Three cheers for American Idol. First it gave me Clay Aiken, and then it directed me to one of my favorite shows of the past few years: House. Now maybe I would have discovered the show on my own, but I never heard of it until I saw it heavily advertised while I was watching American Idol. And I said, “Hey! That’s the guy from 101 Dalmatians! And Sense and Sensibility! And I really like him!” So that was enough to intrigue me. And once I watched the first episode, I was hooked. At first, a medical drama seems like a strange choice of show to follow a talent search, but not when you consider that half the people who watch American Idol are glued to the television simply to see what outlandish thing Simon Cowell will say next. House ultimately is all about its curmudgeonly title character, and the bulk of the show’s charm is in his unpredictable outbursts. And clearly that’s enough to sustain its success, at least for a while. I’m certainly happy to let House into my house every week.

It’s funny that someone as squeamish as me counts two programs centering around hospitals among her favorite shows. M*A*S*H gets my vote because of its compassionate cast of characters and the hilarious and touching ways in which they interact with one another. When you’re in a war zone, everything takes on extra significance, and you really come to appreciate the little things. House lacks this sort of human element. Few of its major characters are really all that nice, and we don’t get much of a sense of what they’re like outside of the hospital. They almost seem to live there, which, in the case of House’s diagnostic team, is ironic since they don’t seem to serve any real compelling purpose. They all bounce ideas off each other, but ultimately it’s House who figures everything out, and they’re only around to do his grunt work because he’s too high and mighty to get his hands dirty. The shows are very formulaic: a patient comes in with a strange ailment, they think they find the cure, the patient takes a turn for the worse, House figures it out in the nick of time. All this seems to add up to a show that wouldn’t hold my attention week after week. But it does.

The show revolves around Dr. Gregory House (Laurie, with piercing blue eyes and a flawless American accent), a master diagnostician who walks with a limp and spews razor-sharp wit each time he speaks. He sports a permanent five o’clock shadow and refuses to wear a lab coat, and he constantly scoffs at authority, stooping to unethical practices such as searching patients’ houses and ordering unwarranted procedures, but he gets away with it because his rate of success is so high. And though his caustic comments seem to be in endless supply, as the season progresses we see more and more that buried beneath all that bluster is a caring and wounded soul.

As head of the special department for cases nobody can figure out, House gets to order around three young doctors who serve as his assistants: Foreman (Omar Epps), a very capable doctor who resents House’s bullying; Chase (Jesse Spencer), an Australian smart-aleck who appears to be headed for trouble; and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), a kind and quiet presence who carries a torch for her boss. All three undergo changes throughout the series, but the most notable metamorphosis is in Cameron, who seems to grow jaded and rather mean-spirited as she comes to decide that House will never see her the way she wants him to.

Of course, House doesn’t have jurisdiction over the whole hospital. He answers to Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), who constantly butts heads with him but respects his abilities enough to let him have his way. Things get a bit messy, though, when billionaire Ed Vogler (Chi McBride) endows the hospital with a generous gift in exchange for a seat at the head of the Board of Trustees. He is not as tolerant as Cuddy, and his presence spells big trouble for House during a story arc of several episodes.

Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), meanwhile, is House’s shoulder to cry on, in the rare event that he feels compelled to let down his defenses. The oncologist has known House for a long time, and he’s a good friend to the cranky doctor – most of the time, anyway. He’s my favorite of the supporting cast. Late in the season we also get to meet Stacy (Sela Ward), House’s old flame, but as she is now married, her presence dredges up more negative feelings than positive on House’s part.

Each episode is a mystery of sorts and a race against time as House and his team attempt to figure out by whatever means possible – however unconventional – what is wrong with this week’s patient and how to fix it. There’s some element of suspense to this, and usually an aha! moment in which we almost think, “Gee, I should have seen that coming” – before we remember that we don’t know anything about medical matters. Most episodes also have a secondary storyline that is mostly humorous. This usually involves one of the doctors – most often House – dealing with a patient whose condition is not all that unusual but whose personality poses some interesting problems.

The show is now in its second season, and I’m not sure how long it can carry on and remain interesting. But it’s really not a problem in the first season. The situations may be a tad unrealistic, and we may have a pretty good idea of how the story arc in a particular episode will progress, but we never know what House is going to say. The writers and Laurie, with his impeccable delivery, make this a show worth returning to again and again. He’s the most lovable curmudgeon since Simon Cowell.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD