House 5x20: "Simple Explanation"

Don't read any further if you didn't watch yet and don't want to be spoiled. I say this as though there are tons of people reading this blog, ha!

The previews had me thinking that last night's House was going to be a Very Special Episode™, so I was only half paying attention during the first several minutes, which made Foreman and 13's discovery all the more abrupt and unsettling.

I certainly didn't expect Kutner to die, and upon learning he had, I certainly didn't expect it to be from a suicide. I think the most deft and sort of meta aspect of this episode was that viewers' reactions mirrored the characters': utter confusion and denial.

From reading some message boards at Television Without Pity, I found that many viewers were extremely angry and disgusted with the way Kutner's death was handled. There were many pronouncements of "Fuck you, show" and "I'm not watching anymore," which, that level of vitriol directed at a television show when there are all sorts of outrageous things happening out here in real life--kind of absurd. But others made the critique that Kutner's suicide was a contrived way to pull the heartstrings and make an Emmy bid.

I'm sure the spectre of a possible Emmy win is always looming over showrunners, but I disagree that this was a contrivance. This was possibly the biggest infusion of reality that an often bordering-on-sci-fi show has ever had, which is perhaps what made it so jarring: it's not just realistic, it is real. Can we ever really understand why someone has made a decision to end his or her life? Sometimes there are what we think of as "signs," sometimes there aren't, but it's always incomprehensible to those left behind.

13 mentioned that with 25% of suicides, there are no outward signs. House disagreed: for 25%, their so-called friends and loved ones were simply too self-absorbed to notice what was going on. House, of course, would say this: his reliance on rationality and logic has a near-religious intensity. The show has emphasized, over and over, that pretty much the one thing keeping House from succumbing to his own misery is his passion--and singular talent--for solving puzzles. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the episode for me was House's insistence that Kutner had been murdered, since there was no explanation for why he'd kill himself; this was a childlike denial of not only Kutner's tragic death, but the truth that we are all essentially mysteries to each other. Human beings ultimately can't be puzzled out. It will be interesting to see how this realization resonates for House throughout the rest of the season.

And if you're interested, check out this interview with actor Kal Penn: apparently his reason for leaving the show is that he's going to work for Obama! Kudos to him for leaving an extremely profitable job to dedicate himself to public service--seems like quite an unusual decision.

Commercial Break!

You may remember* my personal vow a few weeks back to watch at least one commercial break per program when viewing a DVRd program, so as to keep television free. Boy, are you fast forwarders missing out on some wacky stuff! Here are some commercials to have recently caught my eye.

Watch this one for Playskool's Helmet Heroes, which aired during House on 10/14. Pay close attention to the commercial's first line and then meet me after for discussion.



Can I imagine getting arrested in my own home?! Sadly, thanks to Post 9/11 Patriot Act politics, YES! And even if I couldn't imagine it, why is that something that I would want to imagine? You betchya, sometimes I just kick back and dream of what it would be like for my household to turn into some sort of Lord of the Flies reenactment, complete with little boys living out their frustration resulting from the cult of masculinity's societal pressures on them. Wow, did you tap into the minds of the House watching demographic, Playskool!

Then there are these quirky adds from Ask.com that have jumped the pond and can be most often viewed during the first two hours of The Today Show.





If you're instinct is to laugh at these, I'll tell you why you are a racist elitist. You know what really nags me? Minorities. And you know what else really nags me? Obese people. Why do we have to have the physical embodiments of our most irritating concerns be represented by people outside of the norm, huh? Is Ask.com telling us that we must take steps to get red of Southeastern Asians and obese people because they're not like us? I think so.

What commercials have caught your eye recently? Let me know when I get back from reading some Irigaray and burning my bra.



*You definitely don't remember.

Fringe, Watch It

This upcoming fall season was slowly pushing me towards the realization that when it comes to case-of-the-week, procedural television, we had seen it all. If it weren't for the awe inspiring final two episodes of House last season, I would have been close to being lumbar punctured out. Law and Order (mostly original recipe, but sometimes SVU) has become incredibly dependent on ripping from the headlines instead of crafting crackerjack cases in the writers' room. Even new offerings are falling short. The Mentalist and Eleventh Hour, premiering on CBS on September 23rd and October 9th respectively, both boast well developed and acted, quirky male leads, but the cases presented in the pilot episode are not the awe inspiring webs of intrigue they should be in order to hook a repeat audience (more on these shows later).

In steps Fox's Fringe. Try to set aside enough time to watch the 2 hour premiere tomorrow night, Tubers. You will not be disappointed. Fringe is the next, sure to be successful, notch in J.J. Abrams' belt. Unlike its older brother, Lost, Fringe won't leave you with a case of the WTFs. Yes, J.J.'s fancy for the other worldly is more than present, but putting his voice in a case-of-the-week format was a brilliant idea in order capture a new fan base who don't like to be kept wondering for half of a year why it is the island just disappeared!#7$%9#!@.

Australian actor John Noble (pictured right) STEALS THE SHOW with an incredibly sympathetic portrayal of Walter Bishop, a real, live mad scientist. I know it is always a struggle for overseas actors to take commercial, American gigs without feeling as if they have compromised their legitimacy, but this role could do for Noble what House did for Hugh Laurie.* Noble's chemistry with Joshua Jackson, who plays his son Peter, is delightful! Yes, delightful.

*Every time you say or write Hugh Laurie, an angel gets its wings. Fact.

Fee-yarce

My boyfriend told me yesterday that at times, I can be quite "fierce." (Yes, I have a boyfriend now, which may explain my long hiatus from this blog. That's right. I've been having sex non-stop for the past THREE MONTHS. Boy, am I tired.) What he said made me think of how often that word is thrown around on America's Next Top Model, (pronounced "fee-yarce") and how it doesn't seem to mean anything, really.

It's no surprise that Tyra Banks doesn't understand English, considering that she recently pronounced Asperger's Ahs-pur-jers and that when she had the opportunity to interview Barack Obama, she asked him if she and her mother could have a sleepover party in the Lincoln bedroom. I don't know why this woman is allowed to have multiple TV shows. The only useful thing she has ever done for my life was to give me a shade upon which to base my ultimate cup of coffee. ("Milk and sugar?" "Yeah, make it about Tyra color.")



The model wannabes are increasingly despicable as well, now mocking the disabled and each other's thigh fat (which: what fat??). The only two likeable girls are Heather, who has Asperger's (which: if that means not being able to relate to the other contestants, then I also have Asperger's) and Victoria, the awkward nerdy Yale student. I will watch tonight's episode because it's the makeover one, which is always my favorite, because it leaves me feeling immensely self-satisfied after I correctly predict who will cry at their new haircut.

House, meanwhile, was EXCELLENT last night, inducing Jeanette and I to cry over the clearly manipulative final dog scene. This season's format of auditioning new fellows, Survivor-style, is doing it for me, despite the fact that there's no suspense that Kal Penn's character will be hired. It's also looking like Foreman will return. He has never helped me with my coffee, but he is my favorite second banana character and there's a definite gap in the show without him.

Spoilery nitpick: no way would that dog have eaten the pills off the floor. Having cared for that man for so long, it certainly would have been trained to avoid spilled medication.

Also, as much as I love my cat, dogs > cats.

Oh Dad! The Rogue!: Heroes, House and Kid Nation

We're not even fully into network television's premiere week yet, but here are some random thoughts...

Creative product placement is all the rage in the TV biz these days, what with the Internets taking over buyers' attention spans (way to generalize, Jeanette). Here are some gross offenders I have noticed over the past week...

Claire was SO THRILLED when Horn Rimmed Glasses gave her a car on the season preem of HEROES this past Monday. "Oh, Dad! The Rogue," she exclaimed, standing next to the black Nissan (R). Yes, every teenager's dream...a Nissan Rogue. I can't wait til these start appearing during the grand finales of MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEEN, right after Kanye West pops out of a cake and some marching band geeks are kicked out of the party. Catch this oh so genuine moment when the show is encored this Saturday, and catch the flack NBC is getting for combining the Nielsen ratings of both airings to inflate their success...

Dr. Gregory House munched on some CheezIts (R) during his latest illegal patient break in. Damn, that's it? CheezIts? If I knew Hugh Laurie was going to break into my house, I would have a platter of ME waiting, with a side of ME. And for dessert...ME. And then I would ask how he likes his eggs in the morning, and then make him a ME omlette.

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In guilty pleasure news, I do believe I will remain a steady viewer of CBS' controversial KID NATION. This has a lot to do with Jared, a precocious 11 year old from Georgia. Kid is like a walking Bartlett’s! He has been known to spew such gems as, "I'm hungry, and as Martin Luther King Jr. said, I have a dream!" When debating whether or not to sacrifice chickens for the sake of protein, Jared had this to offer: "As William Shakespeare said, To kill or not to kill, that is the question."

When not hoping for Jared to enlighten me, I watch KID NATION to hear Laurel's accent. She must be the baby that Matt Damon's girlfriend was pregnant with in THE DEPARTED, because every time she speaks, it sounds like Boston is throwing up!

If you aren't in love with Jared and Laurel already, be sure to click the links to check out their profiles on CBS' website. Their most admired world leaders are George W. Bush and Jesus Christ respectively. THAT SHOULD SEAL THE DEAL FOR YOU!

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What are your thoughts on the season so far, and more importantly, will Alanna ever post again?

Finales Disorient and Disappoint

Last night's House season finale was rather underwhelming, much like the majority of Season 3. By the end of the episode, all three of the House-ettes had either resigned or been fired for reasons that remain underdeveloped, and the Patient of the Week's illness was quickly resolved with little explanation or mystery. A heart defect? That's it? Remember when this show used to have House doing autopsies on living children and unearthing shocking affairs via diagnoses of African sleeping sickness?

There's little suspense surrounding the fate of Cameron, Chase, and Foreman, considering that the actors who play them have not quit the show. The only tension is around how the writers will contrive to bring them back to the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital at the start of season 4. Let's hope that come Septemberish, House will return to form with shocking, provocative cases, a little more heat (House and Cuddy, anyone?), and fewer plot arcs featuring men as hell-bent on destroying Dr. Greg as cartoon villains.

Lost's finale already has been much-discussed across the blogscape (I prefer this term to blogosphere) so I will just say this: now that's how a show maintains fan interest during the off-season. I have no idea how showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof plan to continue the show, given the shocking nature of the finale's few minutes. Any commenters care to weigh in with their predictions?

Finally, take a gander at David Remnick's take on the end of The Sopranos. He says it better than I could, which is one of many reasons why I am not running The New Yorker.

The Sopranos Effect

My friend Josh has a theory that the plots of the films Donnie Brasco and Mean Girls are essentially the same. After all, what are mob families but grimmer versions of high school cliques? Many of the themes that run throughout the greatest mob stories can be found in unexpected places.

Love or hate The Sopranos (I'm looking at you, Johnny), there's no denying that it is a series that changed television. It altered the way that we perceive the rules for a TV series, what kind of content and characters we think are allowed to appear on the small screen. I've heard Tony Soprano compared to Archie Bunker, but Archie Bunker never strangled a man to death while visiting colleges with his daughter. Archie never cheated on his wife with a one-legged Russian. Having an antihero as a series' protagonist has been done, but criminals and sociopaths? Not so much. Say thank you, creators of Dexter, Weeds, Deadwood, The Riches, and House.

HBO certainly ran with the complex-baddie-as-main-character format. Deadwood's Al Swearengen and Rome's Lucius Vorenus are basically the Tony Sopranos of their respective historical periods. If you need confirmation, watch the "Gangs and Organized Crime" supplement to Rome on your HBO On Demand. The special outlines how the Mafia was born in ancient Rome's collegia, which were guilds run by powerful gangsters. Because there was no police force then, the collegia controlled the streets. Like the Mafia, collegia members protected local residents and gave charity to the poor, but they also were responsible for the brutal murders of those who resisted them.



And like Tony & Co., we see on Rome that the men of the collegia were deeply religious, though with less Jesus and more Janus. In fact, Vorenus is not taken seriously by rival collegia until he declares himself a "son of Hades." Then it becomes clear that he is not fucking around, because hey, the god of the underworld is the ultimate villain with whom to align yourself. Respect gained, Vorenus then saw visitors who would make requests of him, Don Corleone style.

I'm also convinced that on Lost, The Others are a kind of South Pacific mafia. Their name alone evokes several qualities associated with the mob: exclusivity, mystery, power. They are structured in a manner identical to mob families, that is, like a small dictatorship. Ben Linus (formerly Henry Gale) is the all knowing leader. His underlings secretly infiltrate and subvert the survivors, like in The Departed. They deem particular survivors as among "the good ones," presumably worthy of joining them. Locke is one of the chosen few and, based on the last episode, has come over to their side. Whether he will be made a capo remains to be seen.

Perhaps these shows are simply reflecting society in a funhouse mirror, offering exaggerated interpretations of our own tendencies to form insular posses in order to feel secure. What do you think, readers? What are other shows that are really mob stories?

American TV Characters Outsourced to Great Britain

In the Times today, Bill Carter writes about how British people are better than us at everything, including acting for television. Firstly, I must retort that we Yanks are superior in three areas: cuisine, dental hygiene, and having emotions.

Carter discusses the coming influx of limeys into American programming, citing two actors from my current telegenic obsession, Rome. Ray Stevenson and Kevin McKidd will both be playing Americans on the proposed shows "Babylon Fields" and "Journeyman," respectively. Considering that the titles sound like SciFi Channel rejects, I'm thinking these blokes shouldn't buy property in Los Angeles quite yet. Their fellow former cast member, James Purefoy, whose Antony is way more fun than Charlton Heston's Antony, also will appear on a new program called "Manchild," which is a remake of a BBC series.

The article goes on to address other Britons invading the small screen, but I don't care about them because they don't look hot in ancient Roman man-skirts. I was led to question, though, if Brits really are better thespians than Americans. Considering the ratio of Us to Them, Them seems to have a much greater proportion of talent whenever awards season rolls around.

However, one anonymous TV exec claims Brits are being cast more frequently not because of their abilities, but because of their low hourly rates:

The executive said it is increasingly difficult to get an American actor in a lead role for less than $100,000 an episode. British actors work for considerably less, the executive said, though the figures vary.

In other words, their accents may sound high falutin', but they'll essentially become low-rent streetwalkers for a guest spot on 24. Ha! Take that, imperialists!

The article concludes, happily, with a mention of The Boob Tubers' favorite English TV whore:

So why are so many British actors so interested so suddenly in American television? Mainly it can be traced back to the most significant factor of all. “Hugh Laurie opened the door,” Ms. Buck said.

House 3/27/07: Don't Kiss Riley Finn Anytime Soon

I just... I can't ever forgive myself for forgetting to blog about this subject last Tuesday. Please consider this my penance, intended to hold you over until a new House airs at nine tomorrow.

Last week's episode would have been unextraordinary - that is, a standard-issue House, plus the bonus insinuation of a one-night stand between House and Cuddy - if it weren't for guest star Marc Blucas.

Blucas is known amongst Buffy obsessives as Riley Finn, Buffy's fourth and fifth season boyfriend, AKA the poor schmuck sandwiched between Buffy's two far more delicious vampire BFs. Think of Riley as some old liverwurst, and Angel and Spike as the homemade ciabatta slices that overpower the cold cut smushed between them. Riley started out sort of sympathetic - he was just an all-American boy who had no idea what he was getting into. But by the end of his run he was an intolerable meathead whose ego couldn't withstand a girlfriend with more brawn than he.



In fact, back in college my friend Lindsey and I used to scream at the television, "BLUCAS, YOU SUCK!" every time Riley appeared on screen. The refrain sounds obvious enough, but we came upon it browsing the Buffy forums on Television Without Pity. (Yes, it's been established that I include myself in the Buffy obsessives.) One poster was an alumnus of Wake Forest, a school for which Marc Blucas played basketball. And apparently, he sucked. Hard. So when this poster went to games, he would scream at him, "BLUCAS, YOU SUCK!" And continued to do so years later when Blucas appeared on Buffy as the character Spike once accurately nicknamed Captain Cardboard.

ANYWAY. I was glad to see Riley Finn go, but I'm always interested in seeing what Buffy veterans are up to these days. (Prognosis: not so good. Slayer. The voice of April in TMNT? Really?) So when Marc "BLUCAS, YOU SUCK!" Blucas appeared as Patient of the Week on last week's House, I was delighted. I was even more delighted when it turned out that his character had a genetic disease whose symptoms included, among other things, bacterial vaginosis in his mouth. Vagina Mouth. That seems like a generous ending for Riley Finn, no?

House 12/13/06: Aww, Greggy-poo

Last night's House was perhaps was the most miserable Christmas episode that I have ever seen. Between the detoxing, and the stealing Oxy from a dead guy, and the betrayals and the ultimatums and the sniping, and the really hot dwarf (wait, what?), Bad Hat Harry Productions has left us with almost nothing but negativity to carry us through the dark House-less days until January 9th.

Almost nothing. Because last night's episode provided Jeanette and I with one amazing revelation.

Gregory House has metamorphosed into a teenage girl.

Sure, House was cutting himself because it helped to "release endorphins" that temporarily "relieved his agonizing leg pain" and the "discomfort of detoxing from Vicodin." But any graduate of a suburban high school knows what sort of people really cut themselves, and why:

Angsty adolescent females who want everyone to see the pain they feel inside. The kind of horrible, horrible pain that comes from parents who give you your grandfather's old Buick for your 16th birthday instead of the Audi that your friend Julie got. The intolerable ouchies of a rejection letter from Brown University, which is where you were meant to go, because you worked your upper-middle-class butt off for this and your consolation prize is a SUNY, and SUNY schools are for poor losers!

Ahem. To confirm our suspicions, we received a leak of the teleplay for the next new House. Here's a teaser, exclusive to Boob Tubers readers.

EXT. PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO TEACHING HOSPITAL - ESTABLISHING

INT. HOUSE'S OFFICE - DAY

CAMERON
House, our patient is presenting with symptoms of liver failure. Yellow eyes, dark urine, and a strange attraction to old, curmudgeonly men. Oh wait. That last one is a symptom of my personal failure as a human being.

FOREMAN
It's clearly Seacrest's Disease.

CHASE
It's not Seacrest's, I already told you. Seacrest's involves the erratic growth of facial hair in men of short stature.
(beat)
House, what do you think?

HOUSE
YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!

CAMERON
What are you talking about?

HOUSE
You guys act like you know so much, but you really don't. Like, do you know how I lost my virginity?

FOREMAN
I don't see how this is relevant to our patient--

CAMERON
I want to know.

HOUSE
It was at the cast party for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. To Ben Kellner, who played Joseph. All the other girls in the chorus were SO JEALOUS.

CHASE
Uh, why don't we get back to the differential diagnosis.

HOUSE
But I'm so tired. Coach Sweeney made me do twenty laps this morning because I had three latenesses to gym class.

Cuddy enters, dressed very unprofessionally.

CUDDY
How are we doing with the patient?

HOUSE
Ugh, I hate you. I am so fat compared to you.

CUDDY
Well, I don't have a bum leg. I can work out every day.

HOUSE
Oh my God, I can't believe you just said that to me. You're such a bitch.
(begins weeping)
I'm a freak!
(reaches for conveniently located scalpel)

SPIKE
Oh, House. It's time you learned...
Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this
It's living...