House, M.D. Season 3 Ongoing Thread (1 Viewer)

[Ken_McAlinden]

Along these lines, Wilson's expressed concern would be the logical extension of this approach where House would keep guessing and testing until he is doing the coroner's job.

Regards,

 

[Patrick Sun]

Enjoyed the aliens at the end (never thought I'd see that in show grounded in reality as House is). I also remembered the chimera angle from the CSI episode (and Mission Impossible 2).

It's a dangerous game to undermine people's mojo, but House went right back on the offensive once Cuddy gave it up. Loved House needling Cuddy about the pregnancy, and confronting Wilson about his part in it.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

But House doesn't usually guess. (Remember the Sherlock Holmes angle? "I never guess; it is a shocking habit, destructive of the logical facutlies." - Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlett")

House analyzes the evidence - medical, behavioral, environmental, etc., decides what the most likely cause is and treats that. 99% of the time that approach works on the first or second try, because 99% of the time patients present with fairly normal illnesses. House and his team, by definition, get the other 1%. That's why the first thing House does whenever anyone tries to hand him a new case is run through the five or six things that it probably is, to make sure that they've done all the routine tests to eliminate them so that he doesn't waste his time on a case that anyone could handle.

When the treatment doesn't work House learns that the mostly likely condition isn't what his patient has, which means it is time to move on to the next most likely. If he's lucky the patient also has some unexpected reaction to the first treatment that allows House to further refine his diagnosis. (Sometimes the new clue sends House down a new path that he hadn't considered that also turns out to be wrong, but that in itself provides further clues about the problem.)

House gets the cases where 4 out of the patient's 5 symptoms do suggest an obvious condition and course of treatment. But there is always that 5th symptom that Chase, Cameron, et. al. are prepared to ignore, but which House insists on because it means they're on the wrong track. And he'd always have a firm basis in medical fact when he dissented.

None of this is guesswork. This is just the process of diagnosing a disease. Or a computer problem, for that matter. When you call me and tell me that your computer has no power at all, no lights, no fan noise, no nothing, I'm not guessing when I have you check the modular power cord first and make sure the surge protector is plugged in/turned on second. I'm using nearly 30 years of experience to run through the most likely and simplest explanations first. I don't immediately suggest that the power supply is blown, or that motherboard might be touching the inside of the case and grounding out, or that an internal power connector may have come loose, even though all of these would produce the same symptoms. (The way this is explained in both medical and computer school is with the phrase, "If you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." In short, bet on the normal before you go looking for the exotic. Interns are always looking for oddball diseases; experienced docs play the percentages.)

In addition, House generally has patients who are lying to him or at least withholding information. I know how he feels. If 5 minutes into our call, after I've asked you if you added or removed any hardware from your system or made any other changes, you suddenly announce that you replaced your video card or upgraded all your RAM DIMMS, my troubleshooting steps are going to alter sharply. Before, based on what you told me, I was ignoring internal components, because there was no reason to think you might have screwed them up. Now I have to look there because you've had your fat little fingers inside the case. House does the same. Again, it isn't a matter of his making a bad guess early and continuing with more bad guesses until he get lucky at the end, but of him arriving at the most logical and likely conclusion based on the evidence at hand at each stage of the investigation. If you spend two days telling him you have a pain in your left arm it is hardly his fault if he doesn't find the tumor in your right leg until the third day when you finally tell him the leg hurts.

The difference with last week's case is that he didn't follow his usual procedure. He was guessing. There was no medical basis for his continued efforts to treat the man, the evidence all suggested the obvious conclusion - and the "speaking" thing was a stretch. Now, the fact is House's last suggested treatment probably wasn't going to make the guy worse (as the wife said, he was already dead) and offered the only slight chance he had. But it really was a wild-assed guess - House, in effect, worked backwards from the cure to the disease.

But that still doesn't (in my mind) clear up the ethical issue of Cuddy and Wilson, in effect withholding treatment from a patient because they had issues with the doctor who suggested it. Given the state the man was in and his wife's statements a "Hail Mary" was hardly an inappropriate suggestion - as Cuddy obviously saw, since she did try it.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Confronting Wilson with his part in deceiving House, or his part in Cuddy's pregnancy?

Regards,

Joe

 

[Patrick Sun]

I was vague for a reason...

 

[Raasean Asaad]

Joespeh,

I know exactly what you mean.


Ask any one of my technicians what rule #1 is and they'll tell you "customers always lie whether intentional or not". Most people don't realize that its not up to them to decide whats relevant and whats not when there is a problem to be solved.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I think more than anything, this storyline was about revealing Wilson's faults. Wilson kept claiming that it was in order to get House off a God complex, but I think it's really Wilson indulging in his own God complex. Part of his friendship with House was that House's fucked up life and behavior and addictions helped keep Wilson on a level footing. Once those are gone, he's got to compare directly with House the genius. As much as anything else, it was about bring House back down to his level.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Now that is a very interesting insight. Thinking about what Adam wrote, I also suspect that even putting their professional competition aside, Wilson could always look at House and think, "Well, I may be an emotionally sketchy guy who sleeps with his patients and constantly puts his marriage at risk, but at least I'm not a pill-popping misanthrope who is incapable of sustaining any kind of loving relationship." Lose that worse example to point to and you end up having to examine your own life and faults, and who the heck wants to do that?

Regards,

Joe

 

[NickSo]

Wow, I really enjoyed today's episode. And oh my, that patient's daughter, YOWZA! I found the actress's name: Leighton Meester.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I thought it was a pretty strong episode. I was LOL at many of the bits of sniping dialogue. I thought it was interesting to have Cameron learn the hard lessons of compassionate care, even if it went against her principles from the onset. Laura Innes (Carrie Weaver on "ER") directed it. All hail the red thong.

 

[Sean*O]

Yes, this thread needs a screen cap of the red thong.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

"Admiral! There be whales here!"



Joe

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

That blonde was hotter than hell!

Oh, the episode was good too.



EDIT: Okay, that was too brief lol. I enjoyed this episode, it's nice to see one once in a while where the patient doesn't pull through. Some of the dialogue in this ep had me in stitches as well and it's very cool to see that some things can still bring a smile to House' grizzled face.

And next week, it seems that House will have to deal with a mini Fatal Attraction, that should prove to be a lot of fun lol.

 

[Patrick Sun]

It's more like a Poison Ivy vibe.

For fans of the red thong brigade.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

That's the one! I had a slight breakdown in my pop-culture recalling skills and forgot about that one.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I loved this episode. Proof positive that House cares about Cameron, demonstrated as much with his anger at her failure to act as his warm hand on her shoulder when she took the ultimate responsibility.
House is still different than he was pre-shooting, regardless of whether the cane is back. One of the more emotional episodes, almost up there with Cancer Girl.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Yes, and this episode proved what i've been telling a friend of mine all along...House cares.

On the surface, he's all about the mystery of the cases that he and his team encounter, however it's in little gestures, like when something goes wrong with a patient and he springs (well, as much as House is able to spring anyway) into action to save him/her that provide clues that this man has more going on upstairs than meets the eye.

House will go to the mat for a patient if he believes them to be treatable and that, more than anything, tells me that despite himself, despite his hard-assed, smarmy and cynical exterior, he cares about his patients. He may be socially stunted and completely lost as to what to say when someone pays him any form of compliment but he's great at his job. So he doesn't have the greatest bed-side manner, so what, he isn't there to chit chat with patients and make friends, he's there to save their life.

Dr. Gregory House is, IMO, one of tv's most intriguing characters right now.

 

[Sean*O]

Nice link Patrick

 

[Joe_H]

I wish the quote about next week's episode had been in spoilers. I realize its relatively minor, but its something I would have liked to be surprised by.

Also, as for the girl herself, what's she, the fourth, maybe fifth actress who was on 24 to appear on House?

And with the screencap request, I just tried from my HD capture, but it won't let me take an image of any of those frames, I'd guess that none of them are keyframes.

 

[Rommel_L]

...And I still don't understand why Surface was cancelled...