House 4.4, "Guardian Angels"
Okay, seems I can't skip a week after all.
I really enjoyed tonight's episode. Even with only one Wilson scene (still-lavender tie! House crashing on his couch! many references from many characters to the fact that they are a strange sort of best friends!), even with the misleading preview/few minutes of show in which I, like the patient and the fellows, thought we were dealing with the ghost of House's grandfather (thank you anyway, Wilson, for asking something along the lines of, "What's with your sudden obsession with the afterlife?"), I thought it was an engaging hour of TV. There were psychological underpinnings in the (refreshingly coherent) diagnostic process and treatment, a pretty cool final diagnosis, intriguing symptoms along the way, a nifty visual effect with the necklaces blending together, a thrilling-scary-hot (take your pick) teaser with an assault on a pretty girl, and fun interactions between and among the fellows. The ex-fellows got their own meaty subplots, and it's beginning to become apparent how each of them may slot into the episodes; Cameron the case-provider and House-provoker, Chase the jaded technical assistant, Foreman the seasoned antagonist. Cameron looked cute in her scrubs-with-sweats-underneath and really seemed like she was having fun taunting House now that she didn't have to worry as much about being punished for it. It makes me sad, though, to see her once again taking on a role that traditionally belongs to Wilson (the lunch-paying, not the straw-sharing; although... :) ).
I felt bad for Foreman not being able to find another position, and suspect that he'd have had more luck if he'd looked longer. After all, House went through four positions before Cuddy took him in, which suggests that three of them hired him after he was fired for pulling stunts worse than Foreman's. Maybe if Foreman had one of the greatest medical minds of our generation, as the pediatrician (?) affirmed, more potential employers would be willing to overlook his behavior. You can be arrogant and a risk-taker, but you have to have the consistent brilliance to back it up.
I'm sorry to see Asexual Messenger Boy go, but he did get to play doctor the way he'd been yearning to all those years, and he's grateful for it, and House knows that; heck, that's why he let him keep competing: let the man live his dream for a few weeks. I hope he gets to come back some day.
I was surprised the religion/molestation connection was dropped, especially following the patient's initial hallucination of being sexually assaulted and the attention paid to what happened when the patient was young (trauma could have been some kind of factor).
On a fanficcish note, I got a kick out of House playing that "Surgeon" game after he played "Operation" with Wilson in one of the Aftershocks chapters.
ETA: Also, a follow-up thought on 4.3: In the same vein as what Jacobs and Shore said in their DVD commentary for "Half-Wit" about the House-Wilson pizza scene being important because it signified that Wilson realized that House wanted to get better, I think that the whole fiasco with the knife and the electrical socket was important* because it showed that some part of House wants to believe there's an afterlife. That would be progress ("progress") from his comfortably atheistic self of yesteryear (e.g. "Damned If You Do").
*To the writers and producers, at least; even with this justification for its existence, I still have several problems with the way the show has been treating its House-searches-for-meaning theme, including lack of finesse and the fact that a character's atheism can't be left well enough alone.
And that's all there's time for. See you next week....
I really enjoyed tonight's episode. Even with only one Wilson scene (still-lavender tie! House crashing on his couch! many references from many characters to the fact that they are a strange sort of best friends!), even with the misleading preview/few minutes of show in which I, like the patient and the fellows, thought we were dealing with the ghost of House's grandfather (thank you anyway, Wilson, for asking something along the lines of, "What's with your sudden obsession with the afterlife?"), I thought it was an engaging hour of TV. There were psychological underpinnings in the (refreshingly coherent) diagnostic process and treatment, a pretty cool final diagnosis, intriguing symptoms along the way, a nifty visual effect with the necklaces blending together, a thrilling-scary-hot (take your pick) teaser with an assault on a pretty girl, and fun interactions between and among the fellows. The ex-fellows got their own meaty subplots, and it's beginning to become apparent how each of them may slot into the episodes; Cameron the case-provider and House-provoker, Chase the jaded technical assistant, Foreman the seasoned antagonist. Cameron looked cute in her scrubs-with-sweats-underneath and really seemed like she was having fun taunting House now that she didn't have to worry as much about being punished for it. It makes me sad, though, to see her once again taking on a role that traditionally belongs to Wilson (the lunch-paying, not the straw-sharing; although... :) ).
I felt bad for Foreman not being able to find another position, and suspect that he'd have had more luck if he'd looked longer. After all, House went through four positions before Cuddy took him in, which suggests that three of them hired him after he was fired for pulling stunts worse than Foreman's. Maybe if Foreman had one of the greatest medical minds of our generation, as the pediatrician (?) affirmed, more potential employers would be willing to overlook his behavior. You can be arrogant and a risk-taker, but you have to have the consistent brilliance to back it up.
I'm sorry to see Asexual Messenger Boy go, but he did get to play doctor the way he'd been yearning to all those years, and he's grateful for it, and House knows that; heck, that's why he let him keep competing: let the man live his dream for a few weeks. I hope he gets to come back some day.
I was surprised the religion/molestation connection was dropped, especially following the patient's initial hallucination of being sexually assaulted and the attention paid to what happened when the patient was young (trauma could have been some kind of factor).
On a fanficcish note, I got a kick out of House playing that "Surgeon" game after he played "Operation" with Wilson in one of the Aftershocks chapters.
ETA: Also, a follow-up thought on 4.3: In the same vein as what Jacobs and Shore said in their DVD commentary for "Half-Wit" about the House-Wilson pizza scene being important because it signified that Wilson realized that House wanted to get better, I think that the whole fiasco with the knife and the electrical socket was important* because it showed that some part of House wants to believe there's an afterlife. That would be progress ("progress") from his comfortably atheistic self of yesteryear (e.g. "Damned If You Do").
*To the writers and producers, at least; even with this justification for its existence, I still have several problems with the way the show has been treating its House-searches-for-meaning theme, including lack of finesse and the fact that a character's atheism can't be left well enough alone.
And that's all there's time for. See you next week....