I thought it was interesting that the psychiatric staff meeting mirrored House and the cottages. I thought they played this one pretty straight for a “House” episode; that made it anti-formulaic and that’s a good thing. I bet us veteran House viewers were eyeing the patients closely, looking for undercover spies for the doctors, etc. I’m glad there was no last minute Amber tugging the rug out from under the audience. It was refreshing that they didn’t undo everything at the end with hallucinations.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least one of the Cuckoo-nesters turn up as a patient later in the season. Maybe the ‘rapper’? It’s an episode where a seemingly insignificant or crazy thing he says in Act 2 turns out to be the key to solving the mystery of his psychosis, which is pressure on his brain caused by being hit on the head with a microphone at a party he was trying to perform at,…and,…and,…lupus!
I was really really concerned, after he got it on with Run Lola Run, that that was also all in his head, too. Whew!
Silly randwill, it’s never lupus. 
I enjoyed the season premiere a lot but, like Dinsdale, I thought all the end with all those miracle cures happening at once was just too much.
Let’s hope that House’s character is changed a bit by all this, at least for a while. Though I love the show, it had started to be a bit of a caricature of itself. It’ll be interesting to watch his return to work…
*Thank *you! It had been itching at me all episode who she was…
They didn’t really reveal how long House was in the ward, but I don’t think it was a matter of days. There was the time he spent fighting the docs and being thrown into solitary, the scheming time when he slowly moved up the privilege scale (and I can’t think that was fast, with only one patient ranking a 5), then the time spent really working with Braugher. I’d bet it was at least as long as the hiatus for the show.
StG
She was also the girlfriend in The Bourne Identity.
André Braugher’s character mentioned that it had already been four weeks at some point in the middle of the episode. Altogether, I bet it was a 2-3 months. During which time, he must have had regular barber appointments for his new short haircut, and somehow kept his beard trimmed.
Best part of the show was House’s interaction with Dr. Nolan who was every bit as smart and clever as House. For once House met his match in intellect. The title of the show was “Broken”. About half way through the episode House admitted that he was broken, but Nolan also broke a bit. Both of them became better because of their relationship. Andre Braugher was superb as House’s nemisis and eventual confidant.
The overall plot was quite predictable since this was a TV show that invariably resolves loose ends before the final credits. The best scene was Freedom Master handing the music box to Silent Girl. Right there they resolved two plot elements in one scene. That’s the way TV shows generally do it. Still a very enjoyable show.
It was nice that the use of Hugh Laurie’s muscial talents was well played and never froced.
Did anyone else catch when they were talking about the death of “Superman’s” wife–She was a good person and evil killed her. Evil killed a lot of good people that day. Nice 9/11 tribute!
It was strange not seeing any of the Cottages, but I liked this premiere very much. House rapping at the talent show was certainly unique for him.
Can anyone identify the bit they kept playing on the piano? I swear I’ve heard it before.
I’m pretty sure the music box tune was the same one we heard in Frederica Bimmel’s bedroom in The Silence of the Lambs. Shows you how many times I’ve watched that movie.
That irked me a bit, simply because House knew that Freedom Master wanted Silent Girl to have the box. When House handed the box to FM and didn’t get a response, I can’t believe that he wouldn’t then try handing it to SG.
It was a very nice touch that they never explicitly stated it. Too many other shows would have felt the need to bring it up again later so that statement could be “explained” to the audience.
Shoot - I deleted it from my TiVo. If anyone still has it on theirs, turn on the closed captioning and it will tell you as they’re playing on the piano, on the music box, and on the cello.
(The cello one I happen to know - it’s Bach’s cello suite #1 in G. Same one they used to great effect on an episode of The West Wing.)
It was good to see Andre Braugher in a fairly good-sized role. They actually utilized him some, though if they’d gone for it they could have set him up as a full equal to Hugh Laurie. He’s an amazing actor with some impressive presence, when given the part and lines for it.
The music box was something from “The Magic Flute”, and the piano piece was something by Schubert. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any more details.
IME, House wanted FreedomMaster to perk up and then give it to silent girl. (as he did at the end). At that point in the episode, House’s focus was on fixing freedommaster (whom he broke) and was not on silent girl.
To me, the thing that that those scene’s showed was that to all of thier best intentions, the staff there didn’t ‘listen’ to the patients as well as they could/should have. Never once did anyone take freedommaster’s idea seriously, etc…
Thanks for the info.
I thought it would have helped if he actually wound up the box and opened it for either of them. :smack:
And I tried not to dwell on how SG’s voice was strong for someone who hadn’t spoken for ten years (as with John Laroquette’s long-time coma patient).
Remember what happened the last time House was actually nice. He caved into the patient’s parents desire for a test that wasn’t needed and nearly ended up killing the patient.
BTW is that open air fan thing at the fair real? :dubious: I’ve seen indoor ones (kinda like a vertical wind tunnel), but never an outdoor one. Wouldn’t they start to drift outside the area directly above the fan and fall down?