There's no denying that any sane person would refuse to be diagnosed by a brilliantly cynical doctor with no morals and a crippling Vicodin addiction. But fans of Fox's hit show "House" agree that watching Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House torment others with his cruel sarcasm is not only okay, it's much more entertaining than they'd care to admit.
Entering its sixth season, "House" experiments with a different angle in its first two episodes, "Broken" and "Epic Fail" — and the change pays off. The show picks up where it left off last season, with House struggling to detox from his Vicodin addiction at the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. Unfortunately, although House is ready to return to practicing medicine after kicking his Vicodin habit, the head of the psych ward, Dr. Nolan (Andre Braugher), warns House that he has to stay because his issues run deeper than addiction. Dr. Nolan blackmails House by refusing to write him a recommendation for his medical license unless House agrees to seek further help at the hospital's long-term treatment center.
What was so refreshing about this season premiere is that it shied away from the more formulaic structure of past episodes without losing the show's essence. In previous seasons, every episode was structured around House and his team of doctors trying to diagnose patients with bizarre medical illnesses. Though fans were not necessarily clamoring for the show's writers to take House out of his element of immorally practicing medicine on innocent, dying patients at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, the choice ultimately worked.
It was impressive to see show creator David Shore and his team of writers put House into a completely new environment at the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital without any of his usual minions, yet manage to keep him true to character. Stubborn as ever, House threatens to wreak havoc and make Dr. Nolan miserable until he agrees to write House a recommendation.
Nothing is secretly funnier (because admitting how funny this is would make anyone sound heartless) than watching House deliberately target each ward patient's problems — telling the guy with an eating disorder that he's fat or asking the girl who cuts herself how she felt after she screwed up even her attempt at suicide. When this doesn't seem to rattle Dr. Nolan, House cleverly turns the tables by staging a patient rebellion against the wardens, hearkening back to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). Ultimately, whether he is solving medical mysteries at Plainsboro Hospital or rallying fellow psychiatric patients at Mayfield, House's acerbic and manipulative nature is what makes him so amusing to watch.
This season, the writers of "House" are finally beginning to devote more plot lines to doctors' relationships with one another. This may be a medical drama, but in the past House and his team of doctors spent so much time bantering about medical jargon that they left little room for character development outside of the work realm. Seeing only snippets of the characters' lives often left avid fans wanting to know more. Before they revealed too much, the writers were always quick to interrupt insights into the doctor's lives with urgent scenes of cardiac arrests and dying patients.
Ironically, the audience got to see and learn more about House's personal struggles in this season's two-hour premiere than it does in all of the previous five seasons combined. With the help of Dr. Nolan, House finally admits that he is sick of being miserable and wants to be happy. By cooperating with treatment, House breaks down some of his cold exterior.
In fact, House does two things that most never expected of him: He apologizes — to a fellow psychiatric patient whose life he risked — and, more surprisingly, he begins to trust and let in others, namely Dr. Nolan and his new love interest, Lydia (Franka Potente), the friend of a fellow patient. House even chooses to resign in the second episode because he fears he could go back to being miserable and abusing Vicodin.
Although some fans may bristle at this vulnerable, more morally inclined House, the writers have done a good job of making House's character development believable. While it's nice to see that he really is a good person deep down, it is only a matter of time before the old, loveable House is back to his manipulative ways.
Luckily for fans, this relapse in character may occur sooner than expected. After House resigns from Plainsboro Hospital, in the second episode Dr. Nolan encourages him to find a hobby to help him cope with his pain. After growing bored of cooking and all of the other hobbies he's pursued, House realizes that the only thing that keeps his mind from the pain is solving medical cases. With House expected to return to his medical practice at Plainsboro Hospital, fans can only hope that House no longer has to be a Vicodin addict in order to be the enthralling genius he so cunningly is.
