was my brother... and both of them are also toxic in the workplace... Owning the company does give one a boatload of leeway. In the trades, they don't have to have a reason to fire you. There are eleventy guys sitting on the bench, waiting to take your place... If you wanna work, you take it.

However, a TV drama, by its nature, is exquisitely contrived. The days of ER-- where the on-screen medicine was trying to get it 'right' are most distinctively over. The "special effect" of the fade into the body to follow the hypothesis is cool... It mimics the CSI format, but does so in a much more "enlightened way" because it is medical, not mechanical.

That some women find House, the character, attractive, is not far fetched... it is far too common.
Considering the dreck that replaces the dramas, tho... I'll take his drug-induced, self-loathing, vicious tongued character over "ANY NON-REALITY GAME SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Please...

[WolfeFPS]

For Wolfe...


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090612/ente...n_media_ratings

interestingly I don't watch any of the shows mentioned as most popular.

Yeah, baby.

Don't feel bad, I don't watch any of those other shows, either... although I have caught a few episodes of Monk.

[DarthMarley]

And the House premiere was brilliant!

[RaiderDave2112]

And the House premiere was brilliant!

I have to agree.

[RaiderDave2112]

House Spolier

by Michael Ausiello
Categories: House, News

Princeton-Plainsboro is undergoing another major shake-up: Sources confirm to me exclusively that Jennifer Morrison is leaving House.

Neither Fox nor Morrison’s reps would comment, but I’m told the actress did not quit; her exit was a creative decision on the part of producers. Morrison — the first of the show’s original cast members to depart — shot her last scene earlier this week and her final episode will air in November.

Suspicions about Morrison’s House future were raised last week when she was MIA at the show’s premiere screening in Hollywood.

Here’s what else I’m hearing about this surprising and, I’ll say it, disappointing, turn of events.

* Unlike Kal Penn’s dearly-departed Kutner, Cameron will not be killed off.

* Morrison’s on-screen husband, Jesse Spencer (Chase), is not leaving the show. (Do the math and you can probably figure out how she’ll be written out.)

* Producers are leaving the door open for Morrison to make a guest appearance later in the season.

The last point will prove little comfort to Cameron fans, especially since this was the season Morrison’s nearly three-year stint on the backburner was supposed to end. In fact, just last month series creator David Shore told me (video below), “Chase and Cameron fans will be happy with the way we’re going to reintegrate them into the team — at least on a temporary basis.” (That temporary qualifier should’ve been a clue.) Even Morrison recently admitted it was “great” being front-and-center again. “I have been working a lot,” she told us, “and there are things that happen to House very early in the season that have a domino effect on all of the other characters.”