Season 3, Episode 4: "Lines In The Sand"

Nothing much to say about this one, guys. In all honestly, I didn't care for it. Although, again, you can see the set design department got a whole lot more money (you'd think they'd give Wilson an office that looks bigger than a broom closet, though.)

Maybe next week.

Season 3, Episode 3: "Informed Consent"

One of the things that most struck me about this episode was its ending. I'm not going to go into what, for those who might not have seen it yet, but there are two things that grabbed me:

1) ANOTHER musical montage. I'm normally a big fan of these things -- when I'm working on a screenplay, I have playlists, sometimes for each individual character or relationship -- but there is such a thing as overkill. I'm pretty sure House has hit that point. We've had musical pieces in at least two of this season's three episodes (I can't remember if there was one in "Cane and Able" or not).

2) The ambiguity. You can infer what happens, but for me at least, it took me two viewings to see it. It's never quite explicitly stated what happened and on the first try I was completely confused. But this kind of "make or infer your own ending" is not a new practice. There's a Without A Trace episode that deals with a man on death row, and the episode ends as the Missing Persons team is waiting for the phone to ring to see what happens to him. Fade to black. You never know if the man lives or dies. Most of the time, in my humble opinion, these kinds of endings are a letdown...we want to know what happens to a character or plot we become invested in, not just sort of guess. We want to know for sure that little Timmy lives or somebody gets the girl.

Also, am I the only person who found the whole subplot with the seventeen-year-old hitting on House quite disturbing and gross? Granted, Hugh Laurie is an attractive man, but this girl doesn't even know him. She sees him once (it could be twice, I'm not sure if this is the same blonde who was ogling him in "Meaning") and she's all over him. Even if she were legal it just seems creepy. And they have the sort of implication at the end that he may be amused (if not interested, despite his remarks to her). I so hope they drop this and we never hear about it again. I have enough problems with having both major female leads on the show having (or once having had) things for House, I don't need some teenage attention whore in his life, either. But that's just me saying. David Shore's the man in charge, and we've already gone through three potential love interests -- Cameron, Cuddy, Stacy -- and a hooker, so...who knows.

All in all, I wasn't impressed.

Season 3, Episode 2: "Cane and Able"

A little later than usual, since I didn't get to see this episode until Wednesday night. And frankly, I'm kinda wondering what all the fuss was about.

I got somewhat of a kick out of the X-Files quips and references, being a longtime fan of that show myself. I'm sure that other fans were also thinking of the implants used by aliens for awhile on that series; also, Steven Spielberg's epic miniseries Taken also did a (visually) similar take on implants, where abductees had these little slivers of metal in their heads -- that when they were sucked out, actually came to life as little alien parasites. Creepy.

We continue this week with taking new looks at places in PPTH we haven't seen before. There's another shot of that new foyer second level, and then House takes the team through various rooms in the hospital in an attempt to find a big enough TV. Anyone who knows about television production knows this is one of the perks -- and developments -- of an emerging TV series. As you succeed, you get more money for production, which means that you can build more sets, which means, "Hey, let's go actually use that giant thing we just built." Exec producer Bryan Singer discussed at a panel earlier this year how one of the signs of success was the fact that they could now show ceilings in shots in Season 2 because they had ceilings to show.

Bryan also said one of his directorial influences was Tommy Schlamme (The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), and although he didn't direct this episode, I did see a shot or two sort of like Schlamme's sweeping camerawork, a style that's somewhat become more popular since the success of that political drama. Which is one of the only shows to have an entire giant set built merely for its pilot -- then again, it had TV production heavyweight John Wells behind it.

Random trivia fact: Sheryl Lee, who plays Clancy's mother, played Mary Alice Young in the pilot of Desperate Housewives, but was subsequently replaced with Brenda Strong. Who was on Sports Night, which was done by the people who did The West Wing. It's a small world, isn't it?

Season 3, Episode 1: "Meaning"

New season, new blog. I've decided to start from scratch and every Wednesday, bring you my random thoughts on each episode.

I finally got to see the season premiere this afternoon and the jury's still out on it. Part of me liked it, the other part of me was pretty apathetic about it. It didn't really move me one way or the other till the end. But, it did bring to mind some other TV shows that have gone down this road before.

House is running. At least for the time being. House is supposedly crippled for life and yet he's running.

Did anyone else think of Dark Angel?

That being the sci-fi show FOX had a few years ago with Jessica Alba. Her main cohort slash love interest was Logan Cale (played by Alba's then real-life fiancee Michael Weatherly), a guy who was in a wheelchair. Then, for whatever reason -- I stopped watching the show at that point -- after however long of being in said wheelchair, he miraculously stood up and walked and was healed. Not too long after that, the show got cancelled.

I spent most of my night hoping House didn't go that route. But judging from whispers I've heard about the next few episodes, and some subtle cues toward the end, I'm thinking it won't.

On one hand, as a person, you feel remarkably bad for House. You want him to live a normal, pain-free, drug-free existence and be happy. As a viewer, we all know that we like our House cranky and that for him to be all Mr. Sunshine would scare us all and take out what makes the show unique on some level. It's somewhat of a conflicting time to be a fan, in that sense, when the best interests of a character you've come to know and love aren't in the best interests of the show.

Still, I think it's going to be a good season, because let's face it, Hugh Laurie would be good if he read the phone book.

Until next week.