Everybody Loves Saturday Night

House. Same old, same old.

Since I keep getting e-mails and comments asking if I watched House, I can only assume y'all liked it a LOT more than I did.

Frankly I thought it was just a bunch of the same, and I needed there to be something different to keep me interested in this show.  A friend and I were just discussing what we're looking for in TV, and from her point of view, she's only interested in the overarching dramas.  No procedurals, no weekly mysteries, she's going for the long haul.  I need a bit of both.  Like Life say with the overall mystery (who framed him?) balanced by a weekly bit of detection.  Or Dirty Sexy Money that looks to also balance an overall mystery (who murdered his dad?) with the weekly irritations of dealing with the Darlings.  This show?  Is just the weekly procedural.  And every week, it's exactly the motherfucking same.

They have an unidentifiable disease, that's this rare thing! no wait this rare thing! no even rarer this! turns out to be so rare this!  House nearly kills someone in misdiagnosis.  Eventually he figures it out!  Honestly, at this point, I really find it hard to believe in the myth of him even being a good doctor.  Even after figuring out the 999th incredibly rare disease found on this show, he's still mean to the patient, their relatives, everyone who works at the hospital, and the flies on the wall, even though he almost killed them.  He's mean to Wilson. Wilson and Cuddy try to make him a better person.  Blah blah blah blah.   

He's not going to be a better person!  Ever!  And the dramatic tension of waiting for them to figure that out...is so not dramatic for me anymore.  I'm bored.  I'm moving on. 

Carrieoke, House recaps are all yours from now on, baby.  I expect to see them...once you finish up with that whole wedding thing you've got going on right now!  :)

House: You are boring the shit out of me.

Remember, back in the day, when SNL was actually worth watching, how sometimes they had really really unbearably funny skits?  But then they would make the MISTAKE of deciding that those skits should be dragged out twice as long as was funny until they became totally stupid and unfunny?  (Or even worse: making them into an even longer movie!)

Yeah, that's how I feel about House.  They have dragged out the "will he, won't he" on Foreman leaving so long that it's just stupid.  Who cares that House might secretly want Foreman to stay and sabotage him leaving?  WHO CARES.  They have dragged this storyline out so long it's just BOAR-RING.  Chase wants Cameron, he reminds her "every Tuesday" (how fortunate for them that's what day the show is on ha ha ha), and yet there is NO movement in any direction on that scenario either.  She moves neither closer nor farther away.  House/Cuddy = going nowhere as well.  Wilson = doing nothing, going nowhere.

Boar-ring.  Boring.  BORING.

House: Are they trying to prove doctors are idiots?

Not thrilled with the last several weeks of this show.  Let's see, dude gets weirdly crazy sick on an AIRPLANE.  I'm thinking altitude sickness is one of your FIRST guesses, not your last guess, about two seconds before you cut into his belly assuming he's a DRUG MOLE.  Which honestly, I'm thinking the likelihood of people in first class seats being drug moles is similar to that of being killed by your plane crashing:  SLIM.

Foreman kills a patient who had like a stupid easily curable infection. Cameron breaks up with Chase because god forbid a boy ever actually LIKE you.  House badgers one of the many ex-RSL wives, and winds up bringing home their dog.

Oh and the one where the dad using some kind of penis enhancing drug made both his kids deathly ill?  Yeah, that was fun also.

When House is mean and nasty, but smart and figures things out, I can deal with it.  Episodes like last night where basically two brothers are about one second from death and House can't figure anything out?  Not loving it so much.  So they don't die in the end. Oh what a relief.  But how do they not die? By Foreman TORTURING the kid as he takes out bone marrow that the kid may not even be able to survive without, according to the dialogue about one second before that scene.  Fun, fun.  Or not fun at all and makes me wonder why I still watch?

Last week's House & Bones: A disagreement.

Not between the shows, but between me and my friend GirlDetective. She didn't like either House or Bones last week, I liked them both.

House:
I agree, the whole fetus grabbing House's hand was creepy and so not in the vibe of this show: Did the pro life movement pay the bills on this episode? Yet, I really liked the episode. I enjoyed the bits with the photographs, and the revelation of Chase & Cameron's "affair", and the tension about whether she's just in it to make House jealous, and the little things the pictures revealed to them, and to us.

Bones:
Sure, there was no Stephen Fry, but I don't think he's actually going to become a permanent part of the show, is he? His appearances have all been funny, but I would expect his story arc to be over very soon if it isn't already. And unlike my friend, I always love the episodes with/or about Bones' parents. I loved that the interaction between Bones & her dad about the old sappy Paco song turned into interaction between her and Booth.

Crying:
We've discussed this a few times now, GirlDetective and I. Does it spell a bad episode for you automatically if there's crying from any of the lead characters? It is a case-by-case call for me: on a show like Lost, it seems like yeah, yeah, not this again. On Veronica Mars, it seems like the episodes where someone winds up in tears are also the episodes where Veronica falls into all the same-old traps and it's like the writers have forgotten all she's been through and never get her credit for learning from her mistakes. On Friday Night Lights, however, it feels true to the characters and the way their lives seem right now: the trauma of high school = you could bring me to tears just thinking about it.

House News

Piper Perabo signed on to play a House love interest for one episode, with possibility for more.

House: Two Good Ones in a Row!

Although I didn't write about it, and am not a big Dave Matthews fan, I thought the previous episode was really good!  And oddly for this show somewhat poignant with the realizations how your dreams for people are not always what's best for them, yadda yadda...  And then another strong episode last night.  "Riley" 's vaginosis of the mouth was pretty disgUSTing, but I found the whole "he's got something no one can figure out" less annoying than usual (plus the cauterization clue was cool), and of course the Chase/Cameron storyline is pretty fun.  I'm enjoying this again after a few tough weeks of House being tooooo icky.  Now he's just his normal amount of icky, which is, you know, Fun.

Guilty.

So last night's House totally veered from their normal formula.  Instead of focusing on one mysterious medical case and the team's efforts to crack it, the story revolved around House's dealings with a rape victim and Cameron's attempts to help a dying man. I did NOT like this episode. The scenes between House and the victim didn't ring true and I'm getting sick of the whole "let's try and get House to learn about humanity" crap. Blecch. 

I *do* want to see House connect with someone, and let his guard down, but it seemed really contrived in this episode.

Now. For my guilty confessions:

Men in Trees - It's actually becoming one of my favorite shows.  Anne Heche is FUNNY!  Justine Bateman is too cool! The boys are super cute! And they're in Alaska.  Yes, I know it seems like it's been done before (hello, Northern Exposure?) but it's different. It's quirky and cute and I'm totally hooked.

Dirt - Courteney Cox's new show on FX.  It's totally trashy. The first episode was so racy that I couldn't believe it was on regular TV, and every episode has tons of gratuitous, explicit sex, and sometimes extreme violence. Basically everyone on the show is in this horrible downward spiral of excess and greed, I'm still not sure that I like it, but I can't stop watching it because I want to see what happens next. Has anyone else seen this? I'm curious to hear what you think.  I do think it's gotten better since the first episode (it was pretty bad)...

American Idol - The auditions are on right now.  Even if you hate American Idol, you need to watch at least ONE audition episode - not to see the crazy weirdos who think they're going to be stars, but to watch Paula Abdul's antics. She is definitely on some major painkillers this season...

A Few Random Bits.

So. how did you feel about the resolution to the House vs. Mean Detective drama on Tuesday's House? I have mixed feelings. 

What I liked:  Cameron's attitude towards House.  Mean Detective's refusal to give in. The ending, where it became evident that House was still an ass. 

What I didn't like: For once, the medical storyline bothered me a little. I usually don't care if the medical situations are unrealistic, but electroshock therapy to erase his experiential memory?  And then it was a mistake? Um.  That seemed too ridiculous even for House. And super cheesy scenes with House in rehab -- ick.  Robert Sean Leonard is starting to get on my nerves.

It was definitely a strange episode.  I'm just glad that that whole storyline has come to an end...I like my House better when he doesn't have a jail sentence hanging over his head.

In other news, did you hear that Chase and Cameron are engaged in REAL LIFE? Yay.

I also watched Friday Night Lights last week for the first time, and I liked it. I need to watch the previous episodes online, but I definitely think I'm going to add it to the Tivo schedule.

And.  Is anyone else watching Men in Trees after Grey's Anatomy?  I actually like it! Anne Heche is extremely likable.  Although, since it's set in Alaska, when Jacob sat down and watched a few minutes with me, he asked, "Is this a lumberjack soap opera?" Ha.

Maureen Ryan Names Her Top 10

As well as 10 Runners Up.  (email me if it requires a logon to read. or sign up! it's just registration/nothing else required. her blog is good!)

I must point out that Friday Night Lights is in her Top 10!  Best show you're not watching!  No doubt!

Along with House, and The Daily Show if I'm only adding up shows that I watch.  (And Battlestar Galactica that I know some of you are watching!)

And her runners up includes Veronica Mars (which I don't like much this year) and The Closer.

House: Season 1 vs. Season 3.

Watching these in juxtaposition is kind of a crazy move.  Watching "formerly snarky but not that mean and definitely interested in patients' well being even if he pretends not to be" season 1 House versus "viciously nasty, horrible, unethical and the worst friend/boss and coworker on earth" season 3 House is almost more painful than just watching season 3 unknowing of the possibilities of season 1.

Interesting, though, (while watching season 1) to finally get the background on the Cameron situation (ouch, I can't even imagine asking a boss out on a date, let alone how the date went), and the leg situation. 

Hate the current (season 3) "going to jail" storyline, hate the dude playing the cop (have always hated him), and just hate where it's all going.

Think it's kind of hilarious, how people always complain about Grey's Anatomy having "out there" cases to drive the storyline.  Hello, that's EVERY WEEK (seasons 1 and 3!!) on House; all the patients wind up being diagnosed with some never-heard-of-before, never-will-again disease, after first being thought to have 3 or 4 other only-sort-of-heard-of diseases. 

And EVERY episode it's "start him on these treatments" "but if we're wrong he'll die" "but do it anyway."  I mean, at SOME POINT, does that not become an actual medical problem for a hospital?  For that to be their STANDARD way of treatment? 

Honestly, I find Grey's more believable.  I do like the snark of House better in some ways, when it's just snark.  But when it's gotten to the level of nasty it's currently at (in season 3 obviously), it's cringeworthy and I almost can't watch.