“A Pox On Our House” was one of my favorite episodes this season. It was ambitious and dramatic with, as always, a touch of humor thrown in for good measure. Good news! The InHouse folks have given us an update that does the episode justice.
First up is the Dark Room, where we get a behind the scenes look at the creation of the slave ship. The slave quarters we saw on screen look as close, dirty and damp off camera, as they do on. We can't imagine that those actors were too comfortable during the filming of the teaser. But it certainly made for a great scene. Then it’s off to the more aesthetically pleasing Port of Los Angeles, where the present day boating scenes were filmed. The Pacific Ocean is at its most beautiful in these shots. We also get a look at the isolation area of Princeton-Plainsboro, featuring a bevy of crew tucking the cast members into their protective gear. We’d like to thank the InHouse folks for the ver-r-ry nice photo of Hugh Laurie being instructed on the proper handling of the patient. After some miscellaneous shots of the cast between takes, the Dark Room segment ends with a shot of a chair bearing Amber Tamblyn’s name. It looks like we’ll have Martha M. Masters with us for a while.
We love behind the scenes footage where we actually learn something about the way Hollywood stuff is done. InHouse has been very good about keeping us up to speed with how the experts do their jobs. This time is no exception. In the Media Room, we are treated to a crash course on “Special Effects and Prosthetics Makeup” by two of the show’s experts. First we meet Dalia Doktor, who is House’s Special Effects Makeup Department Head. She explains the difference between ‘standard makeup’ and ‘prosthetics’, and then runs down the grisly special effects she works on (blood gels, vomit, cuts, gashes and rashes, etc.). She has such a lovely way of explaining all this, she might as well be chatting about gardening. Obviously the woman enjoys her job.
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Article comments
1 - housefan
The episode was great, but I expect the medical side to be somewhat accurate. In this case is wasn't at all. Smallpox is viral, and Rickettsialpox is bacterial. The lesions of smallpox are nothing like that displayed on the girl or her father. Ricketsiallpox lesions do not resemble smallpox lesions and any infectious disease novice (let alone experts) would know the difference. In addition, the ricettsialpox stems from mites, and could not possibly last for 200 years without a host (or even one month). Rickettsialpox is also not fatal, any more than say chicken pox. Moreover rickettsialpox is a modern disease first outbreak know to us is in 1946 in New York. (see wikipedia article).
I would hope that in the future, the screenplay would be screened by some physician before the screenplay proceeds to production.