Uneven Season 5 for House

20 Jun 2009 2:45 am

And that brings us to Season Five. The season was so up and down I became sea sick. There were great episodes like “Not Cancer” with Felicia Day guest starring as the Patient of the Week and the introduction of private eye Lucas Douglas. Then there were episodes like “Last Resort” that was so lackluster they had to make it ten minutes longer to fit in all the awful. There were storylines I cared about like House and Wilson’s schism. Then there were storylines I dreaded like the tedious 13 saga. (As an aside, how can they cast a pretty actress as a promiscuous bi-sexual, drug taking, terminally ill doctor and still have a boring character???)

I honestly can’t say I enjoyed the season. Every time I saw a commercial touting the upcoming episode as the episode “you don’t want to miss” I cringed. The season reinforced what I had previous said – the writers of House can’t write female characters. They seemed determined to prove they could this season with the previously mentioned horrible 13 episodes and with the down right nauseating Cuddy and baby storyline. Before anybody flames me I used to like Cuddy. She’s a good second line character and her interactions with House were amusing. Nothing about their interactions was amusing this season and the baby foolishness was insulting to working mothers. Absolutely dreadful.

Season Five was also repetitive. Either the viewers get the theme or they don’t. If they don’t, bringing it up week after week won’t change that, but it will annoy the viewers that do. Yes yes yes – everybody is moving on with their lives (and deaths), but House. Got it. Everybody quit at one point or another during the season yet they all keep working there. Right, because people don’t change even when they want to. Got it. You’re running out of interesting medical mysteries. That’s a tough break, but we got it.

Over the last two seasons changes were made to the formula to “shake things up”, to keep things from becoming stale. Among those changes was letting us see into the lives of people other than House outside of the hospital. This is where the real failure lies. Even when we’ve seen House out of the hospital it hasn’t been particularly personal. House buying a motorcycle. House diagnosing on an airplane. We saw him go out with Cameron, but that wasn’t particularly personal. He went to a bar to meet Honey. That was personal and a great closing for the episode. Now we can’t keep from seeing personal lives.

We’ve seen Cuddy’s house before, but now we have visits to her house, her and Wilson shopping, her getting ready for a home inspection. These things aren’t particularly interesting when people you know talk about them so why would they think it would make good television?

We’ve seen more of Foreman’s outside life than anyone else in the past. We’ve seen his parents, him “dating” a drug rep, him dating a nurse…but we don’t need to hear him and 13 talk about mundane things like snoring and drooling. Nobody cares. There relationship took up enough screen time this season we really didn’t need it being boring.

Cameron and Chase – see, here’s the problem. They are fine as characters, but if they aren’t a part of House’s world, i.e. his team, their personal lives become less important, not more.

Taub’s wife? She has nothing to do with the hospital. Two degrees separated from House is enough for it not to work. It’s his team, his patients, his boss, his coworkers, his best friend. After five years we’ve only seen one Mrs. Wilson. (Hold THAT thought!) I like Mrs. Taub. She seems like a nice actress, good character. But we should only experience her via what Taub says to House and the team.

You can say House is an ensemble with a multi character cast. Changing it into that is a bad plan. Give Foreman a spin off and let him have a multi character show. Or newlyweds Chase and Cameron can have a show where they solve mysteries a la Hart to Hart. Leave House as the center of the universe on his show.

And that brings me back to Wilson. He's House’s best friend, but after five years we know surprisingly little about him. It’s not an accident his office is the most opaque. This season we finally got to hear what happened to his missing brother who was only mentioned once in four seasons. House didn’t even know he existed. Keep in mind we still haven’t seen him. We also learned how Wilson and House met. We even saw where he lives, but, aha, it isn’t really his place. It’s Amber’s place he moved into and didn’t leave after she left. He even says he hasn’t changed anything. It’s still Amber’s. What we don’t know about him is interesting. Finding out he was on the tennis team – not so much.