Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Why House sucks

I watched my first and last episode of House the other night. Forgive me if I don't link to the show.

I got suckered in by the tease of an "extra terrestrial" implant found in a child's neck. In the show, they played the sentence after that, where they rubbished the notion and revealed that it was a titanium bit from a previous operation.

I don't have a problem with that - pretty typical soundbite stuff.

What I do have a problem with is House himself. Okay, he's a brilliant yet unorthodox doctor. Check. He's bitter about his hurt leg and everything - got it. Does EVERY line he delivers have to be a cocky, sharp one-liner?

Puh-leeze!

I even like Hugh Laurie (okay, okay - he WAS in Spice World), and part of me wanted to like this show even though we don't watch TV. The dialog is just plain awful, but, really, what did I expect? Almost every show these days has to have impossibly snappy and witty David Mamet-inspired* conversations by people a la West Wing, as if to prove how smart they are. My eyes were rolling all over the place during that episode of House. I had to fast forward through some dialog just to muddle through the "extra terrestrial" parts. It's almost embarrassing to watch, and my wife and I exchanged many glances through the whole ridiculous thing.

I talk to a lot of really smart people every day, and nobody talks like this. If they did nobody would want to work with them.





*Full disclosure: I love some of Mamet's stuff (Spartan, Ronin), but not all.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

you watched Spice World?

Trey said...

I'll tell you what I want,
What I really, really want,
I wanna,
I wanna,
I wanna,
I wanna,
I really really really wanna zigga zig IMDb search on Hugh Laurie!

Anonymous said...

Were those lyrics on IMDB as well? ;)-

khickman said...

You not only picked a bad episode, but possibly a bad year to watch House. Since the show is based on his team's diagnosing "zebras" (watch Scrubs season one), the scripts get a little weird. Then, of course, you have Fox's ad department (We Rant, you decide!).

The fascination with House is that the writers dare you to like him. Drug addict, egotist, sexist, you name it, they give it to him.

I personally like the show, but this season is not House at its best.

Trey said...

Kelvin,

I hoped that was the case. Like I said, I like Hugh Laurie, and this was the only episode I've seen. When he was on the screen and not talking/responding...great. Once he starts on the dialogue...thumbs down.

.trey

Anonymous said...

I think House is much like annoying ads... You are SUPPOSED to hate him. :)

If you feel passionate, in either direction, I think the writers accomplish what they wanted.

Like khickman said. :)

Keith