I have decided to do this 'by writer-by season'. Meaning -- I will go through the writers of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd seasons and the episodes they've written. Later, I will combine information and thoughts gathered throughout the whole 3 seasons. I might want to wait until season three ends for that, but who knows.
Reason for that structure, mainly, is that this is a team of writers. They work together to develop characters, to accept story lines, to think up new major sub-plots. They also meet before the beginning of a new season to discuss the major themes of the season, together. So really, they all discuss what they bring into their episodes - sometimes there are little details that reflect the person writing it, sometimes there aren't, or not really
This is the list of writers involved [so far] and which episodes were they credited for.
I might link to this list from time to time, if needed, and also to generally give you an idea of often some people write on House.
And also, which maybe should have been added in my previous post, while sometimes some specific writers are credited for one episode or another, they still 'all' work together, they do make outlines for characters in general, for main storylines for the whole season and such.
[If when looking through this list some similarities between episodes a certain writer has written jumped out at you, let me know, will be interesting to know what people tend to notice more.]
I had decided to re-watch all of House's episodes and only then start writing anything. Made a gazillion notes and continue on making them.
Still am not so sure how I will be doing this. But I suppose I will make just this one or maybe two, or three, general posts. And then will go into details I've noticed with specific writers. Who knows what will be better, I shall see.
As for those general things that are worth mentioning.
While looking through my notes I've realized that what I said in that introductory post, about these people being professional writers, blah, blah [scroll down a little, it's there], is true. Mostly there aren't any 'obvious' and major themes that are bright red among some writers' episodes. There are details, stylistic elements, character traits and subtle personality changes, the existence of which sometimes does depend on the writer - or writers, as it often is - involved.
There are exceptions when some writers do have something of their own that they add. Sometimes it is the 'type' of the main patient [Lawrence Kaplow - out of the 11 episodes he's worked on, 7 have a kid/teenager as the main patient], sometimes it is how House behaves, sometimes it is about the ducklings and who gets more spotlight [Sara B. Cooper - likes Chase, Sara Hess and Liz Friedman - have a womanly thing against Cameron], etc., etc.
Sometimes there really aren' that many 'similarities' that have a deeper meaning than 'when he writes the episode House touches the mug of love, and when that one writes the episode, he doesn't.' And sometimes it does become difficult to know when you're connecting one and one, or 3 and 25 because 2+5=7 and 7 is 3+4, which is 3 and 3 and 1, 1 – because that is the amount of 3s we initially needed to connect to 25. Did I get that right?
I suppose I should first thank the High Power That Be on the Other Side of Thy Emails for setting this up. It's nice.
And then I should express hope that people shall read this, enjoy this, be able to follow the many ways in which my mind can ramble, find this interesting, or just find some food for thoughts of their own—or your own, since you're reading this.
It's personally interesting for me to make connections and analyze, which is in part why I chose to try to dig into the heads of the people who create House on a daily basis. I'm not sure yet whether I will have some sort of structure to the things that I will write.
I've already started re-watching all of House's episodes and making notes, that's always interesting. And as far as I can see it might be relatively difficult to find huge common themes that particular writers choose to weave into their stories, I suspect mostly because they are professional writers, of a sort anyway, and it shouldn't be too hard to write a story that doesn't hold much meaning personally to them while still being a beautiful and touching story. Also could be that some, or all, of them are—omgz!!1!—well adjusted people without any bright red issues to latch onto. But I do hope I'll find a few cans of worms to open. The third thing that might control the 'similarities' is that House is a series and they shouldn't repeat themselves obviously that often, they should base what they write not only on realistic character development but also on cases. Yes, I wouldn't have believed it myself—some episodes really might be generally just about one case or another.
But I'll try my best, wouldn't expect anything else of myself anyway. And trying usually is enough.
My name is Rob. And that's about it, there shouldn't be that much of anything to know about me that might somehow affect how people read these thoughts. Though my mind is strange, so that's something to know. I adore House, as should everyone else, because it is what a medical drama in my fantasy world would be like and because it just kicks ass, among a lot of other reasons. And I also have no restrictions when it comes to listening to music, except for mindless crap, of course. Why write this? Because I like thinking and analyzing and because I can.
Quotations, etc. Copyright Heel & Toe Productions, Bad Hat Harry Productions, et al.
Pictures from the show copyright Fox Broadcasting Corporation Questions, Comments (remember we are not related to the show): bewarne@housemd-guide.com
