House (TV series)
House (also called House, M.D.) is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on the Fox network for eight seasons, from November 16, 2004, to May 21, 2012. Its main character, Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), is an unconventional, misanthropic medical genius who, despite his dependence on pain medication, leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. The series' premise originated with Paul Attanasio, while David Shore, who is credited as creator, was primarily responsible for conceiving the title character.
"House M.D." redirects here. For the titular character, see Gregory House.House
House, M.D.
- Jason Derlatka
- Jon Ehrlich[b]
United States
English
8
177 (list of episodes)
- Paul Attanasio
- Katie Jacobs
- David Shore
- Bryan Singer
- Thomas L. Moran
- Russel Friend
- Garrett Lerner
- Greg Yaitanes
- Hugh Laurie
- Newton Thomas Sigel
- Walt Lloyd
- Roy H. Wagner
- Gale Tattersall
- Tony Gaudioz
41–49 minutes
November 16, 2004 –
May 21, 2012
The series' executive producers included Shore, Attanasio, Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, and film director Bryan Singer. It was filmed largely in a neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles County's Westside called Century City. It received high critical acclaim, and was consistently one of the highest-rated series in the United States.
House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. His flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently leads him into conflict with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). His only true friend is Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), head of the Department of Oncology.
During the first three seasons, House's diagnostic team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps). At the end of the third season, this team disbands. Rejoined by Foreman, House gradually selects three new team members: Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn). Chase and Cameron continue to appear occasionally in different roles at the hospital. Kutner dies late in season five; early in season six, Cameron departs the hospital, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team. Thirteen takes a leave of absence for most of season seven, and her position is filled by medical student Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn). Cuddy and Masters depart before season eight; Foreman becomes the new Dean of Medicine, while Dr. Jessica Adams (Odette Annable) and Dr. Chi Park (Charlyne Yi) join House's team.
House was among the top 10 series in the United States from its second through fourth seasons. Distributed to 71 countries, it was the most-watched TV program in the world in 2008.[3] It received numerous awards, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Peabody Award, and nine People's Choice Awards. On February 8, 2012, Fox announced that the eighth season, then in progress, would be its last.[4] The series finale aired on May 21, 2012, following an hour-long retrospective.
Production[edit]
Conception[edit]
In 2004, David Shore and Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, pitched the series (untitled at the time) to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program,[5] a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes.[6] Attanasio was inspired to develop a medical procedural drama by The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders, who is an attending physician at Yale–New Haven Hospital (YNHH); the fictitious Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH, not to be confused with the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro) is modeled after this teaching institution.[7] Fox bought the series, though the network's then-president, Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don't want to see white coats going down the hallway".[8] Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of the many influences that led to the show's ultimate form.[8]
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
House received largely positive reviews on its debut;[163] the series was considered a bright spot amid Fox's schedule, which at the time was largely filled with reality shows.[164] Season one holds a Metacritic score of 75 out of 100, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[165] Matt Roush of TV Guide said that the program was an "uncommon cure for the common medical drama".[166] New York Daily News critic David Bianculli applauded the "high caliber of acting and script".[70] The Onion's "A.V. Club" approvingly described it as the "nastiest" black comedy from FOX since 1996's short-lived Profit.[167] New York's John Leonard called the series "medical TV at its most satisfying and basic",[168] while The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert appreciated that the show did not attempt to hide the flaws of the characters to assuage viewers' fears about "HMO factories".[169] Variety's Brian Lowry, less impressed, wrote that the show relied on "by-the-numbers storytelling, albeit in a glossy package".[170] Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "mediocre" and unoriginal.[171] Mikhail Varshavski, a Russian-American Osteopathic Doctor, reviewed the medical content of House on his YouTube channel. According to Varshavski, the medical information presented on the show was usually fundamentally accurate though often highly exaggerated for dramatic effect, but he described Gregory House's tendency to quickly use invasive tests and procedures as outside the medical mainstream.[172][173][174]
General critical reaction to the character of Gregory House was particularly positive.[163][175] Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the most electrifying new main character to hit television in years".[176] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Rob Owen found him "fascinatingly unsympathetic".[177] Critics have compared House to fictional detectives Nero Wolfe,[178] Hercule Poirot, and Adrian Monk,[179] and to Perry Cox, a cantankerous doctor on the television show Scrubs.[164][177] One book-length study of the series finds a powerful kinship between House and another famous TV doctor, Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H.[180] Laurie's performance in the role has been widely praised.[81][178][181] The San Francisco Chronicle's Goodman called him "a wonder to behold" and "about the only reason to watch House".[171]
Critics have also reacted positively to the show's original supporting cast, which the Post's Shales called a "first-rate ensemble".[176] Leonard's portrayal of Dr. Wilson has been considered Emmy Award worthy by critics with TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today.[182][183] Bianculli of the Daily News was happy to see Edelstein "was finally given a deservedly meaty co-starring role".[70] Freelance critic Daniel Fienberg was disappointed that Leonard and Edelstein have not received more recognition for their performances.[184]
Reaction to the major shifts of season four was mixed. "With the new crew in place House takes on a slightly more energized feel", wrote Todd Douglass Jr. of DVD Talk. "And the set up [sic] for the fifth season is quite brilliant."[185] The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The extended, enormous job audition gave the writers a chance to reinvigorate the show and fully embrace Laurie's comic genius".[135] Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, took issue with the developments: "the cast just kept getting bigger, the stories more scattered and uneven until you had a bunch of great actors forced to stand around watching Hugh Laurie hold the show together by the sheer force of his will".[186] USA Today's Robert Bianco cheered the season finale: "Talk about saving the best for last. With two fabulous, heartbreaking hours ... the writers rescued a season that had seemed diffuse, overcrowded and perhaps too ambitious for its own good."[183]
Season five of House was met with a more positive response in comparison to the previous season. It holds a Metacritic score of 77 out of 100, based on ten reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[187] It also holds a 100% approval rating on aggregate review website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.1 based on nine collected reviews.[188]
USA Today praised Laurie's performance and the repercussions of the season-four finale, stating "a carry-over from last season's brilliant finale, House is firmly in the forefront. And when you have an actor of Hugh Laurie's range, depth and charisma, putting him center-stage makes perfect sense, particularly when you've written a story that explores the character and his primary relationships in a way that seems integral to the series".[189] The New York Daily News noted that "The show pays more attention to relationships we care about, hints at a sensible number of new ones that show some promise, and thus doesn't rely on obscure medical mysteries to carry the whole dramatic burden", and noted that "the prognosis for this season could be better than last season seemed to foreshadow".[190] Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times highlighted the performances of the cast, especially Michael Weston as detective Lucas Douglas, calling him a "delightful addition". She concluded, "So different is the premiere that the savvy House (and Fox) viewer may expect the revelation that it was all a fever dream. That does not seem to be the case, and one assumes that Laurie and the writers will be bringing a different version of their now-iconic character back to Princeton. Not too different, of course, but different enough."[186] Conversely, The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan disliked Weston's character, calling him "An unwelcome distraction ... an irritating pipsqueak".[191] She continued saying "House used to be one of the best shows on TV, but it's gone seriously off the rails". The Sunday Times felt that the show had "lost its sense of humour".[192] The focus on Thirteen and her eventual involvement with Foreman also came under particular criticism.[135][193]
At the end of the show's run, Steven Tong of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "House had, in its final seasons, become a rather sentimental show".[194] In New York Magazine's blog 'Vulture', Margaret Lyons wrote, "More than a hospital drama or a character piece or anything else, House is a complex meditation on misery." But, continued Lyons, there is a line between "enlightened cynicism" and "misery-entropy", and "as the show wore on, its dramatic flare dimmed while its agony flare burned ever brighter."[195] Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The repetition and muck of [the] middle seasons ultimately severed whatever emotional connection I had to House's personal struggles."[28]
In 2007, House placed #62 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list.[196] The show was declared the second-highest-rated show for the first ten years of IMDb.com Pro (2002–2012).[197] The show was ranked the 74th best-written television series in a 2013 survey of Writers Guild of America West members.[198]
Merchandise[edit]
For a charity auction, T-shirts bearing the phrase "Everybody Lies" were sold for a limited time starting on April 23, 2007, on Housecharitytees.com. Proceeds from sales of those shirts and others with the phrase "Normal's Overrated" went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).[295][296] House cast and crew members also regularly attended fundraisers for NAMI and have featured in ads for the organization that appeared in Seventeen and Rolling Stone. The show's efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the charity. Jacobs said that through their association with NAMI, they hoped to take "some of the stigma off that illness".[297]
Nettwerk released the House M.D. Original Television Soundtrack album on September 18, 2007.[298] The soundtrack includes full length versions of songs featured in House and previously unreleased songs especially recorded for the series.[299] In 2008, the Spanish game company Exelweiss designed a cellphone game for the show, which was released in both Spanish and English versions.[300]
In June 2009, Legacy Interactive announced a licensing agreement with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group (UPDPG) to develop a video game based on the series, in which players step into the roles of House's diagnostic team to deal with five unusual medical cases.[301] The game, released in May 2010, included a minigame calling upon the player to "navigate a restaurant-placemat-style maze, in which a giant sandwich must avoid hungry physicians on its way to Dr. House's office." It received an F from The A.V. Club;[302] however, Legacy updated the game by August 2010.[302]