The tried and tested formula remains. The first five minutes of House are spent showing the patient developing symptoms, she’s rushed into hospital, a series of misdiagnoses occur until, inevitably, House waltzes in and sets the world to rights. But this time his mind is not on the patient.
The Whipping Boy Has Had Enough
At the end of the last series, Dr Wilson’s (Robert Sean Leonard) girlfriend and former medical student Amber died in a bus crash. Despite also receiving life-threatening injuries, House blames himself for her death; if he hadn’t called her to meet him, she would not have been on the bus. House perceived Amber to be a serious threat to his friendship with Wilson – the more time he spent with her, the less time he had to come running when House snapped his fingers.
After two months off, Wilson returns to the hospital and announces he’s leaving. Cue much sulking on the part of House, and many attempts by Dr Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) to get the two of them to sit down and just talk. Both refuse. In a grand gesture House completely abandons his patient and stalks out of the hospital, refusing to return unless Wilson changes his mind. So of course Cuddy, in yet another of her trademark tight outfits, must go to House’s apartment to try and get him back to work. “You’re doing the same thing he is, running away. At least he’s not killing anyone in the process.”
So House’s team is left to get on with attempting to cure the patient without killing her first. Now that the rather over-drawn testing stage is over, Dr Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Dr Kutner (Kal Penn) are finally starting to gel as a unit. Just like the last team, there are two men and one woman, and the latter bears a striking resemblance to Dr Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), the lady she replaced. Not a coincidence, and Hadley’s relationship with House looks set to be as complicated as her predecessor’s.
Is This Really House’s New Team?
Which begs the question – exactly what are the “old hands” still doing there? Aside from being much happier now that they no longer have to answer to House, they seem to contribute little in terms of either diagnosis or helping the new recruits get along with their frequently-absent boss. Is House ready to dump the lot of them if he can get Foreman, Cameron and Chase back?
House M.D. (to give it its full title) has always been much more than diagnosing a disease of the week. Interpersonal relationships are equally important, and there’s always an underlying question of how far can House push people, staff or patients, before they snap. So it seems Dr Wilson has finally had enough; but will he be back? Good to see the quality is as high as ever, and that House really does have a human side. Doubtless it will not last.
