Blogcritics

Anatomy Of A House Episode: "Airborne"

Diane Kristine — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:32:53 EDT

Writer David Hoselton dissects his mutated "baby."
The teaser writer David Hoselton envisioned for "Airborne," his third-season episode of House, involved a suspected terrorist -- obviously sick, possibly part of a sinister biological warfare plan -- entering an airplane at the Singapore airport. Then, House (Hugh Laurie) and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) enter the scene and the airplane. Cut to...

TV Review: House - "House's Head"/"Wilson's Heart"

Diane Kristine — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:43:10 EDT

The fourth season finale sets up the possibility for profound change.
Forget House's head and Wilson's heart – my head is swirling and my heart is breaking after the House two-part season finale. Enough so that some entreaties to share my thoughts and feelings were enough to bring me temporarily out of review retirement.We get inside House's head every week, when his thinking processes are made...

The Metaphorical Medicine of House

Diane Kristine — Sun, 6 Jan 2008 23:32:11 EST

Doctors weigh in on the accuracy of the show's science.
He paces hospital corridors, juggles office implements, twirls his cane, fidgets with elastic bands, plays with that oversized ball, pops another Vicodin, interrogates his team, writes on his white board, sometimes even visits a patient. Dr. Gregory House brings the act of thinking to kinetic life each week, a remarkable achievement for a visual...

The Church of House

Diane Kristine — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:10:04 EST

Even Dr. Gregory House can't be rational about religion.
"Choosing agnosticism as a means of faith is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."So said narrator Piscine Molitor Patel in Yann Martel’s engrossing novel Life of Pi. It’s a crankily accurate sentiment worthy of Dr. Gregory House … except the self-professed atheist often comes across as more of an...

TV Review: House Gets a Transplant

Diane Kristine — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:59:54 EDT

Creator David Shore tries experimental surgery on a healthy show.
What's the differential diagnosis for a TV show that ended its third season with spectacular ratings, having earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama as well as positive reviews from critics and fans? Sounds healthy to me. Even Dr. Gregory House wouldn't try experimental treatment on a healthy patient, would he?David Shore would. In...

Dr. House: Honorary Canadian?

Diane Kristine — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:50:33 EDT

Why are the ratings for House proportionally so much higher in the Great White North?
Ask any Canadian, any American, and we’d agree that our national characters are different. How? Well, that’s where we shrug and resort to stereotypes. Sure, I might apologize to the lamppost when I run into it, but that’s just habit. My American friends might talk a little loud and break stemware in restaurants, but I’m sure...

How House Changed My Life

Diane Kristine — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:15:13 EDT

Maybe House really was the initial condition that led to my life being filled with new people and experiences.
Did a television show really change my life? If I want to get philosophical about it — and why not get pretentious about something as supposedly trivial as television? — I can look at the question in a couple of different ways. With predestination, there is only one possible outcome. So maybe some other show or some other sequence of...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Vanguard Nettwerk Records to Release House Soundtrack

Diane Kristine — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:10:07 EDT

Vancouver's Nettwerk Records are the little guys known for doing big things in the recording industry. The management company, record label, and publisher headed by Terry McBride has a business model that gives more rights, more control, and more per-CD earnings to their artists, and embraces other ways to earn money from music. From Wired's No Suit Required: "More important, he says, the new model frees him and his artists from the overgrown bureaucracy of the music industry, and that means more money for everyone. He can book tours, sell ringtones, peddle songs to advertising agencies and, yes, give away free downloads without any of the complex, multiparty negotiations that once gummed up the works. 'It used to take months to sell a frickin' ringtone to Bell Canada,' McBride says. 'With BNL [Barenaked Ladies], one phone call gets the job done.'"The article goes on to say, "McBride's success will depend on what he calls 'collapsed copyright.' Nettwerk will represent artists like BNL, but the bands will record under their own labels and retain ownership of all their intellectual property, an anomaly in the industry. The bands, in turn, can expect to earn considerably more money – say, $5 to $6 from the sale of each CD instead of the standard dollar or two." Nettwerk made headlines last year with the announcement that they would pay the legal fees of a Texas family being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. They launched the non-profit Save the Music Fan to raise money to fight RIAA lawsuits, and, as that website demonstrates, McBride is an outspoken advocate of the recording industry embracing peer-to-peer technologies instead of trying to sue them out of existence. Less philosophically and more practically, I love Nettwerk because they sell DRM-free MP3s or the higher-quality FLAC from their online store. And now, they've cemented their high position in my esteem by releasing the official soundtrack to House on September 18. The FOX website, where you can listen to samples and download a free track, has the official announcement and track listing:Massive Attack - Teardrop *Gomez - See The WorldJon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentleman - Got To Be More CarefulBen Harper - Waiting On An AngelMichael Penn - Walter ReedElvis Costello - Beautiful **Joe Cocker - Feelin' AlrightSarah McLachlan - Dear GodJosh Rouse - God, Please Let Me Go BackLucinda Williams - Are You Alright?Josh Ritter - Good ManBand From TV - You Can't Always Get What You Want ** *North American release only**Previously unreleasedThe inclusion of the elusive Elvis Costello track, the cover of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful," from "Autopsy," is worth the cost of the album (she says before knowing what the cost will be). The soundtrack would be seriously lacking if it omitted "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which humorously and then poignantly bookended season one. And if you can't get the Rolling Stones, what better than the curiosity factor of listening to Band From TV -- that's Hugh Laurie, Greg Grunberg of Heroes, James Denton of Desperate Housewives, and other actor/musicians. There are so many sad omissions here that it would be ungrateful to whine about them. There have been, what, 70 episodes, with at least one memorable song in most? That's not going to boil down into one CD, even if you imagine the show could get the rights to put them all on their soundtrack. Within those limits, they've done a good job of picking some emotion-laden tracks that evoke memorable scenes or character moments. "Got to Be More Careful" by Jon Cleary is what I think of as the anthem of the Vogler arc (great song, not such a great arc, but an important one). Ben Harper's "Waiting on an Angel" was used in "Lines in the Sand," when House made a connection with the autistic boy. Who could forget "Feelin' Alright" by Joe Cocker playing in the priceless final moments of "Detox," when House was on a long-awaited high after admitting he's an addict but insisting that isn't a problem. Lucinda Williams' gorgeous "Are You Alright?" ends "Fetal Position," when House sits at home alone in his own version of the fetal position. And Josh Ritter's "Good Man" rounds out the season in "Human Error," with House alone in a very different way, having pushed out or fired all his staff.Since I have at least most of the missing tracks already, I'm not sure why I care if they're on the official release, but Grant Lee Buffalo's "Happiness" reminds me of House himself every time I hear it, as does Ryan Adam's "Desire" to a lesser extent. And including Dave Matthew's "Some Devil" would have seemed fitting since the man himself eventually appeared on the show. That free download, Josh Rouse's "God, Please Let Me Go Back," and the Sarah McLachlan cover of XTC's "Dear God" have, as far as I and the comprehensive Play House site know, never appeared on the show. Coincidentally, Rouse and McLachlan are Nettwerk artists. I prefer to think the tracks are coming soon to the show, or that complicated rights issues meant there was extra space to fill on the CD; otherwise I will whine a little without feeling too ungrateful. However, I know I'm a tragic nerd for remembering this, at least McLachlan has appeared on the show, in a manner of speaking. When our favourite jerk is talking to his bulimic patient in need of a heart transplant: "You cut yourself. Probably highly ritualized. You play the same Sarah McLachlan song over and over while you do it. Probably works better than anti-depressants." The soundtrack sounds like it will be as well. Great show meets great music meets great label: I'll be downloading – legally – on September 18.

Diane is a publications manager who's addicted to television, movies, and books and justifies her pop culture obsessions by writing about them for Blogcritics. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news and information about Canadian television series.

Emmy Fortunes of House vs. The Wire Reveal Awards' Weaknesses

Diane Kristine — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:09:07 EDT

The Emmy nominations were good to a person whose 2006/07 television season consisted mostly of House, The Office, 30 Rock, and Ugly Betty. Scrubs was in my viewing schedule too, but that had an off year, as did Studio 60, even though I stuck it out to the sappy end.So my favourite four got a slew of the major nominations, and that's enough to make me happy. I'll leave it to others -- so many others -- to complain about what was slighted and what should have been slighted. I'll stick to what I know best: House. But lately, I've been catching up on The Wire, and it's interesting to ponder the Emmy fortunes of the two shows.House got nominations for:Outstanding Drama SeriesOutstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Hugh Laurie, naturally)Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (for David Morse as Detective Tritter. Even though I was disappointed in the resolution to his story, the man formerly known as Boomer creeped the hell out of me, so yeah, well-deserved.)Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup (for "Que Sera Sera" -- putting Pruitt Taylor Vince in a fat suit, I guess? It was the most convincing I've seen yet.)As long as Hugh Laurie gets his recognition, it feels like gravy that the show as a whole does too. I know that probably seems disloyal, but there's so many great dramas out there (not that I'd count Boston Legal in that category), and procedurals are often ignored, and it's all so subjective, that I never really pin my hopes on House being named in the Outstanding Drama category. So I wasn't upset that first year when the show itself wasn't nominated but Laurie was. And I was outraged last year when Laurie wasn't nominated, even though I was pleased the show was. I mean, there's no subjectivity there. It's just objective fact that Laurie deserves it, right? This year, The Wire got nominations for: Nothing That's as unjustified as it is completely not shocking. Most of Emmys' criminal slights this year are, as usual, lower-rated shows. No Friday Night Lights, much to fans of that barely renewed show's outrage. No major nominations for Dexter. Only a writing nomination for Battlestar Galactica, though it gets overlooked as much because of an anti-sci-fi bias and that name, I'm sure, than the fact that it's on the lesser-viewed Sci-Fi network. HBO's ratings-challenged The Wire, which critics and many fans have called one of the best shows of all time, never mind of the season, was completely shut out.But consider this: the dirty not-so-secret of the Emmys is that the people who vote on the TV awards are too busy creating TV to watch a lot of TV. So popular shows, and shows with buzz, and shows that have been nominated ever since they were actually good, tend to show up again and again. Voters can't possibly watch an entire season's work of every show out there, so the voting process allows one episode to represent the "best of." That gives a show like House, which not only has huge following and critical acclaim, but also has largely self-contained episodes, an advantage over a show like Lost or The Wire. House submitted "Half-Wit" for consideration in the best drama category, which brings us again to my beef with last year, when "Autopsy" snagged the show an Outstanding Drama nomination but not a writing nomination for Lawrence Kaplow, who also wrote "Half-Wit." It's good enough to be best series but not best writing for an episode? In any case, that episode encapsulates pretty much everything you need to know about House to judge its merits, with all its brilliance, all its themes, all its Hugh Laurie goodness, all packaged into one hour-long sample. I'm only on season two of The Wire, but unless its current season is drastically different from the first couple, I can't imagine what single episode would convey the breadth and depth of this series that plays like a complex novel. The new provision that Emmy contenders can submit 250 words to explain the series is their stab at redressing the problem with serialized shows, but if a picture's worth a thousand words, 250 on the page don't go very far in creating the same impact as a season's worth of pictures onscreen.I'm not at all saying I'd trade the House nomination for a nomination for The Wire -- for pure enjoyment, I'll still take my messed-up doctor over the messed-up cops and drug dealers -- but I'd trade a Boston Legal, or a Heroes, or a Grey's Anatomy for it and fight those shows' fans for the privilege.But I didn't say that last year, or the year before, or the year before that, because I'd never seen The Wire, barely heard anything about it, and even if I had watched an episode out of context, I can't imagine I'd have understood how perfectly it fit into one season-long story. I have no solution for the Emmys, unless they want to start instituting a rule that all voters must spend half their lives watching television, but I have a solution for us fans: lower those expectations. Realize the limitations of the voting process so we can complain in context. And go watch The Wire.

TV Review: House - "Human Error"

Diane Kristine — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 11:24:02 EDT

The third season finale of House falls somewhere between the brilliant re-examination of its main character in season two's "No Reason" and the anticlimax of "Honeymoon" as a finale after the spectacular "Three Stories" in season one. But I loved the confirmation of and justification for House's bastardliness, elevating this episode above most others of the season for me. "Human Error" is part cliffhanger, part character study, answering the question: is House hiding a heart of gold? The answer, of course, is no. No, he's really, really not, and he's had enough of the people around him thinking he is. Written by Thomas L. Moran and Lawrence Kaplow -- in his final script for the show he's been with since the beginning -- this episode is almost an answer to "No Reason," where House realized that his reliance on rationality over empathy has negative consequences. Yet his actions throughout this season would indicate that he hasn't changed his behaviour after that epiphany. Why? Because he is not empathetic, not caring, not interested in seeing his patients' life stories as anything other than case histories, and not prepared to change his personality while he changes guitars and employees. "Human Error" is a rematch of sorts in another sense. It's "House vs. God" take two, as the "atheist"-who's-mad-at-God House does battle with the deity over credit as the saviour of the well-named Marina, plucked from the ocean. It's an amusing spin on the God complex that doctors -- especially fictional ones -- display. We meet Marina shivering in a rescue helicopter as her husband Esteban is making rescue attempts difficult by grasping a large suitcase. The Coast Guard seems to read from the same playbook as House, doing what he must to save the dying -- he dunks Esteban into the ocean until he loses consciousness and his grip on the suitcase, which contained Marina's medical records. Esteban is a mechanic, the guy who can fix anything, except his wife. For that, he turned to House, his love for her not letting a pesky thing like geography get in his way. It's a story that would melt even the coldest heart, right? Have you met Dr. House? House is still struggling with Foreman's decision to quit, alternately stalking him at his going-away party (wearing his trucker hat disguise, declaring himself "Best in Show") and verbally patting him on the head at every turn. Wilson: He thinks you're a cold-hearted bastard with no regard for anyone else. You have to show him you care. You are not good with change. House: I didn't used to be, but I changed. Wilson: He's not afraid to be you; he's afraid to be who he thinks you are. House seems to perversely take that as a dare from one of the few people he does seem to have genuine regard for (very occasionally), perhaps to prove that it is Wilson, Chase, and Cuddy who have the mistaken impression of the real House, not Foreman. House is flummoxed by the Foreman issue because Foreman wants the one thing House cannot give him -- an apology for or denial of who he really is. Chase lectures House on the same topic, and even yells at his boss, but House is at a loss how to keep Foreman around. "Foreman's not as easy as Cameron. But then, who is?" Director (and executive producer) Katie Jacobs does a hilarious quick pan to a previously unseen Cameron sitting at the conference table. "I'm in the room," glowers the woman whose departure was remedied with a date from House. Esteban is frustrated that House himself has not seen Marina. "I came 1,000 miles to see him," he complains to Chase. "He doesn't care. I'm sorry, but that's who he is. That's who you risked your life to see," Chase says, adding: "And you made the right choice." That bit of insight might have helped cushion the blow when House abruptly fires Chase when he approaches him to explain more calmly his frustration over House's dealings with Foreman. "Because you've been here the longest, learned all you can," House explains. "Or you haven't learned anything at all. Either way, it's time for a change." It's safe to say House doesn't care whether it's time for a change for Chase, but rather that he's the one who wants the change. Take that, Wilson. Chase has grown considerably in the last half of this season. He's gone from barely existing in much of the first half of season -- down to the character's "remarked on but never explained" disappearance midway through "Que Sera Sera" -- to asserting himself as the persistent but not stalkery wooer of Cameron and conscience of House. Without that growth, it would be inconceivable to imagine the Chase who betrayed House in order to keep his job, who was double-dipping shifts to earn extra money, could possibly be the same Chase who's so accepting of House's snap decision to fire him because "change is good." It's still easy to think he's in shock and hasn't fully processed the change yet. Foreman wonders if House is lashing out at Chase in lieu of himself, and Cameron puzzles over how to make sense out of this seemingly senseless act. "He always makes sense," she asserts. Instead of giving him the results of Marina's PET scan, they confront a cane-guitar playing House over his actions before Wilson and Cuddy storm in for the same reason. "I told you to show Foreman you had a heart," Wilson protests. "How does that translate into 'fire Chase'?" House is unmoved, even cruelly toying with Chase to get the results of the PET scan out of the one obedient -- if no longer employed -- employee. Foreman retaliates by giving the still-House-seeking Esteban House's home number. Which is something, as Cameron points out, makes Foreman not so unlike House despite his protests. And yet, when Marina's heart stops during an angiogram, House refuses to consider the only likely option: human error, Foreman's error. However, it's not another example of deference to his exiting employee, but his refusal to pick the most likely but least satisfying explanation. Marina's heart stops but her mouth doesn't, and House is more intrigued by the fact that she continued to speak while having no pulse than the dire fact that she continues to have no pulse. Rather than put her on bypass until he can figure out this new mystery, fearing a potentially deadly blood clot, he gets his remaining team to perform CPR. This is not House's most stellar moment in labour relations. If he's not treating his team as disposable, he's treating them as machines. Very high tech machines. In an amusing scene reminiscent of his interesting teaching methods in "Three Stories," House quizzes Cuddy's medical students for possibilities other than human error. One, very Cameron-like -- smart, quick to regroup, and a pretty, long-haired brunette -- suggests a tainted Botox injection, which he rejects for obvious reasons. But then he calls "send me a resume" even before knowing he might need a Cameron replacement after all. And he's still avoided talking to Esteban about what's going on with his wife, not out of early-Cameron-like hesitance to share bad news, but perpetual-House-like indifference to the emotional impact on the patient and family. He has no facts, therefore he has nothing to tell the husband. Esteban came 1,000 miles to see House, though, so the few extra feet to his office aren't an obstacle. "How do you fix something if you don't look at it?" he demands of the doctor who still hasn't examined his wife. Good question, and I like the metaphoric possibilities as well. Though it's hard to say if House is fixing his life by examining it. Even examining her heart during the bypass surgery doesn't yield any clues, though, and House discovers that her heart can't be restarted. She is, in effect, dead, kept on the machine only so the husband can say goodbye. Still, House stalls, wanting to solve the case even if it's too late to save the patient. "How can we tell him there's no hope when we don't know why there's no hope?" he asks a doubting Foreman. "If he pulls the plug it means he's failed." "If he pulls the plug, it means you've failed," Foreman counters. "And you're okay with that?" In other words, the differing perspectives are meaningless. Whether the motivation to solve the mystery, even if it's too late, is to give the husband some certainty before pulling the plug, or to give House some certainty before giving up, the outcome is the same. "I don't care. I really don't care. My motives are pure," House explains to Cuddy after she attempts to get him to admit that he wants a storybook ending for his ocean-crossed lovers. He isn't ready to let go of the mystery because, unlike the patient they lost in "Family," thanks to the bypass machine there is a chance he doesn't have to conduct an autopsy to make the diagnosis. His patient isn't the only one with the cold, dead heart. House really is that heartless, that the story of a young couple risking their lives to see him doesn't move him. They're just another day on the job, just another case to be solved, and, to hear him tell it, that's a good thing, letting his determination be based on rationality rather than emotion. In some ways, the series has proven to us again and again that House possesses the perfect confluence of traits to allow him to do his specialized job so well. His lack of caring means he's not distracted by pesky emotions. His addictive personality makes him "jones" for a medical mystery, as Foreman puts it, gives him the insatiable desire to solve the case. But his night at the office yields no further clues, and he finally approaches the husband to advise turning off the bypass machine. He finds the purported atheist in the chapel. "I promised my wife I'd do everything I can," Esteban explains. "If I don't pray, then I don't do everything." Seems rational enough. What doesn't is the fact that Marina's heart continues to beat after the machine is turned off. "Holy crap," House says when she wakes up, giving a plaintive shrug up to the heavens. The God he doesn't believe in is making House look bad. Esteban has apparently converted from House worship to another kind of belief: "God sent her back to me. It's a miracle." "How come God gets credit whenever something good happens?" House grumbles to the remnants of his team. "What if it wasn't human error? Maybe it was God's error -- a congenital defect." He needs his powers of persuasion and manipulation to convince the happy and highly photogenic couple that Marina's apparent good health is a temporary state, and they should submit to the same test that stopped her heart in the first place. Esteban points out that House was wrong about there being no hope for his wife when they pulled the plug. "My mistakes don't prove there's a God. You came a long way to see me. Are you going to put her life in God's hands or mine?" It's a similar argument to the season one "Damned If You Do," which was the first episode to suggest that House is not quite a devout atheist himself. Well, sure, since they came all that way, why not trust the man who's admitted he's wrong a lot? But they do, because doctors trump miracles for nuns and recent converts alike. "I better not see you praying," House jokes to Esteban during the procedure. "I don't want to have to fight for credit on this." House's prediction turns out to be accurate, and his acute powers of deduction solved the case again. One more operation, and Marina will be fine. "Thank God," she says. "Don't make me slap you," he retorts, and suddenly I can see a little Jackie Gleason in the very un-Jackie-Gleason-ish Hugh Laurie. So House fixes what God breaks. That's pretty heady stuff. No wonder everyone -- including House himself -- is so enamoured with the dark-humoured doctor. Everyone except Foreman. At the last possible moment, House finally admits he wants Foreman to stay, that he needs him. But he fails at showing he cares for either Foreman or his patients, and because of that, experiences a rare failure in his attempts to persuade or manipulate. "I don't want to solve cases, I want to save lives," declares the unmoved Foreman. "Do you think she cares? Do you think the husband cares? Do you think the children she can now have because of me are going to care why I saved her? You're the selfish bastard, not me," oh-so-tactful but not irrational House counters. "Nice try," Wilson the observer says after Foreman exits, supposedly never to return. "Nice tries are worthless," is House's disgusted reply. The scene reminded me of the first season speech he gave at Vogler's insistence. House cannot be who he is not, and there's something noble in the fact that he won't try to be, either. That's why it's been such a brick wall for him to manipulate Foreman into staying -- he hit on the one thing House can't and won't change: who he is. And who he is is someone who doesn't generally give a damn and doesn't want to pretend he does. House doesn't seem to care that Cameron went to commiserate with the fired Chase, either. "Say, 'Hi,' to Chase for me. You're wearing lipstick," he adds, presumably in explanation for how he knows who she'll be seeing. Sure enough, Cameron tries to cheer the ex-duckling up, but flees after he tells her he's okay with the firing (in a not-quite-okay kind of way) and apologizes for his "silly" plan to ask her out every Tuesday. She put lipstick on for that? No, that's just the prelude. Later, she confronts him on his doorstep to remind him it's Tuesday. When he points out it's actually Monday -- but with a tiny smile that indicates he knows, or hopes he knows, where this is going -- she says she couldn't wait, and the former friends with benefits convert into actual coupledom, with a long, sweet kiss. Cameron's change goes beyond just choosing Chase, but also choosing, like Foreman, to distance herself from House. Though nothing in the episode suggests she made the decision for purely professional reasons, she offers House her letter of resignation, saying smugly: "I've gotten all I can from this job." He wonders what she expects him to do about it . If she wanted a date last time, I wonder what he thinks the higher stakes might be this time. But no, she and Chase both seem to have learned to accept House's flaws in a way Foreman can't. "I expect you to do what you always do," she says. "I expect you to make a joke, go on. I expect you to be just fine." Cameron has made her choice -- for now -- and Chase is the lucky recipient of her affections. The "I'll miss you" and the arm touch suggest her feelings for House have been deliberately submerged rather than eliminated. But she's learned from House over the years. She's harder and less gullible, as Wilson pointed out recently. She's also learned about House, and puts her newfound non-gullibility to work. Whatever her feelings for him, House and his twisted heart will be just fine without her. What follows is a weirdly companionable scene between House and Esteban, sharing House's "genuine American cigars." Esteban is at least a step up from original recipe coma guy -- he can talk back and partake in the smoking/drinking male bonding ritual. He also has the benefit of not being judgmental Wilson, and doesn't have any reason to care that House doesn't care. Esteban: You must be very upset. House: Yeah, I must be. Esteban: But you're not. House: I don't think I am. I think I'm OK. Esteban: What are you going to do? House: God only knows. He comes home to the new guitar he apparently ordered to replace the one he's had since grade nine. Change is addictive, it seems, and the cane-guitar playing must have given him a taste of something snappier, too. As Josh Ritter's "I'm a Good Man" plays ironically, I have to consider that he is a good man, as long as he's judged on a Housian curve and not by the standards of St. Wilson, for example, who doesn't have a problem with faking caring. House looks just fine playing that new guitar, when he would seem to have just made a complete mess of his professional and possibly personal life. Now that's the kind of cliffhanger I like. I have no predictions for how this is all going to play out next season, except that I'm highly skeptical Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison, and Jesse Spencer are off the show. Is the mass exodus another engineered lesson for House courtesy of Wilson and Cuddy? Is it a ploy by the team, or at least Cameron, to win Chase his job back? Or is all as it appears, and the ducklings have decided they're ready to swim on their own and House has decided that he's ready for change? Okay, I have one prediction, but I'm not making any bets on this one: I think they'll all be back, but in different capacities. At the very least, this regrouping could put to rest the never-ending fellowships without getting into tedious administrative detail. By the end of the episode, all three have decided they're ready to move on from House's tutelage, but I'm skeptical that means we've seen the last of them. Whatever the answer, I'm ready for some change, and am hopeful we're in for a readjustment of a show that's hit the reset button a few times too many. But I'd hate to see an overhaul of the undeniably successful dynamics between the characters, so I'm hoping for a tweaking that will prevent the show from growing stale without tampering too much with its winning formula. FOX bumped the finale by a week, putting it in the path of my holiday but also, perhaps more importantly to anyone but me, out of the May sweeps and into the doldrums of summer reruns. I take some spiteful comfort in the fact that On the Lot, the show FOX wanted to launch with an American Idol-fueled boost, is tanking already. Take that, scheduling gods who dare to mess with House. He wins again.