House is centered around a narcissistic, pill-popping, genius doctor named, you guessed it, House. He has horrible bed side manner and yet he is one the best doctors in the world. From there the writers embellish. The contrast of interesting medical mysteries with the major conflicts that House causes brings a whole new drama flavor that you don't see very often.
First off, Hugh Laurie, the actor that play House, is really amazing. Every year he blows me way with his almost effortless way of getting deep into the thinking of Gregory House. With his fake American accent, his fake limp with a cane, and his fake self-serving tone, he is a true actor and rightfully deserves any praise given to him (including the many award nominations and a few wins).
The characters and their interactions with each other are so great. The fact that a jerk like House can have both a best friend and a dean of medicine who cares deeply about him is so surprising when you watch the show. But as become more acquainted with the character you come to this realization that he's really not that bad of a guy.
Under that hard self-serving shell, you find a mushy center and the fact that he's not so self-centered after all. In fact most of his actions are for his patients. He gets himself in a lot of trouble as he breaks protocols trying to what's best for his patients. One episode in particular stands out to me where he has a patient that needs an organ transplant (I can't remember what). During the episode, before whatever organ fails, House puts her on the registry. Soon after the organ dies and his associate doctors are wondering how we knew to put her on the list. It turned out that he found pills in her bag suggesting that she tried to commit suicide and that is why her organ failed. This is bad because when he trying to get her higher up on the donor list, the fact that she tried to commit suicide would cause her to get rejected. House ignores this a lies to the donor board. Although he had nothing to gain, House risked his job, the one thing in life that he is accomplished at, for this one patient.
House obviously has a lot of complexity and depth, and that's what makes him so interesting. Hi friendship with Wilson (an oncologist at the same hospital) is also quite fun to watch. Their relationship is literally like a roller coaster, often having ups and downs throughout the seasons. One low in particular that I think most people remember is when Wilson's girlfriend Amber died. It's probably the on episode of House that I've cried the most in just because it so heart wrenching. Wilson was very happy with his long-term girlfriend Amber, who we get to know through the length of almost two whole seasons. But one night House gets really drunk and calls Wilson to come pick him up. Unfortunately Wilson is at the hospital working late, so Amber comes to get him instead. To get back home Amber takes him on a bus, where all of a sudden they get into a huge car wreck where many of the passengers are injured. House loses much of his memory and wakes up in a strip club, which is where the episode starts, and tries to piece back his memory. It's a really great episode and it really shows how far House and Wilson's relationship can really go.
This season in particular is interesting because the finale of last year's season House drives his car into Cuddy's (dean of medicine) home. Now Cuddy is gone for good (no she wasn't written out, apparently she wanted to move on) and Wilson is very angry. He expressed that him and House are no longer friends. We all know this isn't going to last because House and Wilson were destined to be together. It's like Holmes and Watson! Yeah, it's not a coincidence. House and Wilson were modeled after the crime solving duo. But how is it going to happen? I'm not sure, from the looks of now, it seems as is either House is going to have to do something big, or it's just going to take a really time for Wilson to get over it.
Lastly I just want to emphasize that this is not like other medical shows. House is a unique character because he solves the most complex cases. Therefore the patients are always very interesting and the answers are never simple. It's not Grey's Anatomy where they just have a complex surgery with some romantic drama. No, there is so much more. These cases take some hardcore digging, whether it's breaking into the patient's home, punching the father in the face to get a certain reaction, or doing some crazy procedure that isn't allowed to test a theory. All is fair game, and it's really what keeps the show so intriguing to the large fan base.
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