Hugh Laurie as Dr. Greg House on HOUSE.
© Fox
There is Indeed a Doctor in the HOUSE
By: David Michael WhartonDate: Monday, August 29, 2005
Mean. That's the only way to describe the comments from last week. Just mean! I thought you could have some respect for your fellow comment posters, whether FARSCAPE or STARGATE fan, but no, I was wrong. Instead, we've been reduced to name-calling, and poorly spelled name-calling at that.
I'm afraid you've left me no choice. By the powers vested in me by the Grand Masonic Internet Posting Council, Section 27-Stroke-Alpha, Subsection Gamma-Gamma-Six, I am hereby invoking the Anti-Flaming Act of 1996. All posters much cease any and all discussion vis a vis STARGATE, FARSCAPE, or any combination of two said shows. Your new subject of discussion has been reset to…
…MANIMAL: Cornball 80s crapfest or misunderstood classic? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Back to the season preview…
GILMORE GIRLS - WB
Otherwise known as "The Show My Wife Keeps Pestering Me About Ever Since We Had to Take a Break in the Middle of Season One So I Could Review Another DVD Set." It's smart. It's funny. It features dialogue on par with the best of Whedon, et al. It dishes out pop culture references at an alarming rate, and it features the homina-homina-homina-worthy duo of Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. It, in summation, makes me sulk and pout at the knowledge that I haven't been watching this show all along.
But I haven't, so I also haven't the foggiest what is currently going on in the lives of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Perhaps they have left the inn business and launched a left-handed boutique. Perhaps they now investigate the paranormal. Perhaps they have embarked on a cross-country killing spree, NATURAL BORN KILLERS style. I know not. All I do know is, whatever they're up to, it'll be damned entertaining. Tivo it and watch it back-to-back with VERONICA MARS as a refutation to the claim that there are no strong, well-written female roles on television these days.
HOUSE - Fox
Look, let's be frank here: nobody is watching this show because they're fascinated by the "disease of the week." And there's a pretty good chance that, when it comes right down to it, no one is all that hung up on whether Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) will wind up romantically entangled with Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison). Those who return week after week to watch House fight everything from leprosy to administrative red tape know more or less how every episode of this show will play out: a sick person will show up, House and his docs will offer various theories and treatments, all of which will be wrong and/or will make the situation worse. Then, somewhere around act three, House will suddenly put the pieces together and save the day. Same basic structure as, oh, every detective story ever written, except with stethoscopes. On those merits, HOUSE shouldn't be a particularly memorable show, and certainly shouldn't have become a surprise hit for Fox last season.
But that ignores the crucial X-factor (with apologies to series exec producer Bryan Singer) that is Hugh Laurie. Who knew? Who knew that the Prince Regent George IV had this kind of role in him? A bitter but brilliant doctor crippled by nerve damage that has left him with one mostly useless leg, a lifetime of pain, and an ever-decreasing level of patience for his patients? For those of us only familiar with Laurie from his BLACKADDER days, his Greg House has been nothing short of a revelation.
My father-in-law, a physician, can't bring himself to watch medical shows any more than my physicist/engineer father can bring himself to watch ARMAGEDDON. He contends that the show is patently unrealistic; that a doctor such as House could never and should never exist. He's probably right, but I don't care. With HOUSE, my interest in verisimilitude extends only so far as the writers not doing anything so blatantly wrong or ridiculous that it drags me out of the show. I can understand why my father-in-law can't turn off the "doctor" part of his brain enough to enjoy the show, but for me, and for most of the show's viewers, the attraction isn't in whether the onscreen treatment of arsenic poisoning is accurate. It's in what scathing bon mot House is next going to let loose. In this area, HOUSE is a nice venture to the other end of the spectrum from Laurie's BLACKADDER work. There, he was forever playing the buffoon, but on HOUSE, not only is he the smartest person in the room, he's also constantly vying with Veronica Mars for the Best Lines on Television.
Not that House's dialogue and characterization are the only show elements that crackle. His team offers up an effective mix of personalities and attitudes that serve as a perfect sounding board for House's snark. The doctor (not The Doctor) thoroughly enjoys needling each of his team members in their most sensitive areas (get your mind out of the gutter), whether by racially profiling Dr. Foreman (Omar Epps) or by constantly mentioning Dr. Cameron's looks. He's never short a sparring partner in hospital administrator Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), and Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) makes a great Watson to House's Holmes. Say, wait a minute…Wilson/Watson? House/Holmes? By Jove, I think we're on to something… Well, show creator David Shore did say that the show was intended as a detective show with doctors standing in for cops and diseases for criminals.
It was also quite promising that HOUSE finally began to break its somewhat formulaic mold as season one progressed, particularly in the fantastic episode "Three Stories," which saw House serving as the semi-reliable narrator as he recounted three past cases to a class of medical students, with the stories finally dovetailing together to give us a profound insight into House's inner workings (both literal and metaphorical). In the back half of the season, the good doctor finally found an antagonist that wasn't microscopic, courtesy of Vogler (Chi McBride), a man with his hands on the hospital's purse strings and no love for House's methods. Finally, the always-stellar Sela Ward began lurking around the trauma ward as House's ex-wife, Stacy, a role that will carry over into season two.
If you haven't yet checked in to the adventures of the curmudgeonly, pill-popping doctor whose wit is sharper than his scalpels, do so come September 13. Tivo it and watch it back to back with the SCRUBS DVDs to see just how funny sick people are.
Apparently, it's only funny until you're the brunt of the joke - One little number. You do one little barbershop quartet musical number entitled "You've Got the AIDS," and suddenly everybody's all bent out of shape.
Samwise joins the War on Terror - Everybody's favorite fat hobbit, Sean Astin, will be clocking in at CTU during this season's 24. Does that mean Jack Bauer will be taking on the forces of Mordor in real time?
Honest, this time. We swear. Stop laughing. - LOST Season Two: Now Featuring Answers! No, seriously!
Maybe this guy knows what's down The Hatch - From the Lawsuit of the Week Dept.: this guy here claims ABC swiped his 1977 series proposal concept to create LOST. When they did that, were, uh, were some pages missing? Such as the ones that explained WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?
Send all questions, comments, and defenses of MANIMAL to tvwasteland@cinescape.com. Keep your head and hands inside the television, folks…
PRISON BREAK (7 9 PM CST, Fox) "Pilot/Allen." Michael Scofield gets himself tossed in the clink in order to bust out his naughty death-row bro. (Series premiere)
AMNESIA (7 9 PM CST, BBC America) John Hannah plays a detective trying to find a connection between an amnesia patient and his wife's disappearance. I really like John Hannah, but I can't remember why. It certainly wasn't for THE MUMMY RETURNS.
HISTORY DETECTIVES (8 PM CST, PBS) "Hermann Goering's Shotgun; Calf Creek Arrow; The Edison House." You know, any one of those would make a great name for a band.
ENTOURAGE (8:30 PM CST, HBO) "Exodus." So what does one-time Aquaman writer Peter David think about the ongoing Aquaman subplot? Now you know!
WEIRD U.S. (9 PM CST, History) "Crimes and Punishment." Crooks in pink underwear and Bonnie-and-Clyde reenactors.
WEEDS (9 PM CST, Showtime) "Fashion of the Christ." Shiftless brothers-in-law appear and pot-laced pastries are consumed. Munchies presumably follow.
HOUSE (8 PM CST, Fox) "Three Stories." Best episode of the season. If you haven't seen the show, this is a perfect opportunity to see what all my above fuss was about. (Repeat)
FALLING DOWN (8 PM CST, Lifetime) Michael Douglas dons a crew cut and goes postal.
THE OFFICE (8:30 PM CST, NBC) "The Alliance." Dwight wants to team up with Jim to defend against downsizing, while Michael forces Pam to throw a birthday party. (Repeat)
RESCUE ME (9 PM CST, FX) "Bitch." Tommy's hockey buddies kick him off the team after his antidepressant sampling leads to a kindler, gentler firefighter.
THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (7 PM CST, TCM) Bogie and company self-destruct in the hills of Mexico, courtesy of a little buried treasure and a whole lot of greed.
LOST (8 PM CST, ABC) "Numbers." The episode that revealed that Hurley was a lottery winner and introduced the mysterious cursed numbers. The writers should be revealing the truth about those numbers sometime around 2013. (Repeat)
GHOST HUNTERS (8 PM CST, Sci-Fi) "NY Museum/CT Lighthouse." They may find more compelling evidence of the unknown later in the season, but the TAPS guys will have to go a long way to find a location more atmospheric than that friggin' battleship from a couple weeks back.
OVER THERE (9 PM CST, FX) "It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding." So Zack from SAVED BY THE BELL is currently appearing as a kidnapped American journalist. How soon can we expect Screech's guest stint as Green Beret?
FIREFOX (7 PM CST, AMC) Clint Eastwood uses a stolen Soviet aircraft to attack the offices of an alternative web browser.
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (7 PM CST, TNT) If there's a more perfect movie, I've yet to find it.
STARVED (9 PM CST, FX) "Thank You. I Love You." Guaranteed more scenes of vomiting than any other comedy on television (but surprisingly touching at times, too).
IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA (9:30 PM CST, FX) "Gun Control." After the bar is robbed, the guys buy a gun and vow to catch the thief. And I almost just typed that they buy a nun, which would have just been weird, although I wouldn't put it past this show.
FIREFLY (6 PM CST, Sci-Fi) "Our Mrs. Reynolds." Mal unintentionally gets hitched. (Repeat)
THE FACULTY (7 PM CST, AMC) Were it not for a little series called THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Elijah Wood might still be stuck making clunkers like this one.
STARGATE SG-1 MARATHON (7 PM CST, Sci-Fi) Six episodes back-to-back: the best of the best as picked by viewer polling.
SECRETARY (7 PM CST, Oxygen) Maggie Gyllenhaal has been bad, very bad, and she needs to be punished.
REEFER MADNESS (7 PM CST, Showtime) The evils of pot turn Veronica Mars naughty and musical.
NARC (7 PM CST, AMC) Many moons ago, this film's director, Joe Carnahan, was slated to direct MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3. And then along came a fella by name of J.J. Abrams.
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (7 PM CST, Cinemax) I may well be the only person on the planet who likes this movie, but I'm still going to keep listing it whenever I can.
FRANKENFISH (8 PM CST, Sci-Fi) Genetically altered snakehead fish (remember them?) terrorize the Louisiana bayou. And let it never be said that these Sci-Fi Originals offer us no memorable moments. We can thank last week's PTERODACTYL for the line "I haven't seen that much fish-belly white since the math department streaked the Farscape convention."
U-571 (8 PM CST, Bravo) An American WWII sub crew inadvertently rewrites history and pisses off the British.
THE NINTH GATE (8 PM CST, Sci-Fi) Skip this forgettable Johnny Depp thriller. Instead, check out the nifty novel on which it was based, The Club Dumas.
RONIN (8 PM CST, Bravo) The best car chases this side of BULLITT.
ROME (8 PM CST, HBO) "How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic." While watching ROME, do as the Romans do, but be aware that that sort of thing can get you arrested in some states.
THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (8:45 PM CST, TCM) You know, I've never actually seen this. But now I will.
This concludes our broadcast.
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HELL HOUSE
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FARSCAPE: Music for the Wide-Open Universe
(Saturday, December 2, 2000)
FARSCAPE Convention Report
(Monday, August 7, 2000)
FARSCAPE: The Sci Fi Channel Show Without The Reset Button
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You should spend your time pimping Automan instead. Who can forget this amazing Tron ripoff with his partner "Cursor"? You know everyone wanted a cool light-bright car that could do 90 degree turns at high speeds!
Oh...it wasa misunderstood classic as well ;)