House (TV series)

House
Created by	David Shore
Starring	Hugh Laurie Lisa Edelstein Omar Epps Robert Sean Leonard Jennifer Morrison Jesse Spencer Peter Jacobson Olivia Wilde
Opening theme	"Teardrop" by Massive Attack
Country of origin	United States
Original language
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	132 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Paul Attanasio Katie Jacobs David Shore Bryan Singer Thomas L. Moran Russel Friend Garrett Lerner Hugh Laurie
Running time	43 minutes
Production companies	Heel & Toe Films Shore Z Productions Bad Hat Harry Productions NBC Universal Television Group (2004-2007) Universal Media Studios (2007-present)
Original release
Network	Fox
Release	November 16, 2004 (2004-11-16) – present

House, also known as House, M.D., is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The program was created by David Shore. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton‑Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. The show's premise originated with Attanasio, while Shore was primarily responsible for the conception of the title character. The show's executive producers include Shore, Attanasio, Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, and film director Bryan Singer. It is largely filmed in Century City.

Dr. House often clashes with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), and his diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. House's only true friend is Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), head of the Department of Oncology. During the first three seasons, House's diagnostic team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps). At the end of the third season, this team disbands. Rejoined by Foreman, House gradually selects three new team members: Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn); the latter was written out of the series toward the end of season five. Chase and Cameron continue to appear in different roles at the hospital until early in season six. Cameron then leaves the show, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team.

House is critically acclaimed and has high viewership ratings. It was among the top ten rated shows in the United States from its second through its fourth season; in the 2008–09 season, it fell to nineteenth overall. Distributed to 66 countries, House was the most watched television program in the world in 2008. The show has received several awards, including a People's Choice Award, a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Primetime Emmy Awards. House's sixth season began with a two-hour premiere on September 21, 2009; the season finale aired on May 17, 2010. Fox has announced that House will return for a seventh season.

Production

Conception

We knew the network was looking for procedurals, and Paul [Attanasio] came up with this medical idea that was like a cop procedural. The suspects were the germs. But I quickly began to realize that we needed that character element. I mean, germs don't have motives.

David Shore to Writer's Guild magazine

In 2004, co-creators David Shore and Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, pitched the show (untitled at the time) to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes. Attanasio was inspired to create a medical procedural drama by The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders. Fox bought the series, though the network's then-president, Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don't want to see white coats going down the hallway". Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of the many influences that led to the show's ultimate form.

After Fox picked up the show, it acquired the working title Chasing Zebras, Circling the Drain ("zebra" is medical slang for an unusual or obscure diagnosis, while "circling the drain" refers to terminal cases, patients in an irreversible decline). The original premise of the show was of a team of doctors working together trying to "diagnose the undiagnosable". Shore felt it was important to have an interesting central character, one who could examine patients' personal characteristics and diagnose their ailments by figuring out their secrets and lies. As Shore and the rest of the creative team explored the character's possibilities, the program concept became less of a procedural and more focused upon the lead role. The character was named "House", which was adopted as the show's title as well. Shore developed the characters further and wrote the script for the pilot episode. Bryan Singer, who directed the pilot episode and had a major role in casting the primary roles, has said that the "title of the pilot was 'Everybody Lies', and that's the premise of the show". Shore has said that the central storylines of several early episodes were based on the work of Berton Roueché, a staff writer for The New Yorker between 1944 and 1994, who specialized in features about unusual medical cases.

Shore traced the concept for the title character to his experience as a patient at a teaching hospital. Shore recalled that, "I knew, as soon as I left the room, they would be mocking me relentlessly [for my cluelessness] and I thought that it would be interesting to see a character who actually did that before they left the room". A central part of the show's premise was that the main character would be disabled in some way. The original idea was for House to use a wheelchair, but Fox rejected this. Jacobs later expressed her gratitude for the network's insistence that the character be reimagined—putting him on his feet added a crucial physical dimension. The writers ultimately chose to give House a damaged leg arising from an incorrect diagnosis, which requires him to use a cane and causes him pain that leads to a narcotic dependency.

References to Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes serves as an inspiration for the series.

Similarities between Gregory House and the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, appear throughout the series. Shore explained that he was always a Holmes fan, and found the character's indifference to his clients unique. The resemblance is evident in House's reliance on psychology, even where it might not seem obviously applicable, inductive reasoning, and his reluctance to accept cases he finds uninteresting. His investigatory method is to eliminate diagnoses logically as they are proved impossible; Holmes used a similar method. Both characters play instruments (House plays the piano, the guitar, and the harmonica; Holmes, the violin) and take drugs (House is addicted to Vicodin; Holmes uses cocaine recreationally). House's relationship with Dr. James Wilson echoes that between Holmes and his confidant, Dr. John Watson. Robert Sean Leonard, who portrays Wilson, said that House and his character—whose name is very similar to Watson's—were originally intended to work together much as Holmes and Watson do; in his view, House's diagnostic team has assumed that aspect of the Watson role. Shore said that House's name itself is meant as "a subtle homage" to Holmes. The number of House's apartment, 221B, is a reference to Holmes's street address.

Individual episodes of the series contain additional references to the Sherlock Holmes tales. The main patient in the pilot episode is named Rebecca Adler, after Irene Adler, a character in the first Holmes short story. In the season 2 finale, House is shot by a crazed gunman credited as "Moriarty", the name of Holmes's nemesis. In the season four episode "It's a Wonderful Lie", House receives a "second edition Conan Doyle" as a Christmas gift. In the season five episode "The Itch", House is seen picking up his keys and Vicodin from the top of a copy of Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. In another season five episode, "Joy to the World", House, in an attempt to fool his team, uses a book by Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. The volume had been given to him the previous Christmas by Wilson, who included the message "Greg, made me think of you". Before acknowledging that he gave the book to House, Wilson tells two of the team members that its source was a patient, Irene Adler.

Production team

Bryan Singer directed the pilot episode and the third episode, "Occam's Razor".

House is a co-production of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Media Studios for Fox. Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs, the heads of Heel and Toe Films; David Shore, the head of Shore Z Productions; and Bryan Singer, the head of Bad Hat Harry Productions, have been executive producers of the program since its inception. Lawrence Kaplow, Peter Blake, and Thomas L. Moran joined the staff as writers at the beginning of the first season after the making of the pilot episode. Writers Doris Egan, Sara Hess, Russel Friend, and Garrett Lerner joined the team at the start of season 2. Friend and Lerner, who are business partners, had been offered positions when the series launched, but turned the opportunity down. After observing the show's success, they accepted when Jacobs offered them jobs again the following year. Since the beginning of season 4, Moran, Friend, and Lerner have been credited as executive producers on the series, joining Attanasio, Jacobs, Shore, and Singer. Hugh Laurie was credited as an executive producer for season 5's second episode, "Not Cancer" and third episode, "Adverse Events".

Shore is House's showrunner. Through the end of the sixth season, more than two dozen writers have contributed to the program. The most prolific have been Kaplow (18 episodes), Blake (17), Shore (16), Friend (16), Lerner (16), Moran (14), and Egan (13). The show's most prolific directors through its first six seasons were Deran Sarafian (22 episodes), who was not involved in season 6, and Greg Yaitanes (17). Of the more than three dozen other directors who have worked on the series, only David Straiton has directed as many as 10 episodes. Laurie directed the seventh episode of season 6, "Lockdown". Elan Soltes has been the visual effects supervisor since the show began. Lisa Sanders, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, is a technical advisor to the series. She writes the "Diagnosis" column that inspired House's premise. According to Shore, "three different doctors… check everything we do". Bobbin Bergstrom, a registered nurse, is the program's on-set medical advisor.

Casting

It wasn't a massive move when I first considered [doing House]. What usually happens, is you do a pilot and of the very few picked up, only about a quarter go to a second year. So I thought I'll have three fun weeks. I never dreamt I'd be here three-and-a-half-years later.

Hugh Laurie

At first, the producers were looking for a "quintessentially American person" to play the role of House. Bryan Singer in particular felt there was no way he was going to hire a non-American actor for the role. At the time of the casting session, actor Hugh Laurie was in Namibia filming the movie Flight of the Phoenix. He assembled an audition tape in a hotel bathroom, the only place with enough light, and apologized for its appearance (which Singer compared to a "bin Laden video"). Laurie improvised, using an umbrella for a cane. Singer was very impressed by his performance and commented on how well the "American actor" was able to grasp the character. Singer was not aware that Laurie was English, due to his convincing American accent. Laurie credits the accent to "a misspent youth [watching] too much TV and too many movies". Although locally better-known actors such as Denis Leary, Rob Morrow, and Patrick Dempsey were considered for the part, Shore, Jacobs, and Attanasio were as impressed as Singer and cast Laurie as House.

Laurie later revealed that he initially thought the show's central character was Dr. James Wilson. He assumed that House was a supporting part, due to the nature of the character, until he received the full script of the pilot episode. Laurie, the son of a doctor, Ran Laurie, said he felt guilty for "being paid more to become a fake version of [his] own father". From the start of season three, he was being paid $275,000 to $300,000 per episode, as much as three times what he had previously been making on the series. By the show's fifth season, Laurie was earning around $400,000 per episode, making him one of the highest paid actors on network television.

Hugh Laurie made his own audition tape while shooting a film in Namibia.

Robert Sean Leonard had received the script for the CBS show Numb3rs, as well as that for House. Leonard thought the Numb3rs script was "kind of cool" and planned to audition for the show. However, he decided that the character he was up for, Charlie Eppes, was in too many scenes; he later observed, "The less I work, the happier I am". He believed that his House audition was not particularly good, but that his lengthy friendship with Singer helped win him the part of Dr. Wilson. Singer had enjoyed Lisa Edelstein's portrayal of a prostitute on The West Wing, and sent her a copy of the pilot script. Edelstein was attracted to the quality of the writing and her character's "snappy dialogue" with House, and was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy.

Australian actor Jesse Spencer's agent suggested that he audition for the role of Dr. Robert Chase. Spencer believed the program would be similar in style to General Hospital, but changed his mind after reading the scripts. After he was cast, he persuaded the producers to turn the character into an Australian. Patrick Dempsey also auditioned for the part of Chase; he later became known for his portrayal of Dr. Derek Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy. Omar Epps, who plays Dr. Eric Foreman, was inspired by his earlier portrayal of a troubled intern on the NBC medical drama ER. Jennifer Morrison felt that her audition for the part of Dr. Allison Cameron was a complete disaster. However, before her audition, Singer had watched some of her performances, including on Dawson's Creek, and already wanted to cast her in the role. Morrison left the show when her character was written out in the middle of season six.

At the end of season three, House dismisses Chase, while Foreman and Cameron resign. House must then recruit a new diagnostic team, for which he identifies seven finalists. The producers originally planned to recruit two new full-time actors, with Foreman, who returns in season four's fifth episode, bringing the team back up to three members; ultimately, the decision was made to add three new regular cast members. (Along with Epps, actors Morrison and Spencer remained in the cast, as their characters moved on to new assignments.) During production, the show's writers dismissed a single candidate per episode; as a result, said Jacobs, neither the producers nor the cast knew who was going to be hired until the last minute. In the season's ninth episode, House's new team is revealed: Foreman is joined by doctors Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde). The candidates rejected by House have not returned to the show, with the exception of the last one cut: Amber Volakis (Anne Dudek), who appeared for the rest of season four as Wilson's girlfriend, and in season five as a hallucination of House's. While Penn and Wilde had higher profiles than the actors who played the other finalists, Jacobs said they went through an identical audition process and stayed with the show based on the writers' interest in their characters. Kutner was written out of the series near the end of season five after Penn took a position in the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Filming style and locations

Frist Campus Center is the source of the aerial views of PPTH.

House is often filmed using the "walk and talk" filming technique, popularized on television by series such as St. Elsewhere, ER, Sports Night, and The West Wing. The technique involves the use of tracking shots, showing two or more characters walking between locations while talking. Executive producer Katie Jacobs said that the show frequently uses the technique because "when you put a scene on the move, it's a… way of creating an urgency and an intensity". She noted the significance of "the fact that Hugh Laurie spans 6'2" and is taller than everybody else because it certainly makes those walk-and-talks pop". Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker described the show's "cool, 'Fantastic Voyage'–like special effects of patients' innards. I'll bet you didn't know that when your kidneys shut down they sound like bubble wrap popping." "Cameras and special effects travel not only down the throat" of one patient, another critic observed, "but up her nose and inside her brain and leg". Instead of relying primarily on computer-generated imagery, the interior body shots tend to involve miniature effects and motion control photography. Many of the sets are dressed with a variety of unscripted props that allow Laurie to physically improvise, revealing aspects of his character and the story.

The pilot episode was filmed in Canada; primary photography for all subsequent episodes has been shot on the Fox lot in Century City. Bryan Singer chose the hospital near his hometown, West Windsor, New Jersey, as the show's fictional setting. Princeton University's Frist Campus Center^[a] is the source of the aerial views of Princeton‑Plainsboro Teaching Hospital seen in the series. Some filming took place at the University of Southern California for the season three episode "Half-Wit", which guest-starred Dave Matthews and Kurtwood Smith. Part of House's sixth season was filmed at the abandoned Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, as the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.

Opening sequence

The opening sequence begins with an MRI of a head with an image of the boxed "H" from the logo (the international symbol for hospital) in the foreground. This is then overlaid with an image of Dr. House's face taken from the pilot episode with the show's full title appearing across his face. House's head then fades and the show's title is underlined and has the "M.D." appear next to it, producing the entire logo of the show. This was the full extent of the title sequence in the pilot episode. All subsequent episodes contain a longer sequence including the names of the six featured cast members and creator David Shore. Laurie's name appears first, followed by the names of the five other featured cast members in alphabetical order (Edelstein, Epps, Leonard, Morrison, Spencer), with Shore coming last.

After the show's title fades, there is an aerial view of PPTH (actually various Princeton University buildings, primarily Frist Campus Center). This is followed by a series of images accompanying each cast member's name; most are shown next to, or superimposed upon, illustrations of the human anatomy. Laurie's name appears next to a model of a human head with the brain exposed; Edelstein's name appears next to a visual effects–produced graphic of nerve axons; Epps's name is superimposed upon a rib cage X-ray; Leonard's name appears on a drawing of the two hemispheres of the brain. The producers originally wanted to include an image of a cane and an image of a Vicodin bottle, but Fox objected. Morrison's title card was thus lacking an image; an aerial shot of rowers on Princeton University's Lake Carnegie was finally agreed upon to accompany her name. Spencer's name appears next to an old-fashioned anatomical drawing of a spine. Between the presentations of Spencer's and Shore's names is a scene of House and his three original team members walking down one of the hospital's hallways. Jacobs said that most of the backgrounds have no specific meaning; however, the final image—the text "created by David Shore" superimposed upon a human neck—connotes that Shore is "the brain of the show". The sequence was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2005. The title sequence continued to credit Spencer and Morrison, even when their characters were reduced to background roles throughout season 4 and 5, and Morrison even after hers was written out.

The series' original opening theme, as heard in the United States, comprises instrumental portions of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack. An acoustic version of "Teardrop", with guitar and vocals by José González, is heard as background music during the season 4 finale.

Series overview

See also: List of House episodes

Anytime you try to summarize a show in one word, you sound like an ass. It's about truth.

David Shore

Gregory House, M.D., is a misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Most episodes revolve around the diagnosis of a primary patient and start with a pre-credit sequence set outside the hospital, showing events leading up to the onset of the patient's symptoms. The typical episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose and treat the patient's illness, attempts that often fail until the patient's condition is critical. House's department usually only treats patients that have already been to other doctors but have failed to receive an accurate diagnosis yet. House habitually rejects cases that he does not find interesting. The storylines tend to focus on House's unconventional medical theories and practices, and the other characters' reactions to them, rather than on the intricate details of the treatments.

The team employs the differential diagnosis method, with House guiding the deliberations. Using a whiteboard, House writes down and eliminates possible etiologies with a marker. The patient is typically misdiagnosed during the episode and treated with medications accordingly. This usually causes further complications, but eventually helps House and his team diagnose the patient correctly, as the nature of the complications often provides valuable new evidence. House tends to arrive at the correct diagnosis seemingly out of the blue, often inspired by a passing remark made by another character. Diagnoses range from relatively common to very rare diseases.

Many ailments House and his team encounter cannot be easily diagnosed because patients have lied about their symptoms, circumstances, or personal histories. House frequently mutters, "Everybody lies", or proclaims during the team's deliberations, "The patient is lying"; this assumption guides House's decisions and diagnoses. Because many of his hypotheses are based on epiphanies or controversial insights, he often has trouble obtaining permission from his superior, hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy, to perform medical procedures he considers necessary. This is especially the case when the proposed procedures involve a high degree of risk or are ethically questionable. There are frequent disagreements between House and his team, especially Dr. Allison Cameron, whose standards of medical ethics are more conservative than those of the other characters.

House, like all of the hospital's doctors, is required to treat patients in the facility's walk-in clinic. His grudging fulfillment of this duty, or his creative methods of avoiding it, constitute a recurring subplot. During clinic duty, House confounds patients with unwelcome observations into their personal lives, eccentric prescriptions, and unorthodox treatments. However, after seeming to be inattentive to their complaints, he regularly impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses. The insights that occur as he deals with some of the simple cases in the clinic often inspire him to solve the main case.

It's not a show about addiction, but you can't throw something like this into the mix and not expect it to be noticed and commented on. There have been references to the amount of his consumption increasing over time. It's becoming less and less useful a tool for dealing with his pain, and it's something we're going to continue to deal with, continue to explore.

Shore on House's Vicodin addiction

A significant plot element is House's use of Vicodin to manage pain, caused by an infarction in his quadriceps muscle five years before the show's first season, which also forces him to use a cane. In the first season; eleventh episode "Detox", House admits he is addicted to Vicodin, but says he does not have a problem because the pills "let me do my job, and they take away my pain".^[b] His addiction has led his colleagues, Cuddy and Dr. James Wilson, to encourage him to go to drug rehabilitation several times. When he has no access to Vicodin or experiences unusually intense pain, he occasionally self-medicates with other narcotic analgesics such as morphine, oxycodone, and methadone. House also frequently drinks liquor when he is not on medical duty, and classifies himself as a "big drinker". Toward the end of season five, House begins to hallucinate; after eliminating other possible diagnoses, he and Wilson determine that his Vicodin addiction is the most likely cause. House goes into denial about this for a brief time, but at the close of the season finale, he commits himself to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.

Characters and story arcs

Main article: List of House characters

Main characters

The original cast of the show; from left to right: Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, House, Cameron, and Foreman

Throughout House's run, six of the main actors have received star billing. All of them play doctors who work at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), the title character, heads the Department of Diagnostic Medicine. House describes himself as "a board-certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology". Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), House's one true friend, is the head of the Department of Oncology. Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), an endocrinologist, is House's boss, as she is the hospital's dean of medicine and chief administrator. House has a complex relationship with Cuddy, and their interactions often involve a high degree of innuendo and sexual tension. In the sixth episode of season five, "Joy", they kiss for the first time. Their physical relationship does not progress any further during the fifth season; in the finale, House believes he and Cuddy had sex, but this is a hallucination brought on by House's Vicodin addiction. In the finale of season 6, Cuddy tells House she loves him. They kiss and agree to try being a couple.

House's original team of diagnosticians consists of Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), a neurologist; Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), an intensivist; and Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), an immunologist. In the season three episode "Family", Foreman announces his resignation, telling House, "I don't want to turn into you".^[c] During the season finale, House tells Chase that he has either learned everything he can, or nothing at all, and dismisses him from the team. Cameron, who has developed an affection for Chase, soon resigns. This leaves House without a team for the season 4 premiere.

Under orders from Cuddy to recruit a new team, House considers forty doctors. Season four's early episodes focus on his selection process, structured as a reality TV–style elimination contest (Jacobs referred to it as a "version of Survivor"). House assigns each applicant a number between 1 and 40, and pares them down to seven finalists. He assesses their performance in diagnostic cases, assisted by Foreman, who returns to the department after his dismissal from another hospital for House-like behavior. While Foreman's return means there are only two open slots, House tricks Cuddy into allowing him to hire three new assistants. He ultimately selects Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), a former plastic surgeon; Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), a sports medicine specialist; and Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), an internist (nicknamed for her number in the elimination contest). In the season finale, Thirteen discovers she has, as she had long dreaded, Huntington's disease, which is incurable.

In the eleventh episode of season five, "Joy to the World", Foreman and Thirteen engage in a passionate kiss. Thirteen is at first reluctant to start a relationship with Foreman, but the two eventually begin dating and are still together at the end of the season. They break up early in season six. In March 2009, E! reported that one main character would die during season five. In the twentieth episode, "Simple Explanation", Kutner is found dead in his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head. Because Kutner left no note, House suspects foul play, though the death is accepted by the other characters as a suicide. While Jacobson and Wilde play central characters (as did Penn), they do not receive star billing. They are credited under an "Also Starring" rubric, with their names appearing after the opening sequence.

In the seventh episode of season two, "Hunting", Cameron and Chase have a one-night stand. In the middle of season three, they initiate a sexual relationship that Cameron insists be casual; when Chase declares that he "wants more", Cameron ends the affair. By the end of the season, however, Cameron recognizes that she has romantic feelings for Chase and they begin a serious relationship. After leaving the diagnostic team, they assume different roles at the PPTH, Cameron as a senior attending physician in the emergency room^[d] and Chase as a surgeon. They become engaged in the season five episode "Saviors" (the episode immediately following Kutner's suicide) and are married in the season finale. When Chase rejoins House's team in season six, Cameron leaves her husband and the hospital in "Teamwork", the season's eighth episode. She returned as a guest character in "Lockdown", nine episodes later.

Recurring characters

Every season of House has included a recurring featured character, who appears in a multi-episode story arc. In season one, Edward Vogler (Chi McBride), the billionaire owner of a pharmaceutical company, appears in five episodes. He donates US$100 million to the PPTH in return for chairing its board. Vogler represented an attempt to introduce a villain, a move urged by Fox. By the time the Vogler episodes began to air, the show had become a hit and the character was soon dropped. Shore said the concept of a villainous boss was not really viable for the series: "It's called House. The audience knows he'll never get fired." Stacy Warner (Sela Ward), House's ex-girlfriend, appears in the final two episodes of the first season, and seven season two episodes. She wants House to treat her husband, Mark Warner (Currie Graham), whom House diagnoses with acute intermittent porphyria in the season 1 finale. Stacy and House grow close again, but House eventually tells Stacy to go back to Mark, which devastates her.

Michael Tritter (David Morse), a police detective, appears in several season three episodes. He tries to extract an apology from House, who left Tritter in an examination room with a thermometer in his rectum. After House refuses to apologize, Tritter brings him up on charges of unprescribed narcotics possession and forces him to attend rehab. When the case reaches court, Cuddy lies for House and the case is dismissed. House, however, is sentenced to spend one night in jail for contempt of court and finishes his rehabilitation under the influence of Vicodin.

The candidates for House's new diagnostics team are season four's primary recurring characters. In addition to the three who are chosen, the other four finalists are Jeffrey Cole (Edi Gathegi); Travis Brennan (Andy Comeau), an epidemiologist; Henry Dobson (Carmen Argenziano), a former medical school admissions officer; and Amber "Cut-throat Bitch" Volakis (Anne Dudek), an interventional radiologist. Each of the four departs the show after elimination, except for Volakis, who appears throughout the season, having started a relationship with Wilson. In the two-part season finale, Volakis attempts to shepherd a drunken House home when Wilson is unavailable. They are involved in a bus crash, which leads to her death. She reappears late in season five among the hallucinations House suffers.

Private investigator Lucas Douglas (Michael Weston), a character inspired in part by Shore's love of The Rockford Files, appears in three episodes of season five. House initially hires Douglas to spy on Wilson, who has ended their friendship after Volakis's death (the friendship is subsequently rekindled). House later pays Douglas to look into the private lives of his team members and Cuddy. If the character was accepted by the audience, there were plans to feature him as the lead in a spin-off show. In September 2008, Shore spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his vision for the character: "I don't want to do just another medical show. What does excite me in terms of writing is the choices people make and the nature of right and wrong… and a private investigator can approach that question much more readily than a doctor can." There was no show featuring Douglas on the fall 2009 network television schedule. He returns to House in season six as Cuddy's boyfriend. They are briefly engaged until Cuddy breaks it off, realizing that she is in love with House.

Reception

Critical reception

House received largely positive reviews on its debut; the series was considered a bright spot amid Fox's schedule, largely filled with reality shows. Matt Roush of TV Guide said that the program was an "uncommon cure for the common medical drama". New York Daily News critic David Bianculli applauded the "high caliber of acting and script". The Onion's "A.V. Club" approvingly described it as the "nastiest" black comedy from FOX since 1996's short-lived Profit. New York's John Leonard called the series "medical TV at its most satisfying and basic", while The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert appreciated that the show did not sugarcoat the flaws of the characters to assuage viewers' fears about "HMO factories". Variety's Brian Lowry, less impressed, wrote that the show relied on "by-the-numbers storytelling, albeit in a glossy package". Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "mediocre" and unoriginal.

Lisa Edelstein's performance as Cuddy has been well received by critics.

General critical reaction to the character of Gregory House was particularly favorable. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the most electrifying new main character to hit television in years". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Rob Owen found him "fascinatingly unsympathetic". Critics have compared House to fictional detectives Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot, and Adrian Monk, and to Perry Cox, a cantankerous doctor on the television show Scrubs. One book-length study of the series finds a powerful kinship between House and another famous TV doctor, Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H. Laurie's performance in the role has been widely praised. The San Francisco Chronicle's Goodman called him "a wonder to behold" and "about the only reason to watch House". Gabrielle Donnelly of the Daily Mail said that because of Laurie's complex personality, he was "perfectly cast" in the title role.

Critics have also reacted positively to the show's original supporting cast, which the Post's Shales called a "first-rate ensemble". Leonard's portrayal of Dr. Wilson has been considered Emmy Award worthy by critics with TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Bianculli of the Daily News was happy to see Edelstein "finally given a deservedly meaty co-starring role". Freelance critic Daniel Fienberg was disappointed that Leonard and Edelstein have not received more recognition for their performances.

Reaction to the major shifts of season four was mixed. "With the new crew in place House takes on a slightly more energized feel", wrote Todd Douglass Jr. of DVD Talk. "[A]nd the set up for the fifth season is quite brilliant." The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The extended, enormous job audition gave the writers a chance to reinvigorate the show and fully embrace Laurie's comic genius". Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, took issue with the developments: "the cast just kept getting bigger, the stories more scattered and uneven until you had a bunch of great actors forced to stand around watching Hugh Laurie hold the show together by the sheer force of his will". USA Today's Robert Bianco cheered the season finale: "Talk about saving the best for last. With two fabulous, heartbreaking hours… the writers rescued a season that had seemed diffuse, overcrowded and perhaps too ambitious for its own good."

In contrast to the acclaim the series had earlier received, season five of House met with relatively poor notices. A. A. Gill of The Sunday Times felt that the show had "lost its sense of humour". The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan wrote, "House used to be one of the best shows on TV, but it's gone seriously off the rails". Though McNamara of the Los Angeles Times found detective Lucas Douglas a "delightful addition" to the season's early episodes, Ryan saw him as an "unwelcome distraction… an irritating pipsqueak". The focus on Thirteen and her eventual involvement with Foreman came in for particular criticism.

Critics' top ten lists

Since its first season, House has been included in various top ten lists; these are listed below in order of rank.

2006
#6 Newsday – Chicago Tribune[e]

2008
#4 Los Angeles Times – Chicago Sun-Times[e]

2009
– The New York Times[e]

U.S. television ratings

Since its premiere, House has been consistently popular. In its first season, when it ranked twenty-fourth among all television series, House was the ninth most popular primetime program among women. Aided by a lead-in from the widely popular American Idol, the following three seasons of the program each ranked in the top ten among all viewers. House reached its peak Nielsen ratings in its third season, attracting an average of 19.4 million viewers per episode. According to Jacobs, the production team was surprised that the show garnered such a large audience. In its fifth season, the show attracted 12.0 million viewers per episode and slipped to nineteenth place overall. It remained Fox's most popular show other than American Idol.

The most-watched episode of House's first five seasons is the season four episode "Frozen", which aired after Super Bowl XLII. It attracted slightly more than 29 million viewers. House ranked third for the week, equalling the rating of American Idol and surpassed only by the Super Bowl itself and the post-game show. Below is a table of House's seasonal rankings in the U.S. television market, based on average total viewers per episode. Each U.S. network television season starts in September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Episodes	Timeslot (ET)	Season premiere	Season finale	TV season	Rank	Viewers (millions)
1	22	Tuesday 9:00 p.m.	November 16, 2004	May 24, 2005	2004–05	#24	13.3
2	24	Tuesday 9:00 p.m.	September 13, 2005	May 23, 2006	2005–06	#10	17.3
3	24	Tuesday 8:00 p.m. (2006) Tuesday 9:00 p.m. (2006–07)	September 5, 2006	May 29, 2007	2006–07	#7	19.4
4	16	Tuesday 9:00 p.m. (2007–08) Monday 9:00 p.m. (2008)	September 25, 2007	May 19, 2008	2007–08	#8	16.2
5	24	Tuesday 8:00 p.m. (2008) Monday 8:00 p.m. (2009)	September 16, 2008	May 11, 2009	2008–09	#19	12.0
6	22	Monday 8:00 p.m.	September 21, 2009	May 17, 2010	2009–10	#21	12.6

Awards and honors

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by House (TV series)

House has redefined the medical television show. No longer a world where an idealized doctor has all the answers or a hospital where gurneys race down the hallways, House's focus is on the pharmacological—and the intellectual demands of being a doctor. The trial-and-error of new medicine skillfully expands the show beyond the format of a classic procedural, and at the show's heart, a brilliant but flawed physician is doling out the prescriptions—a fitting symbol for modern medicine.

— Judges of the American Film Institute on the show's 2005 win

House has received many awards and award nominations. The show received a 2005 Peabody Award for what the Peabody board called an "unorthodox lead character—a misanthropic diagnostician" and for "cases fit for a medical Sherlock Holmes", which helped make House "the most distinctive new doctor drama in a decade". The American Film Institute (AFI), included House in its 2005 list of 10 Television Programs of the Year.

The show has been nominated for six Golden Globe Awards and received two. Hugh Laurie has been nominated four times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama; he won in 2006 and again in 2007. In 2008 the series received its first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama. House was nominated for best dramatic series again the following year, but has yet to win in the category.

House has also been honored by the Screen Actors Guild—Laurie won the Guild's award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in both 2007 and 2009. In 2005, 2007, and 2008, Laurie was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. The Emmy board also nominated House for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, but the show has yet to win the award.

For the season one episode "Three Stories", David Shore won a writing Emmy in 2005 and the Humanitas Prize in 2006. Writer Lawrence Kaplow won a Writers Guild of America Award in 2006 for the season two episode "Autopsy". Director Greg Yaitanes received the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing - Drama Series, for directing "House's Head", the first part of season four's two-episode finale. In 2007, the show won a Creative Arts Emmy Award for prosthetic makeup.

In 2005, Laurie appeared on the cover of TV Guide as "TV's Sexiest Man". In 2008, House was voted second sexiest television doctor ever, behind ER's Doug Ross (George Clooney).

Distribution

In 2008, House was distributed in a total of 66 countries. With an audience of over 81.8 million worldwide, it was the most watched television show on the globe and far surpassed the viewership figures of the leading TV dramas the previous two years (CSI and CSI: Miami). House episodes premiere on Fox in the United States and GlobalTV in Canada, which have identical schedules. The show was the third most popular on Canadian television in 2008. That same year, House was the top-rated television program in Germany, the number 2 show in Italy, and number 3 in the Czech Republic. The series is also very popular in France, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom, the first four seasons were broadcast on Five. Sky1 acquired first-run rights beginning with season five. The original, English-language version of the show also airs in Australia on Network Ten, in New Zealand on TV3, and in Ireland on 3e, TV3's cable channel.

Episodes of the show are also available online for download: both Amazon Video on Demand and the iTunes store offer all of seasons 1 through 5 for US$1.99 an episode. In 2007, NBC Universal (the show's distributor) and Apple Inc. (iTunes' owner) had a disagreement that temporarily kept the fourth season off of iTunes. In a statement to the press, Apple claimed that NBC Universal wanted to drive up the per-episode price to $4.99. In September 2008, it was reported that the issue between Apple and NBC had been resolved. Episodes can now also be purchased in HD on iTunes for $2.99. Recent episodes are available in streaming video on Fox's official House webpage and on Hulu.com.

The first five seasons of the show have been released on DVD in regions 1, 2, and 4. A boxed set comprising seasons 1 through 5 has been issued, as well. Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced plans to rerelease the first season in region 1 in anamorphic widescreen (the original release is letterboxed). It is unclear if the DVDs will be rereleased with anamorphic widescreen in regions 2 and 4, where they have been presented in 4:3 fullscreen.

Merchandise

For a charity auction, American Apparel 100% cotton T-shirts bearing the phrase "Everybody Lies" were sold for a limited time starting on April 23, 2007. The shirts were priced at $19.95 apiece on Housecharitytees.com; proceeds went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). T-shirts with the phrase "Normal's Overrated" are currently on sale, with proceeds going to NAMI. House cast and crew members also regularly attend fundraisers for NAMI and have featured in ads for the organization that have appeared in Seventeen and Rolling Stone. The show's efforts have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the charity. Jacobs said that through their association with NAMI, they hope to take "some of the stigma off that illness".

Nettwerk released the House M.D. Original Television Soundtrack album on September 18, 2007. The soundtrack includes full length versions of songs featured in House and previously unreleased songs especially recorded for the series. In 2008, the Spanish game company Exelweiss designed a cellphone game for the show, which was released in both Spanish and English versions.

In June 2009, Legacy Interactive announced a licensing agreement with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group (UPDPG) to develop a video game based on the series, in which players step into the roles of House's diagnostic team to deal with five unusual medical cases. The game, released in May 2010, included a minigame calling upon the player to "navigat[e] a restaurant-placemat-style maze, in which a giant sandwich must avoid hungry physicians on its way to Dr. House's office." It received an F from The A.V. Club.

Notes

Footnotes

• ^{^} McCosh Health Center, Princeton University's infirmary, is situated adjacent to Frist, and can be seen in some shots.
• ^{^} The line is part of an exchange at the end of the episode between House and Wilson. They are discussing how House has changed since the infarction in his leg. Wilson asks, "And everything's the leg, nothing's the pills, they haven't done a thing to you?" House responds, "They let me do my job, and they take away my pain".
• ^{^} Foreman further explains his resignation to House: "You'll save more people than I will, but I'll settle for killing less. Consider this my two weeks notice."
• ^{^} According to the description in FOX's official House website, "Cameron heads up Emergency Medicine".
• ^{^} The Chicago Tribune lists, as well as the 2008 Chicago Sun-Times and the 2009 New York Times lists, are not ranked—they each consist of ten shows in alphabetical order.

References

• Benson, Kristina (2008). House M.D.: House MD Season Two Unofficial Guide: The Unofficial Guide to House MD Season 2. Equity Press. ISBN 1603320652.
• Challen, Paul (2007). The House that Hugh Laurie Built: An Unauthorized Biography and Episode Guide. ECW Press. ISBN 155022803X.
• Holtz, Andrew (2006). The Medical Science of House, M.D. Berkley Trade. ISBN 0425212300.
• Jacoby, Henry (2008). House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0470316608.
• Wilson, Leah (2007). House Unauthorized: Vasculitis, Clinic Duty, and Bad Bedside Manner. Benbella Books. ISBN 1933771232.

External links

• Official website at Fox.com
• Official House Wiki at Fox.com
• House at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Template:YahooTV show
• House Medical Reviews (a physician reviews House on medical accuracy)
• The House MD Project (explains the disease behind each episode)

Preceded by Criminal Minds 2007

House Super Bowl lead-out program 2008

Succeeded by The Office 2009