House’s formula is becoming tiresome. We all know that the patient’s illness is just window dressing to prop up the off-kilter characters that permeate House, but this week’s patient seemed invisible save the ham-handed self reflection she incites in the cast. Its a flimsy backdrop designed to allow the Thirteen and Foreman romance/disaster blossom without distractions from this whole “hospital” thing. It works.

A former world class doctor has given up medicine to pursue other interests in her life. While taking a cooking class, she predictably falls ill to an intractable disease that the crew races to solve. Races is too strong a word, they meander into action. The slow reaction is driven by two things. First, Cuddy is exacting her revenge on House for forcing her to return to the hospital rather than spend time with her new baby; and second, Foreman has moved Thirteen from the placebo group in his drug trial endangering her health and his career.

Cuddy’s pranks are the pedestrian and mean. She hides his cane, forces him to take the elevator and generally acts like a mean spirited kid. House realizes that there is no way out of this other than to let her exact her revenge on him. The oddity of this decision isn’t lost on Wilson or the crew, but House just takes it. Though its satisfying to see Cuddy get some shots in, its feels so out of character that I just don’t think it worked.

The real meat of the story is Foreman. After putting his career in jeopardy, he’s attentive to Thirteen and her signs of possible side effects. Eventually, minor problems turn into large ones. Thirteen’s mild headaches grow until they become overwhelming finally she is struck blind. House and Foreman intervene discovering a brain tumor. Foreman’s grief and guilt are out of control as he wrestles with his obligations (and future) as a doctor and his growing love for Thirteen.

I have to say at this point in the show the whole scenario with Thirteen seemed very promising. There was some real change going on, and surely they can’t just make a brain tumor and Foreman’s ethical mess just disappear, can they? Sadly, They can.

After giving it far less attention than it deserves, Thirteen’s brain tumor is treated by Foreman and House in semi secret. Its a total success and she suffers no ill effects despite having received radiation treatments. Also, Foreman decides to tell the truth about his folly of the heart to the drug company. Guess what? They don’t seem to care. All they ask is for Foreman to never work on another drug trial again. Yep, its all good now people. Oh yeah, and the patient’s bleeding was somehow caused by her period. I know its silly to be impressed by the various insane diagnosis happening on this series, but this one should be displayed on the top shelf.

This is House’s problem in a nutshell. We all know that the patient is going to come through. We all know that that whatever consequences seem to be there, really aren’t. This needs to change. House needs to lose some patients. House needs to lose some members of the crew. These characters can’t remain bulletproof if House is to become the fresh and exciting show it was before. With this TV programing climate, they’d better get on it.

Jouse is one of those series that will occasionally try to challenge you and how you feel about a particular issue. IN this case, it touched on drug addiction, the treatment of pain and suicide. All subjects with thorny and sticky positions and consequences.

House is faced with a patient who is actively trying to kill himself. He’s been in pain of some kind for years without any respite or real diagnosis. so hopeless is his condition that even his son tries to help him commit suicide.

The team bickers about the possible causes trying to balance the patients capacity to handle the pain with the very real chance that he is addicted to the scores of pain medication that he’s been prescribed. Though House tries very briefly to address its namesake’s own addiction to pain medication it really glosses over it. Though his unhealthy attachment to Vicodin is highlighted, only Thirteen has the courage to give it voice. After the usual near death moment, House comes to the conclusion that the patient’s problem is actually a problem with his testicles. No, I’m not kidding.

As for the rest of the cast, Cuddy struggles with her new role as working foster mother going so far as to wonder if she can maintain her career at the same time. I have to say, I’m a little bit tired of this stereotypical behavior. Woman on television are constantly confronted with this false choice between motherhood and their careers. Rarely are men treated with this simperingly boring plot device. When they do,  it usually is as a novelty rather than a comment on society. Woman absolutely can manage children and the jobs, lets move on. In the finale, Cuddy turns to Dr Cameron for help handling House setting up some fun confrontation down the road.

In other cast news, Thirteen and Foreman continue to develop romantically and professionally as Thirteen continues with her treatments in Foreman’s Huntington’s disease drug trial. Things on House are never easy though, as in the final moment we find out that Thirteen is actually in the placebo group and is not actually receiving any real treatment at all. It’ll now be up to Foreman to decided if he wants to be a romantic or a scientist.

Much like day old pizza, even uninspired House is pretty good. House showed some rare vulnerability, there was some legitimate character development with Thirteen and Cuddy and their are moments of real conflict. However the show just didn’t add up to the sum of its parts. But even when it fails, House does so gracefully.

Parthenogenesis or the Rotifer

Although this hasn’t been a stellar season by House’s standards the last four weeks have been solid. As I mentioned during the Thanksgiving week episode, House is the kind of character who is just perfect for a Scrooge-like holiday epiphany. He’s an atheist, the hates people and he doesn’t believe in anything. What better person to have a Christmas miracle. So far, House has avoided these cliches. With this week’s Christmas-themed episode, the show could succumb to temptation. I hope not.

A chubby adolescent choir girl is struck ill during the school’s Christmas concert and her liver is in worse shape than middle-aged man with a bottle of Old Crow in his hands. The crew discovers the girl has been tormented by her classmates. As usual the false diagnosis fly fast everything from Leukemia to Alcoholism even tuberculosis; but sadly, no.

Hadley continues to work Foreman’s (who is conspicuously absent till this point) experimental drug trial. This week, Hadley’s new friend in the program is leaving because of Foreman’s crappy bedside manor. Hadley confronts Foreman and he reacts in way that seems too harsh to me. Foreman has to be a jerk in this one so he can have the mysterious Christmas epiphany.

Regardless of the efforts, the girls health crashes to near death. Cuddy is clearly attached to the girl. In fact, she is the one who cracks the mystery. The girl got pregnant and had a premature baby hiding the it from her parents. Cuddy goes to the abandoned house where the girl left her premature baby. She finds a homeless couple who saved the baby’s life. Cuddy returns to the hospital with baby in tow. Reuniting the teen mom and her premature baby was a intentional tear jerking moment, particularly for Cuddy. The illness is permanent though and the girl is dieing and her premature baby is going up for adoption. Cuddy decides to adopt it. I just can’t imagine this will go smoothly.

Wilson once again tries to draw House out into some normal human emotions. House tries to prove he can be kind by going down to help the regular walk in patients. House meets a woman claiming to be virgin but her pregnancy says different. Its a Christmas MIRACLE! After ordering a paternity test between her and her confused virginal fiance, House tells the couple that she has had an immaculate conception. The Christmas music is played and hearts are supposed to swell. The only redeemable element of this silliness is the fact that House is going to poll the rug out at some point. He faked it in order to keep the “virgin” wife’s infidelity secret, thus proving to Wilson that he can he kind to a patient.

In the closing moments, Foreman does get his epiphany in the form of a big make out session with Hadley. We may have just seen the birth of the next House sub plot. God knows this one has to be more satisfying than the currently stagnant House/ Cuddy pseudo-romance.

After last weeks thoroughly satisfying but seriously overwrought episode, House is getting back to the formula. Someone gets a strange illness, House and team misdiagnose the illness, House is a jerk, patient almost dies and finally House has a break through. Happily, they through in a nice curve to keep it interesting.

After last week’s explosion, Cuddy is left without an office and decides to invade House’s, setting off war of wills. It gives House reasons to yell things to Cuddy like “Have you seen my balls?” loudly. Much to my delight, Cuddy gives as well as she gets and it leads to some fun banter and pranks between the star crossed couple. It leads to a moment of closeness between them, but it amounts to little more than a boob grab and a nice gesture from House.

The strange illness comes courtesy of a personal trainer who randomly passes out while working out. Years earlier she had her stomach stapled and the crew begins with that. Although it does expose her hypocrisy, it doesn’t do much to explain the crazy illness. The fear of being caught in her hypocrisy is eating her alive and as usual her health is spiraling down. In a twist, it becomes clear that it is a lack of carbs and sugar have caused her liver problems and in order to get well she has to get fat again. She’s so shallow that she refuses.

Thirteen has entered Foreman’s clinical drug trial for her terminal illness, and in turn we get some background flashbacks of her mother as she struggled with the neurological illness. It gives a fairly shallow character more development and it is welcome.

Kutner has picked up a side business diagnosing patients over the internet using House’s reputation. Eventually a patient comes to see House in person as she isn’t satisfied with Kutner’s side business. The whole thing blows up in his face when the patient dies in the hospital. It seems like the end until House reveals that the whole thing is a gag. Its a nice piece of side comedy and pretty well pulled off.

TV shows often go out of their way to tie a holiday into their story lines. This weeks’ awful episode of My Own Worst Enemy actually had a super spy with a split personality making a turducken. Its also the perfect time to spring ‘a very special episode’ on everyone. For the record, these episodes are usually a train wreck and have long past their usefulness. House is one show that is ripe for a “special episode.” House is an angry, unloving atheist. It must be hard to resist an episode where House sees a sick child healed and suddenly has a Scrooge-like epiphany. Happily, the cynic in me is appeased this week leaving the sappy togetherness for an episode of ER.

A man desperate for a diagnosis, bursts into the hospital and takes House some patients hostage. The hostage taker is played by Željko Ivanek the fine Slovenian actor who recently played a vampire judge on a few episodes of True Blood. He’s great as the shifty Jason and a good foil for House.

Jason doesn’t trust the injections that House orders up. For good reason too as House tries to trick him into taking a sedative. In anger, Jason fires a round into one of the hostage’s legs.  At the same moment the SWAT team show up headed by the awesome Avon Barksdale from the Wire. house assembles the team, but Chase refuses to play along with Jason and stalks off. Its a great moment for Chase as its exactly the kind of stand that I wanted to see someone take.

Forman’s clinical trial involves some experimental disease drugs and he offers  a place in the trial to Hadley. As usual she’s a narcissistic pain in the ass and refuses to be involved. Now trapped in with the hostages, she volunteers to be Jason’s drug guinea pig. The drugs take their toll on Hadley and House accuses her of having a suicide wish. The injections cause her health to deteriorate bringing into question how much she does want to live. Hadley’s illness has always been a pretty weak plot point. Its just ludicrous that a woman of science would ignore her health problems due to some point of pride. That point finally comes to a head. Hadley is always a pretty annoying (when she isn’t kissing other ladies) but in this case she does show some descent acting.

Now convinced that it could be cancer, the hostages, patient and House all make their way to radiology. House explains that in order to get a proper X-ray, Jason has to give up the gun. He does and House, Hadley and one of the hostages remain. When it turns out that there is no tumor, House is left without a diagnosis. At this moment, House does something that is indicative of the insane genius that he is. He gives Jason the gun back because he too now wants to know what’s wrong with him. Its just fantastic. It sums up all the reasons why I like House.

After yet another injection putting Hadley’s life in danger, House has the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. Apparently, Jason didn’t realize that Florida would be considered a tropical climate. After another standoff for drugs, Hadley and Jason are left alone. After Hadley finally comes to grips with the fact that she really doesn’t want to die, Jason takes the shot, SWAT blows open the doors and rushes in. Jason seems to be cured and he’ll have some nice years left as he spends them in lockup. Hadley wakes up in Foreman’s care and decides that she does want in on his new drug trial. It should be a sea change in her character, but you can never really tell on this show.

There are several moments of great editing in this episode that deserve to be noticed. TV editing and direction is often overlooked. House has some fantastic editing and I hope they get a shot at an Emmy this year.

Now that House and Wilson have reconciled and the Cuddy/ House romance has stalled, I wonder what other subterfuge House is going to throw at us this week. Well, other than an inexplicable sickness that perhaps a total of 15 people worldwide have ever gotten which is then solved through a combination of sarcasm, cruelty and the constant belittling of House’s team. As it turns out, its the ever awesome Foreman who is the focus.

A teenage female employee of a steel factory goes down on the assembly line with a frothy blood coming out of her mouth. The sixteen year old girl is living on her own and seems to be a healthy and responsible kid. Of coarse House decides that the kid must be hiding something. Kutner tries to develop a relationship with her and independent of the group decides to give her steroids. A bad idea as the patient flips out and has to be restrained.

At the same time, Foreman asks House for permission to work on a clinical trial. Not surprisingly, House shoots him down. House begins giving Foreman busy work, intentionally pissing him off. Foreman decides to go rouge. He starts working on his own trying to diagnosis a boy who also has a mysterious illness. He is trying to out-House House. Obviously, House will have none of it and attempts to derail his independence.

Despite House’s attempts Foreman insists on trying to treat two patients at the same time. Its a dangerous and stressful situation of Foreman. The little boy patient spirals down and nearly dies. At the same time, the teenager is still as much of a mystery as when she came in. Eventually they discover that she needs a bone marrow transplant. That means they need her parents in order to get the best match. She tells them her father raped her and she doesn’t want any contact with her parents. Thirteen goes to her parents and finds that the patient is still lying to her and that the people she claims are her parents are not.

Now, House goes to her and drills the teenager about all the lies she’s been telling. She finally spills the beans and the solution is revealed. She was responsible for her brother‘s death when she was supposed to be caring for him and she ran away in the aftermath. Finally they crew calls her parents for the marrow.

Foreman reaches out to House for help with the patient he’s treating behind his back and he refuses. Now without options, Foreman is backed into a corner, which as we know, is when the doctors get their inspiration. Turns out the little kid had an iron overdose because his older brother gave him too many vitamins. Foreman is vindicated and House relents, allowing him to be involved in the clinical trial.

Its good to see Foreman get some run as I find him one of the better characters on the show. This episode lacked some of the spark that the last few weeks had, but was totally satisfying regardless.

House regained its footing over the last few episodes and then took a little break in order to give us a chance to pick a new leader of the free world. I’ve been really interested with how House is going to pick up the ending scene kiss between House and Cuddy they dropped on us.

Cameron makes an appearance bringing the crew an agoraphobic who is this week’s diseased and crazed patient. Obviously, his fear of being outside keeps him from leaving his house to seek medical care. As you might imagine, House isn’t particularly sympathetic to the patient’s mental health. House tries to trigger a seizure in him by bringing strangers into his house. It works and House decides to trick him into surgery by telling him they’ll do the surgery in his house, but then putting him under anesthesia and transporting him to the hospital without his consent. Cameron decides to inform the patient and he understandably loses it when he finds out he’s been tricked. House decides to inflict pain on the patient in an attempt to force him to return to the hospital. Cameron fights him every step of the way. I have missed Cameron’s unstoppable moralizing. Its refreshing in the face of House’s anger and cynicism.

After several surgeries and dead ends the crew finds the source of his problem. Years ago, the agoraphobic and his girlfriend where mugged and shot. The bullet fragments have remained in his body for years slowly giving him lead poisoning. The patient makes a recovery and even gets up the courage to break his fears.

The real impetus of the episode is the relationship between Cuddy and House. Wilson talks to them separately and starts to believe that the two of them really want a relationship but can’t seem to make it work.  Wilson actually encourages them to pursue it, which does seem out of character. Its the plot line we’ve been hoping for, but something about it seems forced. House agrees and accuses Wilson of wanting to live vicariously through him. Wilson continues to try to play matchmaker, but as expected we never get any proper closure. House just plain chickens out.

Over the last two episodes, House has really found itself again. Its been nice to see as I was concerned that House might have peaked as a series. The last episode convinced me that there are some high points yet to be found. Two more weeks like the previous one and I’d say House is totally back  on track.

This weeks insane patient is missing large chunks of time. The symptoms make him appear to be sleeping even while awake. While his brain is asleep, he gets up, leaves his home and buys cocaine from a street dealer.  This might be the best excuse ever for  being pulled over with drugs. “Officer, I was sleeping. In fact, I’m sleeping now.”

House instructs the crew to go buy cocaine from the street dealer to try and isolate whatever is causing the patient’s missing time. Its a hilarious and goofy scene watching 13 try the coke because she wants to be sure its of as poor quality as their looking for.

As the diagnosis drags on, the group discovers the coke-walking patient’s daughter also is a sleepwalker. This last piece of knowledge -and some Dr Wilson banter- breaks the case wide open. I could take three or four sentences here to explain the diagnosis, but its so ridiculous and obscure that it would make your head spin.

The real thrust of the episode is Cuddy and her desire to adopt a child. Her longing has finally led her to a birthmother. House is his usual cajoling and prick-ish self, although he does actually seem to care about Cuddy. Even so, he sets up a betting pool on how long it will take for the adoption to fail. Right on cue, the birthmother has a mysterious rash and Cuddy appears to overreact. I say appears because there just isn’t anyway this doesn’t end in tragedy. Tests show the fetus’ lungs are underdeveloped. Things predictably go from bad to worse for the baby. Cuddy realizes that the mother may be in danger if she has the child, but her desire to save the baby she wants so much is killing her. Its a good scene and it gives Cuddy some room to act, which she usually doesn’t get much of an opportunity to do. The scene in the operating room with the baby being born and Cuddy begging her to cry is really great.

Cuddy’s adopted baby does cry and it appears she might get a happy ending out of this terrible situation. That would be completely out of character for House, so in a move that defies logic, the former meth-head decides to keep her baby denying Cuddy the adoption. All of this Cuddy subterfuge really leads to the big ending. House comes to comfort Cuddy and in doing so, the two finally kiss. Lord knows where this will lead next week, but I’ve finally found the House I’ve been looking for.

With the last episode House seemed to find itself. Wilson returned, House’s father died and the real voice of the show remerged. Now on firmer footing, I was hoping to see the House I got used to last season. I was not disappointed.

I imagine this episode will be pretty highly rated on Youtube and Hulu because it stared off with 13 and a girl making out. The girl 13 brought home for a one night stand has a seizure in her bed and 13 rushes her to the hospital. House is giddy with joy over teasing and digging 13 about her lesbian one night stand, even going so far as to quiz the patient on their affair. As it turns out, the patient was trying to use 13 to get treatment from House. As usual she has an impossible to diagnosis illness which has conflicting symptoms. The crew suspects everything from a Spider Bite to Cancer even reaching a false conclusion that the case is terminal. Luckily for the patient, House’s epiphany over a fungal infection saves the day.

The subplot of 13’s terminal illness raises its head again. Apparently, her illness has worse than we suspected and her fear has driven her to act in a reckless way. She comes in, fresh from the club and House fires her. 13 isn’t giving up though and actively fights to get her job back. She pesters House at every turn and gives the performance of the season so far while she comforts her late night lover. She really should be commended for this episode, it was excellent. House does eventually rehire 13 back much to my relief.

Not surprisingly, House is suspicious of Wilson’s return and he gets Lewis the P.I. to run some investigation on him. While staking out his apartment House and Lewis spot a beautiful leggy blonde come over for a visit. Later House digs out the fact that Wilson was seeing a reformed prostitute named Debbie. Obviously, House sends Lewis out to investigate Wilson’s girlfriend/hooker. As it turns out, Wilson tricked House with a fake prostitute and fake drug paraphernalia in his trash. Wilson the foil for House, is back in full and it is a welcome welcome return.

I absoltly loved this episode and not just because of the pretty ladies making out. House and Wilson’s insane rapport is back, 13 turned is a stunning performance and we still got to see Lewis the PI before his impending mid season spin-off. House has found itself again and if this episode is an indication, its gunning for awards again.

House has been in a bit of a slump this season. Aside from the addition of the spinoff-able private investigator, and the surprising loss of Wilson there has been zero serious earthquakes in the House world. After taking a week off Fox’s ads for House promised some action this week, and despite keeping the tried and true formula of crazy illnesses alive, they did a fairly good job.

House’s father has died and in standard House fashion he absolutely glosses over it. Instead he chooses to focus on a patient. While tracking down her birthparents in China, a woman throws up blood and collapses. House’s merry band tries to convince him that he needs to get in touch with his mother who has been calling frantically. House rebuffs their pop psychology claiming he never liked his father to begin with.

House’s mother has asked him to perform the eulogy his father’s funeral. So we’re gonna get a road trip! House passes out in his office and wakes up in a car besides the estranged Dr. Wilson. Cutty drugged him in order to get him to the funeral, even going so far as to steal his Vicodine and cellphone. There’s some really good banter between Wilson and House, it helps remind us how much of a hole Wilson’s absence has left in the show. Wilson always acts as House’s humanity, and House knows it. House is fighting Wilson every step of the way, recounting stories of how much his father and he hated each other. House even goes so far as to get them arrested. Setting up a cute moment where Wilson explains how they first met at a New Orleans medical convention.

The patient’s parents are concerned that her alcoholism caused her problems, while its believed that SARS may be the culprit. Since its the first 10 minutes of the show, there’s no way its actually SARS. The patient is poked and prodded as usual as the crew fumbles to treat her without House around to guide and berate them. The patient’s drinking problems are worse than we may have expected because she falls into heavy withdrawal, forcing the doctors to paralyze her anesthetically in order to perform surgery.

House finally arrives at his father’s funeral and into his mother’s arms. House insists that he won’t speak at the service, that he’s not really his father’s son and that he had no real influence on him in the first place. Its fun to see House so out of control. He fidgets like a child and throws tantrums. It really broke the character into a place we don’t get to see him in. He was allowed vulnerability. House eventually makes his speech and its as petulant and childish as you might imagine. Even then, House still is trying to prove that his father isn’t his biological father and clips a DNA sample off the body. Wilson and House charge of the service into the funeral parlor to have it out once and for all. Its a bit cathartic, but unsatisfying. We do get something we’ve been looking for when Wilson and House banter over the life of the patient. Finally, the puzzle pieces fall into place.

The patient’s birth parents actually tried to kill her as an infant. By placing pins through the skull of the child, they hoped to kill their unwanted baby. The attempt didn’t work, but the pins where left inside. Years later, very strong magnets moved deeper into her brain and caused the symptoms.

As it turns out, House was right, his father was indeed not his biological father. And although its the result House wanted, he isn’t consoled by it at all. The only consolation he gets is the one he’s been desperate for all season. Wilson is coming back to stay.