Charity Case Review 8.03
It's not just that most of what happened happened by way of retreads. It's what happened between. I think I counted 12 minutes of shots of people walking up to doors in silence and then walking through them. For no discernible reason. I kept thinking maybe we'll have cars going down the road, too.
Did not feel as if anyone was there, so to speak, inhabiting characters. The POTW's monotone belied his words at every turn, and Park, Adams, and Foreman expressed the whole range of emotions from A to B. And there was some emotional stuff going on.
Altogether I've rarely seen any episode flatter and duller. Even the clinic patient scene, also a retread, was robbed of humor by the confused writing and the delivery of all concerned.
House's restraint is more understandable, as he's living only a provisional life controlled by his parole conditions. But with some notable exceptions, he seemed not fully there, either. Possibly HL has moved on. Hard to say.
It was like someone turned on the fog machine* and aimed it at cast and crew, and finally at me.
In a film review I wrote years ago, which I recalled during this show, I recognized that what passes for acting here seemed to consist of remembering your lines and hitting your mark.
The gratifying exception was 13-and Olivia Wilde. They both, by both the richness of what the actress brought to this performance and the rather more careful writing of the character, snapped me to attention. She sparkled. I believed everything she said. The goodbye scene could easily have gone mushy or too cold, and I think they all got it just right. She's grown a great deal as an actress in her years at House.
Oh, and RSL did a very nice transitional piece, I thought. After Transplant's heaving male breasts, I enjoyed House and Wilson's focus on medicine and ethics. If there's a return of snark and pranking someday, it could save the story. Meanwhile, I do hope Wilson is supplying him with lo mein.
One more note on House. I really sense that the prison experience, mea culpa or not, broke bits of him, that his need to toe the line combines with some small loss of self. He has the puzzles now, but not the power, and it may be that he needs the power to feel well again. To feel a healthy egoism.
I'm not sure why, but I felt this strongly when House reposed, puzzling his patient, in his desk chair. All his toys and magic charms around him, all the appearances of home, but not quite home yet. The thing on his ankle, signifying the thing in him. At present he seems to feel that getting his team back will fulfill his working life. We'll see.
The difficulty for me, and I've seen it twice, in Charity Case is that these rich pieces get lost in the larger negative space. I just read that we know even less than we thought, quantitatively, about dark matter, and I'm ending right here.
___
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Did not feel as if anyone was there, so to speak, inhabiting characters. The POTW's monotone belied his words at every turn, and Park, Adams, and Foreman expressed the whole range of emotions from A to B. And there was some emotional stuff going on.
Altogether I've rarely seen any episode flatter and duller. Even the clinic patient scene, also a retread, was robbed of humor by the confused writing and the delivery of all concerned.
House's restraint is more understandable, as he's living only a provisional life controlled by his parole conditions. But with some notable exceptions, he seemed not fully there, either. Possibly HL has moved on. Hard to say.
It was like someone turned on the fog machine* and aimed it at cast and crew, and finally at me.
In a film review I wrote years ago, which I recalled during this show, I recognized that what passes for acting here seemed to consist of remembering your lines and hitting your mark.
The gratifying exception was 13-and Olivia Wilde. They both, by both the richness of what the actress brought to this performance and the rather more careful writing of the character, snapped me to attention. She sparkled. I believed everything she said. The goodbye scene could easily have gone mushy or too cold, and I think they all got it just right. She's grown a great deal as an actress in her years at House.
Oh, and RSL did a very nice transitional piece, I thought. After Transplant's heaving male breasts, I enjoyed House and Wilson's focus on medicine and ethics. If there's a return of snark and pranking someday, it could save the story. Meanwhile, I do hope Wilson is supplying him with lo mein.
One more note on House. I really sense that the prison experience, mea culpa or not, broke bits of him, that his need to toe the line combines with some small loss of self. He has the puzzles now, but not the power, and it may be that he needs the power to feel well again. To feel a healthy egoism.
I'm not sure why, but I felt this strongly when House reposed, puzzling his patient, in his desk chair. All his toys and magic charms around him, all the appearances of home, but not quite home yet. The thing on his ankle, signifying the thing in him. At present he seems to feel that getting his team back will fulfill his working life. We'll see.
The difficulty for me, and I've seen it twice, in Charity Case is that these rich pieces get lost in the larger negative space. I just read that we know even less than we thought, quantitatively, about dark matter, and I'm ending right here.
___
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest