Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Hizouse

Watched my first (and last) ep of House last night, and I have to say I was largely unimpressed.

The plot was basically thus: Every 6 minutes, House and the other 3 inept 20-something yes-men Doctors would try and diagnose this kid who had some crazy-assed disease.

First it was like, some sleeping disorder, and then it was MS (?), and then eventually, with 5 minutes left to go in the program, House figures out it is some disease no one's ever heard of because they either made it up at the last second, or because there are only 20 documented cases of it. So of course he knows exactly what it is without having to look it up because in his copious free time all he does is read obscure medical journals. He then acts all pompous and says something that is no doubt hilarious if I didn't feel like this character is a complete and total work of fiction and doesn't exist in any plane of reality.

At any rate, all I felt was cheap journalistic manipulation. Like when you watch those hour long specials on 48 Hours or whatever, where they intentionally mislead you into thinking that this guy on trial is an ass-raping wife-murderer, only to completely make you look like an idiot in the second half hour by only then uncovering crucial evidence which makes him look totally innocent, and then in the last five minutes they discuss the crucial piece of evidence which actually nails him for the crime.

So you're left feeling used on the couch because you realized that for this entire hour, there was NO WAY ON EARTH you were going to guess what the diagnosis is, and yet for a long, plodding hour, they led you along pretending like you might figure something out.

That's how I feel watching House. Manipulated. Are all of the eps like that?

At any rate, does anyone ever read this anymore?


Comments:
I think that was one of the earlier episodes, and the show has gotten better as time goes on. They do have a problem, though, in that there's only so much you can do when your show is based around a brilliant diagnostician.

You should try "Veronica Mars." It kicks ass.
 
> That's how I feel watching House. Manipulated.

And that's how I feel watching "Lost," ever since the dreaded Ep 13. It's not good storytelling anymore; it's lumbering, scattershot manipulation. Everyone on the island's seen the monster now, but we can't? Bullspit.

"House"? Haven't seen it. Don't care.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?