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fandomhigh_ooc2006-12-17 05:23 pm
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Laekin mumbles about "House_MD"
*Putters up to the mic*
Good evening folks! Okay so I'm going to talk about House_MD my beloved fandom but I must warn you that recent events in the story telling of Season 3 have left me a bit...uh...bitter. *cough* So I've tried to keep this to the facts, the facts and nothing but the facts.
Be aware that though I've tried not to use spoilers I can not guaruntee that a few snippets didn't sneak out of the specific Spoiler section so if you are highly sensitive to spoilers and haven't seen through last Tuesday's episode you might want to read with care.
All righty then...on to the show!
House_MD
House_MD is a relatively new show and a new fandom. Starting in November of 2004 on FOX network House_MD follows the story of Gregory House, brilliant diagnostician in the Sherlockian mold but like Holmes, House is not your warm and fuzzy type of hero. His brilliance comes at a price, paid double by the irony of the misdiagnosis that left House crippled due to an infarction in his right leg.
House_MD is set in the fictional hospital Princeton Plainsborough Teaching Hospital in New Jersey, and House is supported in his department by three fellows [doctors who are picking up a specialty by serving a fellowship under an established specialist], Drs. Eric Foreman, Robert Chase and Allison Cameron. The hospital is administered by Lisa Cuddy who is the Dean of Medicine in the hospital and as we’ve learned over the seasons an old acquaintance of Dr. House’s.
Dr. James Wilson is the Head of Oncology at PP-TH and House’s close friend. Initially, Wilson was molded in the Watson form but over the course of Season 3 we’ve seen that gradually change.
House_MD was initially pitched to TPTB at Fox as a medical procedural drama much in the vein of the popular CSI franchise but House creation David Shore never meant to stick to that formula. In truth, the show has always been a character focus study on the character of House and the supporting characters are used in various ways to highlight difference facets of the House character. All roads lead to House if you will.
Robert Sean Leonard, who plays Wilson, has offered snippets of insight into Wilson’s purpose on the show as the one character who actively chooses to associate with House of his own free will. The fellows (also known as ducklings in the fandom) work for him and House works for Cuddy so interaction is inevitable but Wilson does it for fun.
As House has snarked on occasion, ”Most people don’t like hearing other people talk about themselves…so what’s the matter with you?”
And that is the core of the House_MD series. Each of the characters carries ‘damage’. None of them are as pure in their motives or desires as they want to believe about themselves and each of them is a puzzle and puzzles are what draw House’s focus and attention.
Puzzles and Vicodin.
Vicodin could also be called a character in the show. Due to the removal of dead muscle from his crippled leg, House suffers from chronic pain. He takes Vicodin for this pain but like Holmes and his opium it has been framed in the context of the story that House also takes Vicodin for its narcotic properties to stave off the mind numbing boredom that settles in on him when he doesn’t have a case to chew into.
There is a great deal of debate within the fandom over whether or not House is an addict or simply a man suffering from chronic pain who needs the Vicodin for that pain. It’s a very personal argument that each viewer will have to answer for themselves but House himself has admitted that he is addicted to the Vicodin, though he insists that it isn’t a problem because he can still function while on the drug.
House_MD episodes do tend to follow a standard formula with a patient or patient file coming to House or catching his attention, followed by a number of risky and radical treatments that fail, followed by the eventual revelation House will have, usually while pursuing some completely different element in the story. Often this ‘clue by four’ moment will happen when House is interacting either with a clinic patient or an unrelated patient in the hospital.
But there are episodes that break this mold. Most notably is the award winning Three Stories which truly was a brilliant bit of television writing. This writing is elevated by the breath taking performance of Hugh Laurie, who truly has been a key building block in making House what it is today. His ability to be subtle, yet project so much into just a look or a graceful nuance, communicates what a complex creature House is and keeps House from simply being a two-dimensional jerk, even when the writing fails him.
I’m not going to talk a lot about the other House characters because it is best for people to see them with a clear eye, not tainted by the rather rabid split in the fandom over their various worth to the show and to the character of House. To give their canon however…
The Ducklings
Eric Foreman played by Omar Epps is a neurologist and the newest of the ducklings, having only been with House a couple of months when the pilot aired. We know that Foreman comes from a struggling family and has a record for B&E but that he has definitely pulled himself up through the ranks of medicine by being aggressive and good at his job. He, as much as any of the other ducklings, plays the straight man to House’s more outrageous moments, obvious taking and defending a more prudent course of action when he feels House has gone off the rails.
Robert Chase played by Jesse Spencer is what’s called an intensivist, someone who works in ICU and emergency situations. He’s from Australia and has been with House the longest, two years we learn in the pilot. He was also originally going to seminary school but switched to medical school, assumingly at the behest of his father who was a renowned rheumatologist. Chase has daddy issues and tends to transfer these on House or on to anyone in power. Chase is an unapologetic manipulator who will do what he feels is in his best interest to protect himself but he’s saved from being completely unlikable by mitigating factors, such as having to care for his alcoholic mother when he was a teen and watching her die. This in no way is an excuse for some of Chase’s behavior but rather it gives an insight into why Chase is the way he is when confronted with certain situations.
Allison Cameron played by Jennifer Morrison is an immunologist and has been with House for six months at the time of the pilot. House claims to have hired her because she has a nice ass but we’ve learned that Cameron married a man who had terminal cancer, knowing that he would die even when she made the commitment to him. Cameron is written as the heart of the ducklings, the doctor who has a strong moral compass though that compass has been challenged by House again and again between the idea of doing the ‘kind’ thing and doing the ‘right’ thing.
House’s Peers
Lisa Cuddy played by Lisa Edelstein is the Dean of Medicine at PP-TH and the long suffering boss to House. She is young and has obviously scarified a lot to be where she is today. Her isolation in her personal life has been highlighted in a number of episodes despite her being a beautiful woman. It has been hinted a couple of times that Cuddy is an effective administrator but has lost her ability to be an effective doctor.
James Wilson played by Robert Sean Leonard is the Head of Oncology at PP-TH and is Watson to House’s Holmes. Shown to have the ability to follow House’s line of thought ahead of the ducklings, he is known as the ‘Boy Wonder Oncologist’ and has been consulted by such well known doctors as Chase’s father. Wilson goes through relationships like some men go through socks and when we meet him in the pilot he is already well on the way to the end of his third marriage. This comes as no surprise given the amount of emotional time and energy he invests in House, spending Christmas with his friend rather than going home to his wife and walking out on a dinner party in order to comfort House at a bar. Wilson sacrifices a lot for House and is extremely loyal and supportive of his best friend, to the point of risking his own career over and over again to protect House, though this doesn’t keep him from lying to House and even sabotaging his own efforts at times.
House
Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie and it must be noted that when you watch House, you should remember that Hugh Laurie is very, very British. House is a devilish complex character and I’ve already hit the highlights so I’m not going to go in to too much more depth because there are layers to this character that are going to be very individual to each viewer. Suffice to say, Laurie has earned the nominations and the Golden Globe he’s been honored with and in the hands of any other actor I am certain House_MD would not be as strong a show.
DEFINTE SPOILERS
So, as I’ve said, House_MD is now in its 3rd season so it’s a relatively young show but this 3rd season has seen a lot of hard changes in the form of the show and in the characters many fans have grown to love. Some people love the changes while others find them highly disturbing in particularly the movement of the character of Allison Cameron to such a prominent position front and center in the show. This has made a lot of fans very happy and other fans less so and I think that while all fans have found equal love for Seasons 1 and 3, Season 3 will wrap up very strongly or with the fandom horribly polarized.
In my opinion, David Shore is suffering from too much belief in his own press releases and while I can understand what he is trying to do the writing of Season 3 has been lacking in bringing the story across properly. Now the season is only half done so there is still a chance for them to turn it around but spoilers indicate a worrisome bent towards over angsting the character of House in an effort to deliver high drama. For example, in the beginning of the season we had House recovering from being shot, now he is under investigation and facing jail time and being forced to detox off his vicodin and in the future it will be revealed that his father abused him and he’ll also be struck down by a fatal illness that he and his team will need to diagnose in time to save him.
Now, the House_MD writers have a history of taking the stereotypical scenario and delivering something fresh and unique so there is still hope but the handling of the current Tritter arc has left a lot of the audience nervous that someone (David Shore) is taking himself too seriously.
I wanted to be able to end this on a hoooraaahhh go watch watch watch sort of cheering but I'm not sure these days. Seasons 1 and 2 are definitely must see TV and I highly recommend those two seasons for certain! However, jury's still out on Season 3.
For those of you would would like to catch House_MD, it's on your local FOX affiliate at 9:00pm on Tuesday nights and on USA at 11:00pm on Friday nights. The next new episode will be aired on January 9th 2007 and seasons 1 and 2 are out on DVD.
Good evening folks! Okay so I'm going to talk about House_MD my beloved fandom but I must warn you that recent events in the story telling of Season 3 have left me a bit...uh...bitter. *cough* So I've tried to keep this to the facts, the facts and nothing but the facts.
Be aware that though I've tried not to use spoilers I can not guaruntee that a few snippets didn't sneak out of the specific Spoiler section so if you are highly sensitive to spoilers and haven't seen through last Tuesday's episode you might want to read with care.
All righty then...on to the show!
House_MD
House_MD is a relatively new show and a new fandom. Starting in November of 2004 on FOX network House_MD follows the story of Gregory House, brilliant diagnostician in the Sherlockian mold but like Holmes, House is not your warm and fuzzy type of hero. His brilliance comes at a price, paid double by the irony of the misdiagnosis that left House crippled due to an infarction in his right leg.
House_MD is set in the fictional hospital Princeton Plainsborough Teaching Hospital in New Jersey, and House is supported in his department by three fellows [doctors who are picking up a specialty by serving a fellowship under an established specialist], Drs. Eric Foreman, Robert Chase and Allison Cameron. The hospital is administered by Lisa Cuddy who is the Dean of Medicine in the hospital and as we’ve learned over the seasons an old acquaintance of Dr. House’s.
Dr. James Wilson is the Head of Oncology at PP-TH and House’s close friend. Initially, Wilson was molded in the Watson form but over the course of Season 3 we’ve seen that gradually change.
House_MD was initially pitched to TPTB at Fox as a medical procedural drama much in the vein of the popular CSI franchise but House creation David Shore never meant to stick to that formula. In truth, the show has always been a character focus study on the character of House and the supporting characters are used in various ways to highlight difference facets of the House character. All roads lead to House if you will.
Robert Sean Leonard, who plays Wilson, has offered snippets of insight into Wilson’s purpose on the show as the one character who actively chooses to associate with House of his own free will. The fellows (also known as ducklings in the fandom) work for him and House works for Cuddy so interaction is inevitable but Wilson does it for fun.
As House has snarked on occasion, ”Most people don’t like hearing other people talk about themselves…so what’s the matter with you?”
And that is the core of the House_MD series. Each of the characters carries ‘damage’. None of them are as pure in their motives or desires as they want to believe about themselves and each of them is a puzzle and puzzles are what draw House’s focus and attention.
Puzzles and Vicodin.
Vicodin could also be called a character in the show. Due to the removal of dead muscle from his crippled leg, House suffers from chronic pain. He takes Vicodin for this pain but like Holmes and his opium it has been framed in the context of the story that House also takes Vicodin for its narcotic properties to stave off the mind numbing boredom that settles in on him when he doesn’t have a case to chew into.
There is a great deal of debate within the fandom over whether or not House is an addict or simply a man suffering from chronic pain who needs the Vicodin for that pain. It’s a very personal argument that each viewer will have to answer for themselves but House himself has admitted that he is addicted to the Vicodin, though he insists that it isn’t a problem because he can still function while on the drug.
House_MD episodes do tend to follow a standard formula with a patient or patient file coming to House or catching his attention, followed by a number of risky and radical treatments that fail, followed by the eventual revelation House will have, usually while pursuing some completely different element in the story. Often this ‘clue by four’ moment will happen when House is interacting either with a clinic patient or an unrelated patient in the hospital.
But there are episodes that break this mold. Most notably is the award winning Three Stories which truly was a brilliant bit of television writing. This writing is elevated by the breath taking performance of Hugh Laurie, who truly has been a key building block in making House what it is today. His ability to be subtle, yet project so much into just a look or a graceful nuance, communicates what a complex creature House is and keeps House from simply being a two-dimensional jerk, even when the writing fails him.
I’m not going to talk a lot about the other House characters because it is best for people to see them with a clear eye, not tainted by the rather rabid split in the fandom over their various worth to the show and to the character of House. To give their canon however…
The Ducklings
Eric Foreman played by Omar Epps is a neurologist and the newest of the ducklings, having only been with House a couple of months when the pilot aired. We know that Foreman comes from a struggling family and has a record for B&E but that he has definitely pulled himself up through the ranks of medicine by being aggressive and good at his job. He, as much as any of the other ducklings, plays the straight man to House’s more outrageous moments, obvious taking and defending a more prudent course of action when he feels House has gone off the rails.
Robert Chase played by Jesse Spencer is what’s called an intensivist, someone who works in ICU and emergency situations. He’s from Australia and has been with House the longest, two years we learn in the pilot. He was also originally going to seminary school but switched to medical school, assumingly at the behest of his father who was a renowned rheumatologist. Chase has daddy issues and tends to transfer these on House or on to anyone in power. Chase is an unapologetic manipulator who will do what he feels is in his best interest to protect himself but he’s saved from being completely unlikable by mitigating factors, such as having to care for his alcoholic mother when he was a teen and watching her die. This in no way is an excuse for some of Chase’s behavior but rather it gives an insight into why Chase is the way he is when confronted with certain situations.
Allison Cameron played by Jennifer Morrison is an immunologist and has been with House for six months at the time of the pilot. House claims to have hired her because she has a nice ass but we’ve learned that Cameron married a man who had terminal cancer, knowing that he would die even when she made the commitment to him. Cameron is written as the heart of the ducklings, the doctor who has a strong moral compass though that compass has been challenged by House again and again between the idea of doing the ‘kind’ thing and doing the ‘right’ thing.
House’s Peers
Lisa Cuddy played by Lisa Edelstein is the Dean of Medicine at PP-TH and the long suffering boss to House. She is young and has obviously scarified a lot to be where she is today. Her isolation in her personal life has been highlighted in a number of episodes despite her being a beautiful woman. It has been hinted a couple of times that Cuddy is an effective administrator but has lost her ability to be an effective doctor.
James Wilson played by Robert Sean Leonard is the Head of Oncology at PP-TH and is Watson to House’s Holmes. Shown to have the ability to follow House’s line of thought ahead of the ducklings, he is known as the ‘Boy Wonder Oncologist’ and has been consulted by such well known doctors as Chase’s father. Wilson goes through relationships like some men go through socks and when we meet him in the pilot he is already well on the way to the end of his third marriage. This comes as no surprise given the amount of emotional time and energy he invests in House, spending Christmas with his friend rather than going home to his wife and walking out on a dinner party in order to comfort House at a bar. Wilson sacrifices a lot for House and is extremely loyal and supportive of his best friend, to the point of risking his own career over and over again to protect House, though this doesn’t keep him from lying to House and even sabotaging his own efforts at times.
House
Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie and it must be noted that when you watch House, you should remember that Hugh Laurie is very, very British. House is a devilish complex character and I’ve already hit the highlights so I’m not going to go in to too much more depth because there are layers to this character that are going to be very individual to each viewer. Suffice to say, Laurie has earned the nominations and the Golden Globe he’s been honored with and in the hands of any other actor I am certain House_MD would not be as strong a show.
DEFINTE SPOILERS
So, as I’ve said, House_MD is now in its 3rd season so it’s a relatively young show but this 3rd season has seen a lot of hard changes in the form of the show and in the characters many fans have grown to love. Some people love the changes while others find them highly disturbing in particularly the movement of the character of Allison Cameron to such a prominent position front and center in the show. This has made a lot of fans very happy and other fans less so and I think that while all fans have found equal love for Seasons 1 and 3, Season 3 will wrap up very strongly or with the fandom horribly polarized.
In my opinion, David Shore is suffering from too much belief in his own press releases and while I can understand what he is trying to do the writing of Season 3 has been lacking in bringing the story across properly. Now the season is only half done so there is still a chance for them to turn it around but spoilers indicate a worrisome bent towards over angsting the character of House in an effort to deliver high drama. For example, in the beginning of the season we had House recovering from being shot, now he is under investigation and facing jail time and being forced to detox off his vicodin and in the future it will be revealed that his father abused him and he’ll also be struck down by a fatal illness that he and his team will need to diagnose in time to save him.
Now, the House_MD writers have a history of taking the stereotypical scenario and delivering something fresh and unique so there is still hope but the handling of the current Tritter arc has left a lot of the audience nervous that someone (David Shore) is taking himself too seriously.
I wanted to be able to end this on a hoooraaahhh go watch watch watch sort of cheering but I'm not sure these days. Seasons 1 and 2 are definitely must see TV and I highly recommend those two seasons for certain! However, jury's still out on Season 3.
For those of you would would like to catch House_MD, it's on your local FOX affiliate at 9:00pm on Tuesday nights and on USA at 11:00pm on Friday nights. The next new episode will be aired on January 9th 2007 and seasons 1 and 2 are out on DVD.
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Your canon making you bitter? Join the club. ;)
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Except for that arc during S2 where she was a complete and total DUMBASS *grumbles bitterly*
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...Okay, not really, but the fact that he's in a fighting game will not cease to amuse me.
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Much like Charmed should have never had an eighth season.
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