A Review of the Television Show House by Warren Bull

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 House, the television show: A Review by Warren Bull

 

House lasted for 8 sessions, 177 episodes. It won many awards. Distributed to 66 countries, it was the most-watched television program on the planet in 2008.

 

Hugh Laurie, who played the brilliant, but brutally honest, misanthropic and combative, diagnostic specialist, Gregory House, impressed the casting team with an audition tape he made in a bathroom in Namibia, in Africa where he was filming a movie. The bathroom was the only location with enough light to make the tape. Bryan Singer, who had insisted the main character had to be an American gave an enthusiastic review to the performance before he discovered that Laurie was English.

 

Speaking about how difficult is it to speak like an American Laurie said, “I haven’t identified a single word that is pronounced the same in America as it is in England,” the 47-year-old actor tells Entertainment Weekly magazine in its Aug. 25 issue. “And that can really take you out of the moment, having to constantly listen to yourself and check your accent. It makes it harder to immerse yourself in the scene.

“It’s as if you’re playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon. I moan about it a lot.”

 

 

The excellent supporting case changed over the years and included Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Morrison, Jesse Spencer, Peter Jacobson, Kal Penn, and Olivia Wilde. Writers involved included Lawrence Kaplow, Peter Blake, Thomas Moran, Russel Friend, Doris Egan, and David Shore.

 

The character House had many similarities to Sherlock Holmes and there were frequent references to the fictional detective in the episodes. House flouted the rules and had frequent conflicts with the gorgeous hospital administrator, who later became his love interest. House had only one real friend, an oncologist, who had a history of defying authority.

 

The show combined medial mystery, procedure, not unlike police procedure, with the stakes frequently being life and death. Ensemble cast members had their own well-developed subplots, which added to the richness of the material.

 

This is one of my all-time favorite television series, which is still well worth watching.