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House (TV series)

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House
File:HouseMD.jpg
House title screen
Created byDavid Shore
StarringHugh Laurie
Jesse Spencer
Omar Epps
Robert Sean Leonard
Jennifer Morrison
Lisa Edelstein
Opening theme"Teardrop" by
Massive Attack (varies from country to country)
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes57 (list of episodes)
Production
Running timeapprox. 43 minutes/episode
Original release
NetworkFox
ReleaseNovember 16, 2004 –
present

House, also referred to as House M.D., is an American medical drama television series created by David Shore and executive produced by film director Bryan Singer. The Emmy- and Peabody-award-winning medical drama debuted on November 16, 2004, on the FOX Network.

The show is extremely popular in the UK where is airs on Five, becoming Five's regular most watched show when on air.

House stars English actor Hugh Laurie as the American title character, a role for which he received a 2006 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama. The third season of House premiered on September 5, 2006, in the United States and Canada.

Characters

File:House3rdseasonpromo.jpg
The cast of House in a promotional picture for the third season.
Main article: List of House characters

Template:Spoiler

Recurring characters

Plot

Dr. Gregory House is a maverick medical genius who heads a team of young diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital 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 patient. The episode follows the team in their attempts to deduce the illness causing the patient's problems.

The team arrives at diagnoses using the Socratic Method, with House guiding the deliberations. House often ignores the information and opinions from his underlings, assuming it is irrelevant. The patient is usually misdiagnosed two or three times over the course of each episode, and treated with corresponding medications that cause further complications. Often the ailment cannot be easily deduced because the patient has lied about symptoms and circumstances - lied about having an affair that led to the mystery disease, about an underlying disorder that lead to the mystery disease, about jobs that lead to the mystery disease, and so on. As a result House frequently mutters, "Everybody lies," or proclaims during the team's deliberations, "The patient is lying." Even when he doesn't say so explicitly, House often operates under this assumption.

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 eccentric bedside manner and unorthodox treatments, but impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses after seemingly not paying attention; he often plays video games while patients talk to him, and in one episode House diagnoses multiple patients in the waiting room in under five minutes on his way out of the clinic. Some of the simpler 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.

Several episodes 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 CSI-type show where "germs were the suspects"[1], but has since shifted much of the focus to the characters rather than concentrating solely on the environment.

Awards

Main article: 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."[2]

Creator David Shore won a writing Emmy in 2005 for the first season episode "Three Stories."[3]

Episodes

Main article: List of House episodes
Season Episodes Originally
Aired
Season 1 22 2004 – 2005
Season 2 24 2005 – 2006
Season 3 24 2006 – 2007

Response

Before it premiered on November 16, 2004, House received early critical acclaim - so much so, that FOX used a quote from The Washington Post in its ads for House stating that the show is "the best medical drama since the debut of E.R.."

The show's procedural structure, bizarre scenarios, and headlong dives into controversy via the hazardous and sometimes blatantly illegal conduct of the characters has gained the show some detractors.

Professional critics, however, have focused their attention on the complex inner life that British actor Hugh Laurie brings to the title role, and much of the media's attention has been focused on him. The characterization of House himself, as a brilliant, irascible, grating and oddly sympathetic personality, as played by Laurie, is what has been credited with the show's success:

  • New York Magazine: "With House, we are in the hands of professionals: accomplished actors playing doctors who come to care about their patients, whose afflictions range from tapeworms to brain tumors." [4]
  • USA Today: "Any series that matches a great actor with a great character is halfway home."[5]
  • Washington Post: " "House" introduces us to the most electrifying new main character to hit television in years. No, the show is not about a house or even life as a house; it's about life as Dr. Gregory House, who, as played perilously close to perfection by Hugh Laurie, catapults this Fox series into a select group: the finest shows of the season." [6]

Numerous publications have named it one of the best shows of the year. [7]

Production information

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 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. [8]

The 58th Primetime Emmy® Awards and Creative Arts Emmys 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, Shorez 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.

Airing

House currently airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific) on Fox, and is simulcast on Global in Canada. The second season premiered on September 13, 2005 and ended on May 23, 2006. During the summer of 2006, Fox showed reruns of the show in its current timeslot. The show was then renewed for a third season and premiered on September 5, 2006, moving up to the 8 p.m. slot for its four episodes in September.

For four weeks in October, House moved to Wednesdays at 9 p.m. and was replaced by Major League Baseball playoffs in the Tuesday time slot; however, the episodes aired were not new, but rather reruns from earlier in the season. New House episodes returned to Tuesdays on October 31, 2006, but back at its older 9 p.m. time slot (switching places with the FOX show Standoff).[9]

Before the fall 2005 television season, FOX planned to move House from Tuesdays 9 p.m. to Mondays 8 p.m. for January 2006. However, the surprising success of the serial drama Prison Break (which later occupied the Monday 8 p.m. timeslot) nixed the plan. House remained airing Tuesdays 9 p.m., gaining an even bigger audience and cracking into the top 10 of most-watched primetime shows.

In a rare move for the network, FOX continued to air the series in reruns over the summer of 2006, rather than preempting it for summer series.

The cable station USA (an NBC Universal sister network) began airing Season 1 in syndication on January 6, 2006 at 11/10c. The USA Network began airing repeats of Season 3 episodes on September 15, 2006 (One week post their first run on Fox). House is scheduled to air in syndication in the fall of 2008.[10]

In the UK, the show is broadcast on Five. The show is currently not on air, but when it is, House is one of Five's most watched shows. The new series is expected to air on Five in 2007.

In Australia, House is broadcast on Network Ten, Wednesdays at 8:30pm. Network Ten aired reruns of House at 7:30pm (a while after the Season 2 finale) for several weeks, between the finale of Tripping Over and the premiere of Australian Princess. Because of the early time, it was classified PG, instead of its usual M rating. In December 2006, House Season One will be airing on Foxtel and Austar Channel TV1.

Casting

The producers were reportedly dissatisfied with early auditions for the role of House. When Hugh Laurie cast on the audition tape, he apologized for his appearance as he was filming Flight of the Phoenix at the time of the casting session.[11] Laurie's audition tape compelled director Bryan Singer to get up out of his chair to get as close to the television screen as he could. 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. 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 wasn't until he received the full teleplay of the pilot did he realize that House was the protagonist.[12] 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.[13]

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 not used for the show in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland (German version), Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Hungary, Latin America, Greece, Hong Kong, and Turkey. In those countries, a piece of music named "House," composed by Scott Donaldson and Richard Nolan, is used, which was written specifically for the show. With the second season, this was replaced with a similar, but modified, track. 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 release, replacing the "House" theme at the beginning of the episode.

Filming

Exterior shots of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital actually are of Princeton University's Frist Campus Center, which is the University's student center (a disproportionate number of these shots show a UPS truck sitting in the hospital driveway, implying that several of the overhead shots of the hospital that are used in all three seasons were actually taken on the same day). Filming does not, however, take place there.[14] Filming takes place on the Fox lot in Century City. Exterior shots of the university campus are filmed at UCLA.

DVD releases

Cover Art DVD Name Ep # Region 1 Region 2 Region 4
File:HouseDVD.jpg The Complete
First Season 		22 August 30
2005 		February 27
2006 		November 28
2005
File:House s2dvd.jpg The Complete
Second Season 		24 August 22
2006 		October 23
2006 		October 25
2006

Notes

  1. ^ Frum, Linda (2006-03-14). "Q&A with 'House' creator David Shore". Macleans.ca. Rogers Media Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  2. ^ http://www.peabody.uga.edu/news/pressrelease.asp?ID=135
  3. ^ Guide to the 2005 Emmy Awards Retrieved 2006 12-05.
  4. ^ Leonard, John (2004-11-15). "Scrub Par". New York Magazine Television Review. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  5. ^ Bianco, Robert (2004-11-16). "There's a doctor worth watching in 'House'". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  6. ^ Shales, Tom (2004-11-16). "'House': Watching Is the Best Medicine". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  7. ^ http://www.metacritic.com/tv/bests/2005/
  8. ^ http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=936
  9. ^ TiVoCommunity.com - HOUSE, MD moving to Weds (versus LOST)
  10. ^ House Syndication
  11. ^ Casting Session with Hugh Laurie House DVD Special Feature, [2005]
  12. ^ Inside the Actor's Studio Hugh Laurie Interview, BRAVO Network, [2006]
  13. ^ Keveney, Bill (2004). Hugh Laurie gets into 'House'. USA Today.
  14. ^ McCosh Health Center, the University's infirmary, is situated adjacent to Frist, and can be seen in some shots.
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