The entire thread can be read at Google Groups: Subject: Re: House, 2/14/2006 SPOILERS POSSIBLE From: MDuPree@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,alt.tv.house-md Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 20:41:25 +0000 (UTC) Organization: The World : www.TheWorld.com : Since 1989 Message-ID: References: Lines: 136 Spoilers for "Distractions," 2/14/06. In article , "Laddy" writes: : This episode was touted as a must see. Well, none of them are ever touted as "You can skip this one if you have a taping conflict." ;) : I thought it sucked for the most part. "Me too." : Given the direction the show is taking, I won't be surprised if : ratings decline. The _American Idol_ lead-in won't last forever, but I do expect that the series is picking up some new viewers in the meantime because of it, so I expect the post-_Idol_ ratings for _House_ to be higher than the pre- _Idol_ ratings. (Of course, the writers will probably assume the ratings mean that they're doing their best work ever.) I'd be surprised if the ratings for _House_ go into significant decline before late third season at the earliest. Once an audience builds, it usually takes at least a season for content-related attrition to be felt. Stunt ratings may respond to advance hype, but overall long-term baseline ratings tend to reflect the accumulated buzz, boredom, or disillusionment of at least an entire season, if not two. How many people continue to hang on in dogged hope that "Surely it will have to get better soon now that X, Y, or X plot line is over"? I myself am grieving for the House of old, dead and never to return, but letting go is just so hard. In the meantime, new viewers tune in to see what all the buzz is about, and some of them, who may not have given the first season of _House_ the time of day, will not only like the current fare, but prefer it to first-season _House_ reruns. By the end of the third season, the fandom will have split into "new episodes better" vs. "old episodes better" factions, and the newer viewers may even be more numerous. I don't mind ceding the future of _House_ to them at this point since I haven't expected to build castles with it ever since I saw incompetent Cuddy in "Humpty Dumpty" and jealous-of-attention House in "TB or Not TB." But what finally saddens me is that there will undoubtedly be new viewers who would like the first season if they saw it, but who will take one or two looks at the second season and be permanently put off of ever trying the older episodes in syndication or on DVD. And who can blame them at this point? I wouldn't bother investigating further if "Distractions" had been my first-ever _House_ episode either. : Instead it's just a vehicle to demonstrate the immature, selfish, : craven, self-destructive personality of House. I get it. You don't : need to continue to hit me over the head with a two-by-four every 10 : minutes. I don't like House, I don't admire him, I don't find him sympathetic, and I can't even pity him. Revisionist House is just a loser. He used to be a mixed bag of both good and irritating traits. Now about all he has going for him is extensive medical knowledge, and even that is something the writers fiat for him. Almost all the adults I grew up with smoked cigarettes. Not a single one of them ever got a cigarette burn like the Burn Kid had on his wrist. It looked deliberate to me. I immediately thought it was self-induced, meaning there was going to be some sort of self-mutilation angle, or that one of the parents had abused him. The writers didn't even bother to have House exclude these diagnoses. They're telling me, "House is just right, damnit. He's defined as right. Look up 'right' in the dictionary and House's picture will be snarling at you. To hell with facts and probabilities." It'll likely be a popular episode in the fandom at large, though, because of the multiple shock-value pieces. House stalked an old grudge! House dropped acid! House in the shower! House in a towel! House curled up on the floor! Aw, poor schnookums! House got a hooker! Feh. I can watch and even be riveted by much more morally repugnant characters than House, such as Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey. However, not only do they have definite and intriguing codes of conduct and a web of interesting ties to other people, but I also hope they end up either dead or in prison. The writers for House have completely undercut his code of conduct without acknowledging that this is a change. Since his ties to other people have been kept deliberately tenuous and the medical plots have holes, that doesn't leave him with a whole lot else of substance, just a growing bag of empty quirks. : I think it's safe to say that in most real worlds, House would no : longer be practicing medicine, given his antics. No kidding. I used to could tell myself that Cuddy was the enabling conceit for House to do what he does, because Cuddy would keep at least a partial leash on him when she dealt with him, but then turn around and shield him and defend him to the outside world and the other hospital departments. But with Cuddy now permanently at risk for turning into a fretting ninny who seems to have conceded most of her judgment to House's brilliance, I can't buy her as an effective shield for him, because in the real world, there's no effing way Cuddy would become a Dean of Medicine/hospital administrator at any age, much less be the youngest ever. : They are seriously overplaying the personal side of House and if they : continue, it's going to end up biting them in the ass. I really don't think that's the problem per se. I think that better writers could take the same story outline and make it compelling. House was always a jerk. He described himself as a jerk in the pilot. But he used to have a rationale behind what he did. Now the writers have just picked up on the "jerk" angle and run with it. In fact, they seem to think it's cool to make him a gratuitous jerk. When he told the kid in "Need to Know," "I'm not sad. I'm complicated," I think we were being given the clue that the kid was right and House was dead wrong. He's not complicated. He's just sad. But he used to be pretty damn complicated, at least compared to the norm. I even have some difficulty buying into the idea that House is miserable. No, he hasn't seemed happy this season except for his post-adultery scenes last episode, but he has seemed satisfied with his work and engaged with life, which is more than a lot of people manage. I don't see where arch-nudzh Wilson has all that much more going for him in his life. This miserable-by-fiat business is running counter to the way Laurie is playing the character. (I don't mean up on the roof after Stacy left, but just in general in the second season while Wilson kept telling him how much happier dying cancer kids were than he was.) : Also, they are trying to get Ward (Stacy) back for the last two : episodes. For a quickie? My god, the fun just never stops, does it? -Micky