Ken Levine has a very funny post today about HOUSE.
If you’re writing a spec episode of HOUSE, here’s the format: Vibrant
attractive Fox-friendly hottie in her 30’s suddenly collapses for no
reason. Opening credits. House says it’s nothing, send her home. She
goes into convulsions. For the next forty minutes the earnest young
doctors misdiagnosis her, send her into cardiac arrest, remove
something that doesn’t need removing, break into her house for an
illegal search, send House in to brow beat and traumatize her, and
finally he figures it out. It’s something obscure like she licks stamps
with cyanide or swims in a toxic waste dump. Five minutes later she’s
cured and goes home. Last scene – ironic music plays over as House sits
alone in his…well…house, pensive and tortured.
My wife loves the show, I like it, but we both have medical backgrounds so the show might as well be Star Trek when it comes to reality. That pretty much sums the show’s structure up, though.
He forgot to mention the supplicating cast who suffer House’s rude/obnoxious/boorish behavior for a chance to bathe in the light of his genius. MadTV did a skit that nailed that one.