The One Clue
As a big fan of mystery novels and short stories, I thought I would go to the library and check out one that I hadn't read. Mind you, this eliminates all of the Sherlock Holmes stories and some of Agatha Christie's works. Incidentally, I happened to discover that one of my favorite authors, Isaac Asimov, had written a series of mystery stories (which I never knew), and he had put together a series called The Black Widowers. I've slowly been reading the short stories and keeping up with House, when it suddenly hit me that there's something about the recent few episodes of House that just has struck me with annoyance. I couldn't initially put my finger on it, but reading The Black Widowers brought it from the tip of my tongue onto the keypad of my laptop. Knowing that most of you have never heard of The Black Widowers (as I hadn't), I'll give you a quick synopsis of a typical story. Bear with me. I'll get to the point soon enough.1. Five guys, a waiter, and a guest meet up once a week to have a discussion about some obscure topic (intricacies of Shakespeare, limericks based on the Iliad). At some point, the discussion becomes heated as the characters try to prove why they're right.
2. At the climax of the argument, the guest usually brings up a problem that he is having (generally a work-related mystery), and then this leads the gang to solve the case.
3. All of the five upper-class professional men grill the guest with questions, and don't come up with a solution.
4. The waiter offers the solution at the end, explaining how the solution ties back to the initial argument that they were having before the case was brought up. The solution is usually absurd.
This isn't all that different from a typical House episode in the 3rd season (with some notable exceptions such as "Airborne," which pleasantly broke this mold). Just replace the five upper-class professionals with Chase, Cameron, and Foreman. Make House the waiter. And instead of obscure topic, substitute strange plot theme (House doping Wilson up with amphetamines, Chase asking out Cameron). Instead of a guest, make it a patient. And instead of grilling with questions, make it medical tests. And for the sake of blandness, at the end of each episode, make the final diagnostic question "autoimmune vs. infection," and leave it to the waiter to figure out which it is.
A good mystery writer is able to present clues without cheating. For example, in the classic mystery story where someone is killed and only 4 people could have done it, a good writer telling the story plants one clue that if caught by the reader could present him or her with the solution to the mystery. This is what is what is engrossing about mystery-based fictional works of all mediums. You try to outsmart the detective, fall a step short, and admire the detective's ability to present a logical explanation for how he or she arrived at the correct conclusion when you failed, given the same data.During some episodes of House, the writers fire point blank and hit the mark. A patient has symptoms. I immediately begin thinking of some diseases that could explain the symptoms. All of these diseases are methodically ruled out. Just before the end of the episode, House comes up with an off-the-wall diagnosis, defends it with an explanation, and the patient is saved. These episodes, in my mind, are the absolute best. Some of the most memorable scenes of the show come from moments when House has his big epiphany and explains it to the patient. Remember the scene from "Mob Rules" where House calmly explains to a mobster that only one drug could raise a person's estrogen level... estrogen**! Remember the scene from "Fidelity" where a woman sleeps continuously for hours, prompting House to tell her husband that she must have African sleeping sickness, contracted from a sexual encounter with a man who recently visited Africa?! That was a moment of beauty.
Sherlock Holmes, trying to explain a seemingly impossible murder during The Sign of Four, says, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"Yet as the 3rd season progresses, House is breaking off from the Sherlock Holmes mold and entering a stage of poor mystery writing. The most recent episode titled "Resignation" is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to breaking the model of good mystery story-telling as I have presented it. Addie, a 19-year-old patient, coughs up blood. House says it's an infection. Chase says it's autoimmune. The tests can't locate an infection. The tests can't locate an autoimmune process. Chase puts the patient on steroids. Patient crashes. House has a moral victory. House is happy. House is too happy. House has an epiphany. He must be on antidepressents. Therefore (and I say "therefore" with some sarcasm given that the two events are not related), the patient must be depressed and poisoning herself. Roll credits.
Where is the one clue? There should be some event, however fleeting, in the episode that a careful viewer could pick out that would suggest that Addie is poisoning herself from depression. It's almost as if the writers are so insanely paranoid that the viewer might arrive at the correct diagnosis that they are intentionally leaving out any trace of a clue that could make an attentive medical student stumble upon the diagnosis. This is not a problem limited to this episode, but it is one that is more prevalent during season 3 than during earlier seasons. Even when the one clue is present during the 3rd season, it's presented after the fact. Think back to the episode "House Training," where Foreman treats a woman with radiation for the ever-ubiquitous "auto-immune" process, only to reveal during an autopsy in the last seconds of the show that her brastrap had torn her skin and opened the way for an infection.
Even though Asimov does a terrible job of actually constructing the mysteries involving The Black Widowers, he does an excellent job in the Introduction section of describing the components that make a good mystery story. I know Asimov is capable of good mystery writing because I've read his I, Robot series of short stories (of fame thanks to Will Smith), which do a great job incorporating the elements of good mystery storytelling in the setting of robotics. Likewise, I think that the writers of House can do better because they've demonstrated the ability to do so in previous seasons. Two more episodes left this season.
I'll be watching for the one clue. Maybe you'll spot it.
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** This is actually not true, as shown in the episode of House titled "Act Your Age," where a 6-year-old girl begins having periods as a result of converting testosterone received from her father's skin cream to estrogen, facilitated by the aromatase enzyme.
posted by k-deep at 11:40 PM
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