HOUSE (TV SERIES)

'''House''', also known as '''House, M.D.''', is a critically-acclaimed American medical drama television series created by David Shore and executive produced by Shore and film director Bryan Singer. The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning medical drama debuted on the FOX Network on 16 November 2004.
''House'' stars British actor Hugh Laurie as the American title character, a role for which he received the 2006 and 2007 Golden Globe Awards and 2007 Screen Actors Guild award for . The third season of ''House'' premiered on 5 September 2006, in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In February 2007, ''House'' was renewed for a fourth season, which will premiere on September 25, 2007 in the United States.^[1][2]

Contents

Characters

Cast

Recurring characters

Plot

Impact

Ratings

Awards

Production

Casting

Theme music

Filming

DVD releases

Notes

External links

Characters

Main articles: List of House characters

Cast

{|{|border="2" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;"
|-bgcolor="#f7f7f7"
!Character
!Actor
!Character information
|-
|Dr. Gregory House
|Hugh Laurie
|Head of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine; diagnostician specializing in infectious diseases and nephrology
|-
|Dr. Lisa Cuddy
|Lisa Edelstein
|Chief Administrator; Dean of Medicine; endocrinology
|-
|Dr. James Wilson
|Robert Sean Leonard 
|Head of the Department of Oncology; member of the board of the hospital
|-
|Dr. Eric Foreman
|Omar Epps
|Attending physician; neurology
|-
|Dr. Allison Cameron 
|Jennifer Morrison
|Attending physician; immunology
|-
|Dr. Robert Chase
|Jesse Spencer
|Attending physician; intensive care medicine
|}

Recurring characters

{|{|border="2" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;"
|-bgcolor="#f7f7f7"
!Character
!Actor
!Character information
!Season
|-
|Edward Vogler
|Chi McBride
|Billionaire owner of a pharmaceutical firm
Former chairman of the board of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital
|1
|-
|Stacy Warner
|Sela Ward
|Dr. House's former girlfriend ^[3]
Former attorney for Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital
|1, 2
|-
|Mark Warner
|Currie Graham
|Stacy's husband
|1, 2
|-
|Det. Michael Tritter 
|David Morse
|Criminal investigator with a grudge against Dr. House
|3
|-
|TBA
|Anne Dudek^[4]
|One of five doctors who makes it onto House's shortlist of potential new fellows
|4
|-
|TBA
|Edi Gathegi⁴
|One of five doctors who makes it onto House's shortlist of potential new fellows
|4
|-
|TBA
|Peter Jacobson 
|Plastic surgeon—One of five doctors who makes it onto House's shortlist of potential new fellows
|4
|-
|TBA
|Kal Penn
|One of five doctors who makes it onto House's shortlist of potential new fellows
|4
|-
|Thirteen⁴
|Olivia Wilde
|One of five doctors who makes it onto House's shortlist of potential new fellows
|4
|}

Plot

Main articles: List of House episodes

Dr. Gregory House is a maverick medical genius, who heads a team of young diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (based directly on the Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, the teaching hospital of Yale University) in New Jersey. Most episodes start with a cold open somewhere outside the hospital, showing the events leading to the onset of symptoms for that week's main patient. The episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose the illness.
The team arrives at diagnoses using the Socratic method and differential diagnosis, with House guiding the deliberations. House often discounts the information and opinions from his underlings, pointing out that their contributions have missed various relevant factors. The patient is usually misdiagnosed two or three times over the course of each episode, often with sarcoidosis, lupus, cancer, or an infection, and treated with medications appropriate to those diagnoses that cause further complications. Often the ailment cannot be easily deduced because the patient has lied about symptoms and circumstances. House frequently mutters, "Everybody lies," or proclaims during the team's deliberations: "The patient is lying," or "The symptoms never lie." Even when not stated explicitly, this assumption guides House's decisions and diagnoses.
House's begrudging fulfillment of his mandatory walk-in clinic duty is a recurring subplot on the show. During clinic duty, House confounds patients with an eccentric bedside manner and unorthodox treatments, but impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses after seemingly not paying attention. He often plays video games on either his PSP or his GBA SP or his DS while patients or one of his colleagues talk to him, and in one episode House diagnoses five patients in the waiting room in under a minute on his way out of the clinic. Realizations made during some of the simple problems House faces in the clinic often help him solve the main case of the episode—ironic, because he claims to hate working in the clinic.
Episodes frequently feature the unusual practice of entering a patient's house with or without the owner's permission in order to search for clues that might suggest a certain pathology. The creator, David Shore, originally intended for the show to be a -type show where the "germs were the suspects,"^[5] but has since shifted much of the focus to the characters rather than concentrating solely on the environment.
A running joke in the series is that Lupus is suggested as a cause of the patient's symptoms in many episodes, although invariably this is quickly dismissed. In one episode, House produces some of his secret Vicodin stash from inside a hollowed-out Lupus textbook; by way of explanation, he says, "It's never lupus." Lupus is one of the medical conditions known as The Great Imitator, because it can present with a wide variety of symptoms.
Another large portion of the plot centers around House's abuse of Vicodin and other drugs to manage pain stemming from an infarction in his quadriceps muscle some years prior which causes him to walk with a cane. The pain and drug abuse act to increase many of his more objectionable character traits while not impairing his medical acumen, which leads him to often self-medicate. Overall, House is thus presented as a classic flawed hero.
Interestingly, House lives at 221B "???" Street as shown in "Hunting" Season 2 Episode 7. Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street. House is addicted to Vicodin, but he can get along without it when the case is interesting. Holmes was a cocaine addict unless there was a good case. House has his Watson in the form of Wilson (interesting correlation between the syllables and first consonances in each name and their personalities) House is a bloodhound on the trail, Wilson is kindly and does his job, Holmes and Watson act the same respectively.

Impact

Ratings

'USA TV Ratings'
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of ''House'' on FOX
''Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.''
{| class="wikitable"
|- style="background-color:#E0E0E0" valign="bottom"
! Season
! Timeslot
! Season Premiere
! Season Finale
! TV Season
! Rank
! Viewers
(in millions)
|- style="background-color:#E0E0E0"
|- style="background-color:#F9F9F9"
! style="background:#F9F9F9;text-align:center" |''
! style="background:#F9F9F9;font-size:11px;font-weight:normal;text-align:left;line-height:110%" | Tuesday 9:00P.M.
| November 16, 2004
| May 24, 2005
| style="font-size:11px;text-align:center" |2004-2005
! style="text-align:center" | '#24'
| style="text-align:center" | 13.3^[6]
|- style="background-color:#F9F9F9"
! style="background:#F9F9F9;text-align:center" |''
! style="background:#F9F9F9;font-size:11px;font-weight:normal;text-align:left;line-height:110%"| Tuesday 9:00P.M.
| September 13, 2005
| May 23, 2006
| style="font-size:11px;text-align:center" | 2005–2006
! style="text-align:center" | #10
| style="text-align:center" | 17.3^[7]
|- style="background-color:#F9F9F9"
! style="background:#F9F9F9;text-align:center" | ''
! style="background:#F9F9F9;font-size:11px;font-weight:normal;text-align:left;line-height:110%" | Tuesday 8:00P.M. (2006)
Tuesday 9:00P.M. (2006-2007)
| September 5, 2006
| May 29, 2007
| style="font-size:11px;text-align:center" | 2006–2007
! style="text-align:center" | #7
| style="text-align:center" | 19.4^[8]'
|- style="background-color:#F9F9F9"
! style="background:#F9F9F9;text-align:center" | ''
! style="background:#F9F9F9;font-size:11px;font-weight:normal;text-align:left;line-height:110%" | Tuesday 9:00P.M.
| September 25, 2007
| ''TBD''
| style="font-size:11px;text-align:center" | 2007–2008
! style="text-align:center" | ''TBD''
| style="text-align:center" | ''TBD''
|}

Awards

Main articles: List of House awards

''House'' received a Peabody Award in 2006, for what the Peabody board
called an "unorthodox lead character – a misanthropic diagnostician" and for "cases fit for a medical Sherlock Holmes," both of which helped make ''House'' "the most distinctive new doctor drama in a decade."^[9] At the 2005 American Film Institute Awards, ''House'' was an official selection as TV Program of the Year.
Creator David Shore won a writing Emmy in 2005 for the first season episode "Three Stories."^[10] The Writer's Guild of America honored Lawrence Kaplow for his episode "Autopsy."
In 2005 and 2007, lead actor Hugh Laurie was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He was awarded the Golden Globe for in 2006 and again in 2007, when he also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Male Actor in a Drama Series.

Production

''House'' is aired by the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a co-production of Heel and Toe Films (Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs), Shore Z Productions (David Shore), and Bad Hat Harry Productions (Bryan Singer) in association with the NBC Universal Television Studio (formed after General Electric, the owners of NBC, bought Universal Studios from Vivendi Universal) for FOX. All three companies are responsible for production and all four people are executive producers of the show. David Shore's ideas for ''House, M.D.'' are inspired by the writings of Berton Roueche.^[11]
The 58th Primetime Emmy Awards and Creative Arts Emmy nominations recognized Derek R. Hill, Production Designer and Danielle Berman, S.D.S.A., Set Decorator for their "Outstanding Art Direction For A Single-Camera Series" for the FOX Network series, House, M.D. produced by Heel and Toe Productions, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Television Studios.
As of season 2, episode "TB or Not TB," a German production company, Moratim, is credited in the copyright notice instead of Universal Network Television. (Moratim Produktions GmbH & Co. KG, of Pullach im Isartal, Germany). Moratim produced five episodes.

Casting

The producers were reportedly dissatisfied with early auditions for the role of House. When Hugh Laurie auditioned, he apologized for his appearance as he was filming ''Flight of the Phoenix '' at the time.^[12] Laurie's American accent was reportedly so flawless that Bryan Singer singled him out as an example of a real American actor, being unaware of Laurie's background.^[13] Laurie later stated that his original impression was that the show was about Dr. James Wilson, as the script referred to him as a doctor with "boyish" looks, assumed this to be the star and that Dr. House was the "sidekick" (the show was not yet titled ''House'' at that point). It was not until he received the full teleplay of the pilot that he realized that House was the protagonist.^[14] Laurie, whose father was a doctor himself, said he felt guilty for "being paid more to become a fake version of my own father" after being cast as House.^[15]

Theme music

The opening theme is "Teardrop" by Massive Attack. "Teardrop" itself does have lyrics, sung by guest vocalist Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins; however, the version used in the opening credits uses only the beginning and ending sections, which are solely instrumental. Due to rights and licensing issues this music is only used for the show in North America with some exceptions. In other countries, a piece of music named "House End Credits" is used, which was composed specifically for the show by: Jon Ehrlich, Jason Derlatka, and Leigh Roberts. With the second season, this was replaced with a similar track by only Ehrlich and Roberts. This theme tune, however, is only used in the televised broadcast. In the DVD release (Season 2) the original (American) theme is used. In Italy opening themes for season 1–2 and season 3 are switched, so that the original 'Teardrop' is used for season 3, while both Season 1 and 2 use the edited version. The parodic British television show ''Dead Ringers'', which sometimes spoofs ''House'', uses "Teardrop" for the spoof's opening theme. "Teardrop" is also used in the season 2 region 2 and region 4 release, replacing the "House" theme at the beginning of the episode. "Teardrop" is also used as a background music for a promotion of the same show in Qtv in the Philippines.

Filming

Exterior shots of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital are actually of Princeton University's Frist Campus Center, which is the University's student center. Filming does not, however, take place there.^[16] Instead, it takes place on the FOX lot in Century City.

DVD releases

{| class="wikitable"
!Title
!Region 1
!Region 2
!Region 4
|-
| Season One

| August 30 2005
| February 27 2006
| November 28 2005
|-
| Season Two

| August 22 2006
| October 23 2006
| October 23, 2006
|-
| Season Three

| August 21 2007
| November 4 2007
| September 19 2007
|}
Despite the series being filmed for widescreen (16:9) television, the First Season DVD set is in 4:3 format, although the Region 1 release has letterboxes, thereby still presenting images in their entirety, whereas the other regions have a cropped fullscreen format, thereby losing the later portions of the image. (Interestingly, the rerun of the first season on German TV is shown in widescreen (16:9).) ^[17] The Second Season DVD set, on the other hand, presents the show in its original widescreen format in all regions.

Notes

1. Fox renews 'House', 'Bones'
2. Fox announces premiere dates; "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" returns Aug. 30 Hal Boedeker
3. Stacy Warner character profile
4. 4 move into "House"
5. Q&A with 'House' creator David Shore
6. Final audience and ratings figures
7. 2005-06 primetime wrap
8. Hollywood Reporter: 2006-07 primetime wrap
9. 65th Annual Peabody Winners
10. Guide to the 2005 Emmy Awards Retrieved 2006-11-05.
11. http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=936
12. ''Casting Session with Hugh Laurie'' House DVD Special Feature, [2005]
13. ''Radio Times'' magazine, 23 March 2007
14. ''Inside the Actor's Studio'' Hugh Laurie Interview, BRAVO Network, [2006]
15. Keveney, Bill (2004). Hugh Laurie gets into 'House'. ''USA Today''.
16. McCosh Health Center, the University's infirmary, is situated adjacent to Frist, and can be seen in some shots.
17. http://forum.quotenmeter.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3442&start=1900

External links

★ Official website

★ ''House'' at Yahoo! TV

★ ''House'' Medical Reviews A physician reviews House on medical accuracy

★ ''House'' episode reviews on TV Squad