Crowded House

The 2004-2005 season was a gamechanger for ABC. Three hit dramas debuted that are still running today--Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Lost. Meanwhile, over at Fox, one unheralded show became a huge hit, and shows no sign of slowing down. House.

A big fan of Hugh Laurie, I checked it out back then and have been watching ever since. But I'm not sure if I like the direction it's been going lately.

The show started with a simple formula: Sherlock Holmes in a hospital. The prologue has the Patient Of The Week fall ill, and the rest of the episode is the irascible Dr. House (who gets more outrageous each year) and his team investigating the mysterious disease, going down blind alleys, and finally figuring it out--usually curing it. The climax of each show is when House gets the special insight needed to solve the case.

While it still generally works this way, I guess the showrunners worried this would get tiresome and kept adding more and more. I sometimes feel the show has added so much it's lost sight of what it's about.

In addition to the POTW, the first season episodes usually had a B-plot where House would solve a less threatening illness in his clinic hours. Then it would add some glimpses of the characters' personal lives. Also, each of the early years would feature a story arc--a rich guys takes over the hospital and clashes with House, an old flame returns and works at the hospital, a vengeful cop tries to prosecute House for his drug use.

But now the show has so much personal stuff going on, and has added so many characters, it sometimes feels like the POTW is getting lost in the shuffle.

What's happening on House? Well, off the top of my head, you've got House living with (or no longer living with) his best friend Wilson while trying to break up any relationship he has with a woman, including Wilson's ex-wife. You've also got House seeing his therapist. Then there's hospital head Cuddy, who's had a love/hate relationship with House. Now she's raising a baby, and is involved with Lucas, a detective originally hired by House. (I assume the producers love this Lucas guy, because I don't think the fans do, but he just won't go away.)

Meanwhile, Cameron and Chase of House's original team got married and then that fell apart. Foreman of his original team left then came back, and was involved with the beautiful Thirteen, until that fell apart. By the way, Thirteen is bisexual and suffering from Huntington's. Then there's Taub, who's cheated on his wife, gotten in trouble, and continues to cheat on his wife. (Kutner is gone--committed suicide--but that's only because the actor wanted to work for the Obama White House.)

I've always liked the procedural aspect of the show. The character interaction was fun--humor is essential to the show--but was part of a bigger picture. Back in 2004, two of the new hits--Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy--were soap operas. We don't need House to go down that road.