My new favorite show - I aspire to be bulletproof enough that I can be that openly assholish.

A great quip from the show:
"I have the results from your dumb patient"
"They're all... oh, the one that can't talk"

Philo

Yes, House is brilliant!

"You're reading a comic"
"And you're drawing attention to your bosom by wearing that dress"
...
"Sorry, thought we were playing 'state the obvious' and I'm very competitive"

Hugh Laurie absolutely nails that part.

It's amazing to see "Stewart Little", where Hugh Laurie plays the Dad, a kindly figure; and then see House, where he plays a curmudgeon.

Quite a contrast.

I can't get over the fact that House looks so much like Michale McDonald of MadTV. I keep thinking House MD is a skit from MadTV.

http://www.madtv.com/html/characters/characters_main.html#

Except Hugh Laurie is intriguing and engaging, while I usually find Michael MacDonald to be annoying. :)

I wish MadTV had talent like Laurie's.

Philo

I have trouble taking him seriously -- he's much better known over here for his work with Stephen Fry, and I can't help waiting for him to pull some kind of slack-jawed gibbering fool kind of expression.

Soupy twist!

BTW, anyone catch Boston Legal last week? William Shatner's character was fiddling with his cellphone, which was a flip phone and making suspiciously Star Trek-like noises...

Philo

I don't watch House, but I enjoy "My Name is Earl". Go figure. I thought I would hate it.

I hate doctor shows. I have never seen a full episode of ER, etc., because they are so unrealistic. Hospitals are downers, anyway. And every hospital has their on-going ridiculous love stories which annoy the shit out of me.

"Boston Legal"

Will have Michael J Fox on. I'll never watch the show ever again until that preview gets washed out of my head.

"I have never seen a full episode of ER, etc., because they are so unrealistic."

Because of the unrealistic doctor/patient ratio? The whole "spends four hours working with each and every patient" thing? (House's department actually got called on that - the argument seems to be that his reputation buoys the hospital, which is believable - much like universities that have famous researchers on staff that never actually teach.)

BTW, Hugh Laurie is interviewed in the February Playboy - he commented that "House" would never work in the UK because the mystery each week would be about finding a bed in a hospital before the patient died.

Philo

Haven't seen House yet either although it has been recommended to me - my wife knows the types of shows I like. My current favs are:
Becker (which is supposed to be in a similar vein) and
2 1/2 Men (which is totally dif but hilarious any way).
Other than that the TV doesn't get turned on much.

I watched an episode of House for the first time, and I didn't recognise it was Hugh Laurie. He's a damned good actor.

True, his work in Blackadder was brilliant (amongst others).

If the writers of House really have a sense of humor, at some point House will rant about not having any socks...

Philo

>> which was a flip phone and making suspiciously Star Trek-like noises... <<

I've wondered why flip phones don't. Especially something like the Razr.

Someone ought to license the design from Paramount and produce a 1960's Trek phone.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27659

Was that prophecy or memory...

"I hate doctor shows. I have never seen a full episode of ER, etc., because they are so unrealistic. Hospitals are downers, anyway. And every hospital has their on-going ridiculous love stories which annoy the shit out of me."

Have you tried Scrubs? Half-length, plays on its own unrealism, though the love stories might bug you just as much.

Rather try Bodies, if you can find it. Graphic depictions of failures in obstetrics, political shenanigans of consultants and sweaty rutting of doctors and nurses.

"Let the Blood Run Free" approzimated Ground Zero:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/mediaarts/ltbrf.htm

IIRC "St Elsewhere" had some good moments.

I work in a hospital, and I've been a patient in quite a few quite often, and I don't find ER all that unrealistic.

Maybe the docs spend 10 minutes with a patient they'd have spent 3 minutes with in real life, but there's a lot that goes on in that 3 minutes in reality that you couldn't cover in 3 minutes on screen. The camera is a limitting thing, I can't explain it much better than that. :)