Fox’s “House” Starts Season With Whimper, Not Bang

By Heather Huntington on September 24th, 2009

The end of House last season was full of fun cliffhangers–Kal Penn’s character commits suicide, House develops hallucinations and winds up checking himself into the mental hospital, you know, not bad stuff. And as a fairly avid House watcher I was pretty excited to see the new episodes were back.

Until I saw the first new episode, that is. In the two-hour special season premiere, our dear Dr. House spends time in the loony bin trying to kick the drugs, get to the bottom of his problems, and you know, generally be House-ish and get out without having to do either of the aforementioned things.

In theory, this is a perfectly lovely way to kick off season 6. In practice, however, it was rife with problems. For starters, they opened with a montage of House kicking Vicodin. Sure, a montage is a nice, efficient way of getting through the withdrawal section, but really as an opener? Not even a hot open where you can splash the opening credits up after it, mind you, but just the regular beginning where it just stops and then segues into normal scenes. And then they set it against Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” a wonderful, but distinctly non-opening type of song. Oy.

Much worse, though, were the factual inaccuracies in the show. Having worked–even for a short period of time–at a psychiatric hospital, I wasn’t even through said problematic opening montage before I turned into that annoying person who points out how things you’re watching aren’t consistent with reality. You know, like the guitarist who goes, ‘He’s not really playing’ and then sniggers haughtily when you’re watching Brat Pitt pretend to be Yngwie Malmsteen in a biopic? Yeah, that was me watching the House season premiere.

They wouldn’t let him detox cold turkey without any meds to make him less uncomfortable/not die from detoxing! No health insurance would pay for that person to be on a locked, in-patient ward! They do not put you in “solitary” as punishment! They only put you there if you’re not safe so they can keep you on 1:1 observation! No woman staff member not completely insane herself would dress like that (Earrings? Patients rip them out if they attack you/need to be restrained. Leotard? Other crazy patients get too riled up by them, even if it IS a talent show.). My husband was not amused.

Sure, things are different at different hospitals, the one I worked at doesn’t set the rules for the universe, but it’s not like House would be at some ghetto asylum. And even so, that doesn’t explain away the saccharine platitudes and morals we were supposed to learn (Yes, that music box DIG make her better. Absolutely).

The whole experience has left me wondering: Is this what it’s like for doctors when they watch House? As a non-medical professional, I usually get to enjoy the show in pleasantly ignorant bliss. But I think my bubble may have just been burst.