TV Review: House - "Meaning"

Running? Running? Are you freaking kidding me?

Season three of House picks up a couple of months after "No Reason," where a disgruntled former patient shot the dyspeptic doctor. It's full of scenes of Dr. House jogging to work, skateboarding around campus, and in general having fun with his newfound mobility, from cartoonish end runs around Cameron to athletic displays you wouldn't expect from a man whose physical fitness routine seemed to revolve around exercising his thumbs with a GameBoy and iPod.

So, obviously, the ketamine-induced coma he requested for his gunshot surgery worked, relieving him of the chronic pain caused by his long-ago infraction. And, apparently, also curing the nerve damage and missing thigh muscle we've been told was the result of his leg surgery.

I usually ignore any potential medical inaccuracies in the show, even in the rare cases where I think I spot them. I don't want to work hard enough to fact check, plus people who look for accurate medicine from a TV show should be forced to be treated by a doctor who got his license by mail order after watching a lot of Discovery Channel.

But they're not just asking for willing suspension of disbelief on this one, they're looking for magical levitation of disbelief. Perhaps this is still part of House's season two ending hallucination, and next season will begin with Hugh Laurie limping out of the shower to discover this entire season was a dream.

Deep breath. Okay. I'm willing to let it go now and focus on the rest of the episode. (But ... running?)

We're given a throwaway line about House's shooter getting away, which gives us either a plot thread waiting to be picked up at any moment, or the only resolution we can ask for that wouldn't be anti-climactic after the can't-top-this-for-interesting hallucinated resolution.

The rest of the episode deals with House taking on two seemingly straightforward cases of two paralyzed patients.

The first case, of yoga girl who is inexplicably paralyzed, is dispatched quickly with House initially believing she's faking her symptoms then realizing she's suffering from scurvy. The second, of a man whose brain cancer surgery had left him all but a vegetable and who drove his wheelchair into a swimming pool, is first an exercise in simply increasing his quality of life.

It's a previously unheard of goal for House, and he finds he's not able to get satisfaction from the family's gratitude – a "thank you" earned when he puts a Housian, yet positive, spin on the possibility the swim was a suicide attempt, saying at least it shows there's something left to kill – that something remains of the husband and father.

Article Author: Diane Kristine Wild

Diane writes about boring things by day, pop culture things by night. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news about Canadian television. Follow her on Twitter @deekayw for more random thoughts.

Visit Diane Kristine Wild's author page — Diane Kristine Wild's Blog