Doctor in the House

Saturday, I watched 3 episodes of House from Season 1 and then two more today, also from the same season.

I knew little about the show except there's a doctor named House who's a bit irascible, and that he's a pretty bright doctor, requiring a cane to move around. Other than that, not so much. I also knew people liked this show.

Having now seen five episodes, the structure of the show seems rather repetitive. House is not what you'd call a people person. He has three assistants that work underneath him: Eric Foreman (which, as my brother points out, is also the name of the guy Topher Grace plays in That '70s Show, though his name is spelled Eric Forman) who is African American. The backstory you get from him is he was once arrested for stealing, but otherwise has had an outstanding medical school career.

There's Dr. Allison Cameron, who everyone notices is beautiful (though, really, as with many shows, the entire cast is "beautiful"). She's allegedly troubled in some fashion which House points out because she's too beautiful to be a doctor (thus, she must have some personal issues she's dealing with), and Dr. Robert Chase, whose Australian and has a crush on Allison.

Basically, the show starts off with someone getting sick, then the four doctors hypothesizing what may be wrong, then attempting some treatment, which typically fails, often leading to seizures, then another treatment, which also typically fails, before finally stumbling on the right one.

As with many more recent medical dramas and their ilk, House is willing to show stuff that is not for the squeamish. Characters convulse. In one episode, a woman's neck is slit so she can breathe from it, when it has closed up unexpectedly. There's a bit of implied nudity from breast exams to washing of patients. And, as House likes to point out, people lie, making diagnosis that much harder.

House usually has an additional patient or two whose malady is not as mysterious, and he often grumbles that he has to see them, even as they sometimes give him ideas about the malady du jour. The patient often sees House very late, so they wonder who the heck he is, and why he's so surly.

Invariably, his assistants seem to go on the wrong track, and House figures it all out at the end. My brother wonders why he bothers having assistants at all if they seem to never get it right.

The person who's sick tends to be young, sometimes very young (teens), and rarely fat or old (unless it's a side character).

Why is this show successful? I suppose there's something appealing about a mystery, which is why CSI is popular too. It can't be good for hypochondriacs because everyone always has some life-threatening disease and has convulsions. Innocent things can cause the worst outcome.

There are two other side characters: Dr. James Wilson, played by Robert Sean Leonard, who seems a bit young for his role, who plays a colleague that House hangs out with and talks to, and Dr. Lisa Cuddy, the hospital administrator that seems to harass House and get him to do what he considers tedious clinical work.

The other reason the show works, I suppose, is that House is not a likable person. Well, he's curmudgeonly, meaning, in his odd way, he does mean well, even as he's blunt and to the point. He lacks people skills, but is not so irritating that you can't stand him. You begrudge him his skills, and that in his own way, he is trying to help people out.

I find it hard to believe the hospital rooms have so much glass with so little privacy, or that the closest relative or spouse are always sitting in the room, even as emergencies are happening.

There's one other thing they do that's a bit odd, which is to use CG to go into the body, and dramatize what's going on inside.

Justin says the show would be better if each episode wasn't so self-contained, if there were patients that would appear over many shows. I think they might also do well to have some more personal background. Do any of these doctors have a life outside the hospital? They seem way too ideal, spending hours in the lab, hypothesizing this or that, and occasionally going to people's empty houses to investigate for anything out of the ordinary like assistants to Miss Marple, herself too elderly to do any real investigation on her own.

My guess is they don't stray too much from the formula. If this is true, then watching back to back episodes is an awful way to see it, because it's the same thing over and over and over again. You find shows like Lost or 24 easier to follow because it's not so self-contained.

So, the mystery factor, good looking people, curmudgeonly but likable guy, illnesses that seem untreatable but are after a bit of experimentation, and the gore factor of needles and convulsions combine to make a show that's engaging for any one episode, but somewhat tiresome over time. It's a formula though, that for many, appears to work.