Poll: Vote for the Best of House, M.D.

Well, the bad news is that the House, M.D. winter hiatus will be longer than originally planned (blame network programming). No new episodes until January 25! Two months is a long time for a show to go on break, but I will try to help you all (and myself) fill the time with some special pieces, a couple of “revisited” reviews and a poll or two. So, sit back, relax, grab a cup of egg nog or a latke (preferably homemade) and let’s talk House.

First a little news: I hear tell that Hugh Laurie is slated to direct episode 17, which will air March 22. This is great news because he knows the show and characters as well as anyone. He’s directed before back home in the U.K. (Fortysomething and commercials) and it will be interesting to see House through his eyes.

There are lots of other rumors flying around the Internet about upcoming storylines, which I won’t comment upon here, as this is a spoilerphobe-friendly space. But I’m hoping to arrange a couple of good interviews early in 2010 to give some insight into what’s coming up on the show.
I thought I would start the festivities with a “best of” poll. It’s very hard to come up with a shortlist of nominees for the single best episode in five seasons and a half seasons, so we will do this as a series of polls: one for each season, and then have a run off. I will do “revisited” commentaries on each of the five top episodes with arguments pro and con to be debated.

Voting for the best should be based on writing, acting, directing, furtherance of the main story, compelling guest actors – or whatever you deem “best” means.

I have selected the top five episodes from each season (not necessarily my favorites) based on the results of last month’s survey on my personal blog. I will run the poll for one week, and then the runoff. You will notice that there are no season six episodes listed, and that is intentional. I will add “Broken” to the run off poll as the season six entry, but I didn’t want to do a poll for season six based on only half a season. So dive in, and spread the word! Don’t like my choices? Write in your vote in the comments below.