# House: Do we love this show in spite of its flaws? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 26, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127 "2008-01-26T21:57:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/1 "2008-01-26T21:57:27Z")
WARNING! UNBOXED SPOILERS FOR A RE-RUN. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I’ve started catching a few episodes here and there, and while I’m not too clear on all the dynamics, I think I’ve got a handle on what’s going on. House, brilliant doctor, huge ass, suffered an infarction in his leg that caused muscle death, and now he’s hooked on pain pills. Is he really hooked, or does he really use them for the pain? I caught a repeat on Fox yesterday where Dr. Johnny Fever needed a heart transplant because they diagnosed his bacterial infection too late. He was turned down because of his age. A woman came in who had been in a car crash. Parkman from _Heroes_ was her husband. She died, but her organs were deemed unusable. House pushed for a unwanted patient with unwanted organs, let’s do the transplant! Okay, setting aside the HUGE insurance liability issues, I really can’t see any hospital administrator going along with such a hare-brained scheme. What does House have over Cuddy anyway? Then, they keep the body alive so they can try to figure out why she had a fever and stomach pains so they can cure it and give Dr. Fever a healthy heart. Except Dr. Fever crashed, and there wasn’t enough time to cure the gonorrhea that the dead woman had, so they transplant the heart and then start treating Dr. Fever for the gonorrhea. :dubious: How much of this are we supposed to swallow? Did I just happen to catch a weak episode? I’ll probably keep watching the show, but is it up there with CSI in the Strain the Credulo-meter Scale? ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/2 "2008-01-26T22:06:19Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] How much of this are we supposed to swallow? Did I just happen to catch a weak episode? I’ll probably keep watching the show, but is it up there with CSI in the Strain the Credulo-meter Scale? [/QUOTE] Can’t speak too much for the accuracy, but that’s pretty much the show: strain the credulo-meter disease of the week television. I love it though. The characters are all entertaining. The script, while mostly hard to swallow, is entertaining. Hugh Laurie is funny and Lisa Edelstein is _incredibly_ hot. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/3 "2008-01-26T22:23:22Z")
It’s not about the diseases (though the diagnoses are close enough to be entertaining). It’s about the dialog. As for the liability, it was established in other episodes that Princeton Plainview budgets an extra large amount of money for lawsuits, so they expect them. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/4 "2008-01-26T22:24:16Z")
I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it: _House_ is related to real medicine on the same level that the game “Operation!” ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/5 "2008-01-26T22:39:18Z")
I can imagine doctors and nurses can’t watch _ER_ or _House_ for fear of having their heads explode. Probably the same scenario with attorneys and _Law & Order_. Is it one of those things that you can suspend your disbelief to enjoy the show, or are you too busy going :smack: :dubious: :rolleyes: that you change the channel? ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/6 "2008-01-26T22:45:21Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] I can imagine doctors and nurses can’t watch _ER_ or _House_ for fear of having their heads explode. Probably the same scenario with attorneys and _Law & Order_. Is it one of those things that you can suspend your disbelief to enjoy the show, or are you too busy going :smack: :dubious: :rolleyes: that you change the channel? [/QUOTE] I can watch ER. Even though it has outlandish scenarios, it has a toe in reality. House does not. In one of the rare episodes I’ve watched for more than a minute, a post kidney transplant patient was dying because the new kidney failed. In reality, he would have gone back on dialysis while he waited for another kidney. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/7 "2008-01-26T22:48:01Z")
I remember there was one where the girl had Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. I’m not sure how Cameron managed to give her a pelvic exam without realizing that she had no uterus and not much of a vagina, but she did. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/8 "2008-01-26T23:19:20Z")
House routinely has his staff breaking into patients’ homes and has even had them dig up a grave in the dead of night. He’s experimented on coma patients, dropped acid while on duty, been incredibly rude to patients and staff, routinely sexually harrasses his boss, has stolen drugs from patients, forged medical records to get experimental narcotics (for himself, not a patient) and broken countless other laws and regulations. The absurdity of the medical details pales in comparison to the gigantic suspension of disbelief required to accept that Gregory House keeps his job at all. The show is best enjoyed as a tongue-in-cheek, misanthropic dark comedy and any attempt to view it as a realistic medical procedural show should be abandoned at the outset. ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/9 "2008-01-26T23:47:41Z")
The surgeon who fixed my busted ankle a year and a half or so ago said she LOVED watching House, because he got to say all the stuff to patients she’d always wanted to say. She did a remarkably good job and had a great bedside manner, so I’m happy she could live vicariously through his asshole behaviour. I couldn’t watch past the first season. It was just too much spite for me. No amount of Hugh Laurie fangirldom could rescue my distaste for the character. ---
**Author:** ![Omi\_no\_Kami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Omi\_no\_Kami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omi_no_Kami)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/10 "2008-01-27T00:30:38Z")
[QUOTE=Idlewild] The surgeon who fixed my busted ankle a year and a half or so ago said she LOVED watching House, because he got to say all the stuff to patients she’d always wanted to say. [/QUOTE] That’s more or less the appeal for me, too: the medical story is more or less nothing but an excuse to watch House being an asshole to his staff and patients. I don’t particularly like the fourth season as a whole, but I think it stands as the best exhibition of the writers’ dialogue: as funny as House is bantering with three doctors, he’s much funnier when he has ten people to pick on. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/11 "2008-01-27T01:54:36Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] I can imagine doctors and nurses can’t watch _ER_ or _House_ for fear of having their heads explode. Probably the same scenario with attorneys and _Law & Order_. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard attorneys say that L&O is actually pretty good in this regard. Of course they take a lot of liberties, but there are a lot of realistic elements, too. For example, most detective shows focus on figuring out who the murderer is and/or finding evidence to prove it. Law & Order deals with the question of whether said evidence _will be admissable in court_. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/12 "2008-01-27T01:58:57Z")
I think House’s favor here is mostly due to a bunch of estrogen fueled Anglophilia. Hugh Laurie is a board sweetheart because of his past roles as well. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/13 "2008-01-27T02:09:34Z")
One show broke my suspension of disbelief severely enough that I’ll never watch **House** again: a patient with mysterious life-threatening heart irregularities was diagnosed as literally dying of lovesickness- he had a unrequited crush on, IIRC, his brother’s girlfriend. House’s solution? Wiping his memory with electroshock therapy! :eek: And _then_, it tuned out- oops, that wasn’t really the problem, the patient actually had a physical condition after all! :eek: :eek: IRL, House not only would never practice medicine again, he might go to prison. None of the interns working under him would ever practice medicine again. The hospital that allowed him to do such a thing would lose accreditation. Their insurance carrier would be sued for so much money they’d have to declare Chapter 11. It would be front page national tabloid news for months. Dr. House is one of a few fictional characters that I would gleefully beat with a steel pipe. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/14 "2008-01-27T02:57:07Z")
[QUOTE=Green Bean] I’ve heard attorneys say that L&O is actually pretty good in this regard. Of course they take a lot of liberties, but there are a lot of realistic elements, too. For example, most detective shows focus on figuring out who the murderer is and/or finding evidence to prove it. Law & Order deals with the question of whether said evidence _will be admissable in court_. [/QUOTE] I may not be greatest lawyer in the room (or any lawyer at all), but even i can tell that most of the law thet into is horrific nonsense. Likewise, the actual detective work and lawyer stuff is terrible. Jack McCoy reguarly walks into courtooms ith nothing but tearful non-testimony and a theory. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/15 "2008-01-27T02:57:39Z")
Good well-acted series with one humongous fatal flaw: a) these folks are supposed to be phenomenally good at what they do, which is diagnostic medicine b) but we never, ever, see them being good at what they do Hmm, lowered blood pressure in combo with racing heart, no white blood cell count rise and blood volume is _higher_ than normal. And green skin. And sudden growth of long toenails. Folks, this is obviously Hidgekin’s OsteoFreakonoma. Start infusion of myeloquasibloopothome, STAT! And raise those feet! \< all hell breaks loose \> Wow, I was _wrong_, how unusual! I am a highly paid weirdo doctor without peers in the rarefied world of diagnostic medicine, I haven’t made a diagnostic erros this severe since _last episode_! OK, it’s obviously reverse mengiocytowhatchamacallititis with pleuro-blowout. Inject Cheerios into the bloodstream. Have little girls walk barefoot up and down his spine. He will be good in no time! Oh, and I want an MRI. \< patient stops breathing and has cardiac arrest and goes into seizure in the MRI machine, which is something that more or less happens to everone who goes into the MRI machine \> Oh, fuck! Well this is so unusual, I was wrong! I know I was wrong about the same patient already in this very same episode, but this really stands out as unusual, even though all our patients’ fall apart when we stick them into the MRI machine or infuse them with anything. Anywhat, obviously what we need to do is remove the patient’s skin and fill the patient’s lungs with Play-Doh. This is obviously a rare case of Upper Kurdistan Roach-infested Fermented Alcohol Depressive Psroxymal Spiderweb Dystrophia by Proxy. THIS will force the patient to come clean that the real victim has been hiding under the bed this whole time! ::real victim comes climbing out just as the Play-Doh begins entering the hospital bed’s patients’ lungs:: See? ---
**Author:** ![Elenfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/16 "2008-01-27T05:44:51Z")
House is just _fun_. It follows a formula, it’s relatively predictable… it’s more about people – characters and their relationships (and by this I don’t mean “romaaaances”) – than it is about medicine in any way, shape or form. There’s the architecture of the procedural under there, the signature humor of David Shore and a requirement of suspension of disbelief. If the formula works for you as a viewer, you’re golden. ---
**Author:** ![Elenfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/17 "2008-01-27T05:52:27Z")
[QUOTE=Green Bean] I’ve heard attorneys say that L&O is actually pretty good in this regard. Of course they take a lot of liberties, but there are a lot of realistic elements, too. For example, most detective shows focus on figuring out who the murderer is and/or finding evidence to prove it. Law & Order deals with the question of whether said evidence _will be admissable in court_. [/QUOTE] L&O writing staff has been at it so long that they are insanely well versed in NY law. The three shows (Mothership, SVU and CI) make use of a team of lawyers to verify details on a regular basis. Mothership is the only one of the three shows which still is about 50/50 in the division of Law and Order, and CI is all all Order no law (though plenty of legal stuff does come up). SVU still has its share of court time, but closer to 20/80. Liberties have to be taken in order to account for the reality of “Television Timelines”. The same is true of Television Forensics Time. We speed things up by about 80%, in general. I still prefer the treatment of Law and forensics as performed by the L&O franchise and the JAG/NCIS franchise – as opposed to the CSI franchise. At least in the former two, the expectations are way more realistic. CSI has unfortunately given the North American public this illusion that some of the most expensive, complex forensics tests are a) readily available b) easy to perform c) quick to perform and d) necessary. It has made “reasonable doubt”… unreasonable and introduced “The CSI effect” in our courtrooms. … but I digress. Elly, procedural screenwriter 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/18 "2008-01-27T05:59:19Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] \House, brilliant doctor, huge ass, \ [/QUOTE] Sorry, huge ego. 😃 Anagram for Gregory House. Also: Huge orgy, sore. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/19 "2008-01-27T06:09:06Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] Wow, I was _wrong_, how unusual! [/QUOTE] Well, duh. The probability of a diagnosis being wrong is directly proportional to the number of minutes left in the episode’s running time. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2008, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127/20 "2008-01-27T06:43:11Z")
[QUOTE=Elenfair] We speed things up by about 80%, in general. [/QUOTE] Whoa, whoa, whoa…_we_ speed things up? You didn’t just slip and admit to the show/franchise that you write for, did you? 😛 (I kid, I kid. I know you mean “we” as a colloquial term for all you writers.) (And now I’m wondering if I used the world “colloquial” right…hey, at least I was able to spell it!) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-do-we-love-this-show-in-spite-of-its-flaws/435127.md?page=2)