House, M.D.

I love Hugh Laurie. Seriously.

He was genius as Bertie Wooster (I adore P.G. Wodehouse, and never thought I would enjoy a television show based on his work, but Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves were shockingly wonderful). He was hilarious in his three-minute stint on "Friends," in that episode were Rachel made a fool of herself by flying to London for Ross and Emily's wedding (YES, I remember that, and YES, I recognized Hugh Laurie, so what??).

He found the role of a decade (I hesitate to say role of a lifetime, because I think he has bigger and better things coming his way) in "House," a.k.a. the only reason I believe Fox should exist. (Seriously, Fox, put some better shows on the air. Or at least market the existing shows better so I have some desire to watch something else you air. "Fringe"?? What is Pacey doing poking dead bodies??)

I loved Hugh Laurie on "Saturday Night Live" this past December, a show that I am struggling to remain a fan of (I miss Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell ... and I'm REALLY going to miss Amy Poehler). I wish he would be a guest on "The Graham Norton Show," because I think a gay Irishman and a rather dry-humored Englishman would have a hilarious conversation.

I say all this to preface the horrible thing I am about to say now:

What happened to "House"?!

The show used to be, hands down, my favorite show on T.V. And I love T.V. I watch a lot of shows! Still, "House" was special, it was wonderful, it was different. Notice the past tense.

"House" is about, oddly enough, a doctor named Gregory House. He is an ill-mannered, cantankerous man who uses his handicap (bum leg) to every advantage he can think of. He's foul-mouthed, irritable, and impatient with everyone around him, including his one friend (Dr. James Wilson, played admirably by Robert Sean Leonard). He's insufferably rude and self-centered, and also (of course) a genius.



















(The current cast of the show. Don't they look like a Benetton ad??)

In previous seasons, House had a team of three doctors:

1. Eric Foreman (played by Omar Epps), who is a good doctor terrified of becoming like House.
2. Robert Chase (played by Jesse Spencer, unconvincingly), a suck-up that worships House.
3. Allison Cameron (played by Jennifer Morrison, who played the character SO DULL that I wanted to throw things at her), who's in love with House for the first couple seasons and then starts sleeping with Chase (because that's the way a woman deals with her problems).

At the end of season three, in what was supposed to be the "oh-my-goodness-I-can't-wait-for-the-next-season" moment, all three of these doctors are fired/quit. House begins selecting candidates for the open positions by hiring 40 doctors and eliminating them as he feels like it (gimmicky, "Survivor"-ish, and ridiculous).

Three doctors stuck through it all:

1. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (played by Olivia Wilde), a private person with Huntington's, struggling with the disease and with House's nosiness.
2. Lawrence Kutner (played by Kal Penn), some sort of frat boy. All I think when I see him is "Harold and Kumar," and how funny Neil Patrick Harris was in that movie.
3. Chris Taub (played by Peter Jacobson), annoying little man, self-righteous and prissy.



















(The new trio, minus Kumar, plus Foreman.)

And somehow, Foreman comes back as sort of the head of House's team (Chase remained at the hospital in surgery and Cameron stayed in the ER). So the cast grew into what I think is an unmanageable size by the middle of season four.

The cast changes weren't that bad- I didn't care for Cameron at all, I liked Chase vaguely because, hello, he's pretty and has an Australian accent, and Foreman was too stick-in-the-mud-ish. I like Thirteen quite a lot, and Kumar's growing on me. Don't like Taub and don't expect to ever like him, but I think that's the point. I would have been totally fine with the changes if they hadn't kept ALL OF THE OLD CAST. What. the. frick.

I barely had it in me to care about Foreman, Chase, and Cameron. Now I need to care about Thirteen, Kutner, and Taub and STILL care about the old three?? Uh, no. I don't have that much caring in me.

Then there was the whole drama with Wilson ... oy, vey. It was so Korean melodrama-- evil girlfriend, horrible bus accident, blah, blah, blah. Even with death and destruction and blood, I didn't care. Yawn. Oh, Amber's gone? GOOD. One less person to keep track of.

The Wilson dilemma came to a conclusion (pretty much) when House's father died. I never got the whole thing with House and his dad, but it was ugly- House dearly loved his mother but absolutely hated his father. Even at the funeral, House can barely keep his eulogy civil (I expected nothing less, really). He steals a small piece of his father (literally. his ear. ewwwww) while leaning over the casket, intent on getting his DNA tested. He believed that his father was not really his biological father, and somehow I feel like that plot point's going to come up again...


















(Disrespecting his father til the very, very end.)

And now there's the whole Cuddy adopting a baby thing, which I can't bring myself to care about. It would only be interesting if somehow she adopted a child who ends up with some mysterious illness that only House can diagnose (which will probably happen). Either way, whatever. The woman in her thirties/forties with the ticking biological clock storyline is tired. Cuddy and House's flirtation is kind of getting exhausting to watch, too. Please, cut it out. House loves medicine more than he loves any woman.

Oddly enough, the person who most intrigued me in this past season (besides House, obviously) was a guest star that wasn't even a patient. He was a private detective named Lucas Douglas (played well by Michael Weston, with a quirkiness and a sass that I hadn't expected) who is hired by House to dig up dirt on his new hires and on Wilson, who has moved away and quit his job because of his whole dead girlfriend business.

Lucas was funny, he kept up with House, and he was really very good at surprising House, which is always great. There was a lovely little moment in Season 5 Episode 3 when Lucas plays the piano and House joins him on the guitar. Lucas had broken into House's home and was digging around for something embarrassing to show Cuddy (Lucas had a little crush on her).

I love those precious few seconds that some shows have where no words are needed. Both Michael Weston and Hugh Laurie are musical, and it was such a nice way to show that the two men were able to be comfortable together without having to talk. (Michael Weston, by the way, is the grandson of Arthur Rubinstein, a truly amazing pianist. My mom has some of his CD's and ... wow.) Hugh Laurie was always a hoot when he played and sang as Bertie Wooster. One more reason to love him.


















(Lucas and House. Don't they kind of even look alike?)

So why the random swooning over this show? Well ... I'm afraid I'll grow to dislike it soon, and I wanted to document my feelings before that happened. I'm already starting to feel my fervor cooling, which is a shame, and I keep re-watching old episodes (I guess in the hopes that I'll continue to enjoy the new episodes).



















"House," I've loved the first three seasons. I've liked seasons four and five.

Please, please, please let me continue to like the show...

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Unfunky Funk

I'm in a funk, but not an obvious funk. Not like a big, ugly rut. Just a kind of small, shallow funk ... shallow but wide.

What I mean to say is, I feel as though I'm both stuck and lost at the same time.

I wake up, I go to work, I do my work, I do everything I should do. Shouldn't that give me some satisfaction? Shouldn't I glean something from my life that is more than merely the ability to breathe?

I feel at times like I am suffocating, stifled by the responsibilities and the interminable duties I am smothered by- not only as an employee, but also as a woman, as a person in their 20's, as a daughter, as a Korean, as a sister, as a cousin, as a niece, as a friend, as a church-goer, as an American, as a neighbor, as someone alive.

I am told that this is something like depression. To me, it doesn't feel like depression. It feels like a state of mind that only I have the power to snap out of. It feels like the kind of haze that I felt the very first time I got drunk, when I was just crossing over from tipsy into smashed. Even then, I felt that the haze was something I could snap out of when it was the appropriate time and when I had the awareness to know that the time had come. I definitely feel that hazes should be wallowed in, because trying to rush out of a haze has never done me any good- they last as long as they're going to last, whether I like it or not, whether I fight it or not.

None of the emotions I have ever felt are regrettable (forgettable, perhaps, but I don't regret them). Having a broken heart, feeling like I would never be able to stop crying, or having a fit of giggles, laughing so hard I get the hiccups, plus everything in-between- all are valid, are all necessary to me.

My best friend and I have something we always say to each other: "Higher highs and lower lows."

Essentially, in order to get the most out of life (the highs), we must also experience correlating lows, those stagnant periods or those dreary moments in life when all one can do is sigh heavily. The higher the highs, the lower the lows. Conversely, though, the lower the low, the higher the upcoming high.

I believe this to be true. I'm in a low right now that makes me feel like a great high is coming, just beyond my view.

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Thank You (고맙습니다)

I think I watched this show almost all at once, sometime last year. (To the best of my recollection, between "The Golden Compass" and "The Mummy" ... I think ...) I mention this because although I don't remember when exactly I watched the show, I do remember that I was exhausted and melancholy, in a sort of funk (a few months of 6-day weeks and 12-hour days can do that to a girl).

When my mother rented all the videos for this show (16 episodes) and asked me to watch it with her since I was staying at her house to get away from L.A. for a while, I was reluctant. The way she explained the plot made it pretty unappetizing: "A little girl has AIDS. Her mom's trying to deal with it."

Seriously?

Not the way to market a show to a girl in her 20's.

Since I was staying at her house and not working, I couldn't really get away from the show when my mom was watching it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I started watching, without any investment at all and with quite negative preconceived notions.

Lo and behold, the show sparked around episode 7 or 8. The absolutely stifling melodrama of the first few episodes almost killed me.

The plot was deceptively simple- a single mom (very young) is raising her daughter while also caring for her grandfather, who seems to have Alzheimer's. I don't remember them ever saying flat-out that he has Alzheimer's, but his behavior is consistent with it, including a few heartbreaking incidents when he regains his memory and thoughts and tries to leave his family to make things easier for them. (Oh, the tears I shed ... this actor (신구) was simply amazing).














The twists to the simple plot came quickly, though. The little girl has AIDS (I called her Watermelon because her face, with the bangs she had, looked wider than it was tall, but her character's name is Spring, 봄). I have never seen an AIDS patient in a Korean drama before, because Koreans are (let's face it) prejudiced against weakness and disease, but particularly weakness and disease that is considered ... low. Since AIDS is associated with promiscuity and Koreans are wary to let anything promiscuous wander into their melodramatic televised world, it was a surprising story point.

Another twist (the irritating twist) was the fact that the mother never told anyone who the father of her daughter is. That's right, she's not a widow (acceptable for Korean TV) or a divorcee (acceptable for Korean TV if hubby was abusive), she was a single parent from the beginning. Brave, brave woman, especially in a small country town. The reason this twist irritated me was because the father of the little girl (everyone in town knew. Seriously.) and his whole family were obnoxious and priggish. YES. Priggish. His mother was not only priggish but also piggish:















I love the actress, she's terrific, but oh! this! character! The writers combined every shrew they'd ever met into one person. Must have been a fun part to play, but I didn't need the aggravation of watching her mince around in every episode.

Sorry, I'm done ranting.

The conflict in this show really came about because of the way that Spring contracted AIDS. She had gotten into an accident, and a doctor (intern? resident? someone in a lab coat) had given her a transfusion with tainted blood. Tragic, yes.

In the melodramatic spin that all things must take, the doctor that performed the transfusion is dying, and her last wish is to go see the little girl whose life she had ruined. So the doctor hobbles sadly onto a boat with a teddy bear, her present for the little girl (a teddy bear?? that's IT?!?), while her long-suffering boyfriend follows, protesting.

This long-suffering boyfriend is, of course, one of the main characters, scarred by the death of the only woman he'd ever loved. (That might not be true ... I might be embellishing for dramatic effect). He's a genius of a doctor, apparently, but brash and rather cruel (there is a pretty hilarious bit in the beginning of the series where he's outright mean to a couple little kids, which I found funny because I am a horrible person). As soon as I saw him, I knew he would somehow be affected by the little girl and his cold, cold heart would melt by the end of the show.

The sweet, caring mother (공효진 does a fantastic job, because she could have been really saccharine, tooth-decayingly sweet, but manages to portray real kindness with hints of human frustration) is obviously working her fingers to the bone, caring for a small child with special needs and a grandfather whose mental condition diminishes daily. She needs a break but can't have one and always works with cheer and determination, despite everything she's gone through.
















It should be pretty obvious from what I've written as to why I watched this show: the actors.

Everyone, from the little girl to the old grandfather (okay, okay, even the girl's father's shrill family) was cast superbly and really played their characters with commitment.

The story was a bit slow and focused greatly on the characters and their development (I appreciated that a lot). The way the mother and child lead the grandfather around and give him Chocopies (a kind of Korean moon pie), which he loves dearly. The way the mother boils ramyeon for the family dog, who's a picky eater. (She added eggs when the dog was being really picky, because the dog really liked eggs).

It's a very charming little show, set in a run-down little town.

The way the characters and their personalities (flaws as well as attributes) unfolded was well done, believable. I wanted to know these people and hold their hands and eat Chocopies with them. I wanted to be the mother's friend, to buy the little girl candy, to hug the grandfather and give him more Chocopies than he could ever eat.

It's rare that I'm still thinking about the small moments in a drama six months after I've watched it (probably closer to a year, really), but this drama stayed with me. I think about the way the mother talked to her daughter, like a person rather than a child. I think about the way that the little girl spoke to her great-grandfather, like an adult to a child. I think about the way that the doctor generally sat in silence, watching everything going on around him. I think about the teddy bear, the toy that stayed in the show from beginning to end.

Most dramas have some sort of strict storyline that they follow which is easily explained (1. girl meets boy. 2. boy and girl fight. 3. boy and girl make up. 4. another boy comes into the picture ... etc.), but this show is not at all like that. It's almost like the writers took a slice out of some people's lives and just aired it, with some dramatic flourishes here and there.

Such a poignant, sweet show. Not the easiest show to watch (explaining AIDS to a child? an elderly man with Alzheimer's?) but definitely worth the time.

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