Entry tags:

house, meta, rant

Perspective from the first five episodes
Okay, I admit, I was an idiot and got addicted to House for the non-House/Wilson characters. Yes, I know this was a bad plan. At least I had the intelligence to quit watching when he got rid of the ducklings. I just started watching again, though (S5--I watch on DVD), and I have been astounded and horrified.

I have a major problem with story-universe moralities that say that the main character's pain is more important than other people's lives. So, no, I don't find House talking about Wilson in the middle of differentials amusing; no, this does not endear me to him; yes, it is even more annoying than him being a jackass to other people during differentials; and no, I'm not sure why. Might be because that tends to be dragged out for less time.

I am sure, however, that the show taking its ethic from House is utterly infuriating. I can deal with House treating his personal crap like it's more important than patients' lives; I can't deal with the show telling me that his pain is more important than people's lives. And I don't think the first two seasons did; I think they established nicely and firmly that House wasn't always right about human interactions (though he was always right about the medicine), and that these were obnoxious (and possibly endearing) characteristics. That he was brilliant and flawed, but there were *other ways to look at the world*. That's gone away; they're blending human interaction and medicine so that to being right about the medicine becomes a symbol of being right about the interaction (S5E1 is a particularly egregious example), and they're also making House right about entirely non-medical things like Taub's marriage.

This, of course, merely adds to the fact that the first five episodes have been one bit of fail after another. Episode 1: Patient is Exhibit A for How a Career Fucks a Woman Up (with every bit of the situation combining to support House's mocking; when your main character is sexist, you damn well better be bending over backwards to make sure the show doesn't support him. This one does). Also, when Hadley thinks she's right, House gets to walk in the door, figure out she's wrong, and know the diagnosis in 5 seconds, which is this particular context (them building Hadley's successful diagnosis up as a symbol that a woman can do something) is really failboaty. And, I'm sorry, him saying at the very end, 'Well, at least you tried something [and that's worthy of my respect],' is not enough to fix it.

Episodes Everything With the PI: Stalking is not sexy or amusing, particularly when you first bring it up as the PI following an unknown woman down the street (House in tow) and then yelling that she's pretty after her when she gets pissed off. (E2) It is not pleasant being a woman getting catcalled or a woman getting followed, and it's even less pleasant when you combine those. So, no, I don't take that as funny. Then to make Cuddy find it flattering (E3) is basically saying, 'no, really, it's okay'. It's not.

Then in Episode 4 we're back once more to the world affirming that House's personal life is more important than others' continued breath. The cop doesn't give a damn that House's phone is ringing off the desk for a diagnosis, but when it's House's dad's funeral, suddenly, he's willing to listen. (There's also the fact that this episode was chock full of daddy issues, which tend to tick me off horribly in general, though they treated House's daddy issues pretty well. It's just the [Asian woman] patient's parent issues that were ridiculous, not grounded in reality, and due to a nail in the head from when they tried to kill her.)

Episode 5: The revelation that Hadley is bisexual comes as an indicator of her being screwed up. It's being used as a symbol of her loss of self-control, at the same time that she's futilely grabbing for it, and as a symbol of her lack of ability to make a human connection. Which will be cured by her human connection to (guess! guess!) Foreman. A man. This is exacerbated by the way that House/Wilson is becoming considerably less "sub" and more "text" but is also being billed as a completely unhealthy relationship. This episode makes a point out of saying that Wilson coming back is because hanging out with House when he's being a jackass is perversely amusing, not because returning to Princeton-Plainsboro is healthy in any way, shape or form.

Also? The very concept of Foreman/Hadley rather pisses me off, coming as it does at least in part out of House telling Foreman he's boring and Foreman telling Hadley she's an idiot. If I trusted them to fix that before pairing them up (seriously, I shipped Cameron/Foreman by the end of Season 2, because he had come to respect her), I'd be more okay with it, but at this point I don't. At this point, it's reading as House-orchestrated heteronormativity, with a House-characteristic lack of respect.

And it's all the more annoying, because House is still a very technically well-done, well-written show. So, yeah, S5 is ticking me off.