TV Watch: I Am House's Legal Problems

Since House seems to be about the only show on television airing new episodes - it seems worth to make note of it. Sadly, I'm still widly conflicted about this season. I can't find the arching premise - that a detective has taken his vendetta so far as to ruin the lives of several doctors and bring down a head of oncology's practice- all that plausible. Trigger's evidence and methods has been nothing but questionable from the outset. Cuddy and Wilson have been acting a little bit like beheaded chickens about the whole ordeal and accepting a quack detective's medical analysis of House over their own knowledge from the last season.

In the real world, an affair like this would be strung out off the stage of action and over the course of years involving several rings of lawyers. Naturally that doesn't make for good television. And that's what is so annoying - this slipshod version of a premise does make for good television. Trigger's interrogation of the characters have brought out some choice moments. Wilson has more depth and nuance to him now that he's actually stood up and betrayed House. Even Cameron has a chance to come back out of her shell and bit a more than oogly caretaker girl.

Plus - any show willing to portray its main character as a strung out obnoxious drug addict next to a pool of his own vomit deserves a few plusses in its column. So many shows revere their protaganist so much that danger only seems to skirt around them. Even Lost suffers from this - the occasional character will get tortured for a while and then snap out of it the following week. The producers will sacrifice a character or so a season - but the cast feels just the same size as when the show started. It's not like we expect House to get offed or even sent to prison ... but you never know just what kind of beating he might endure from week to week.

So I'm keen to the implausibility of this season ... but as long as it continues to provide fodder for good drama I'll let it slide.





tagged: television, house md