In an article in today's NY Times, "'House,' Already Strong, Gets a Boost," we learn some interesting tidbits about the show. First, one of the producers, David Shore, admits that the parallels between the duos Holmes/Dr. Watson and House/Dr. Wilson were intended from the beginning:
“The Sherlock Holmes thing was part of it from the beginning,” Mr. Shore said. It is also the reason the character is called House. “That was our little joke,” Mr. Shore said. “Holmes, as in ‘home,’ becomes House.”
Ironically, the other revelation does much to explain why that initial similarity between House and Holmes -- very strong in the first 13 episodes of the series -- has been diluted, to the detriment of the show's quality, in my opinion, though the dilution has resulted in ratings increases.
Like the Holmes mysteries, in which the central pleasure was the delight in observing as Holmes employed his superhuman intellect to unravel a mystery, the core conflicts in the initial episodes of House didn't involve a struggle between House and a human antagonist. Rather, they involved House's struggles -- sometimes against the arguments of his colleagues -- to resolve the mysteries of seemingly intractable diagnoses. One can appreciate the dramaturgical challenge this must've posed for the writers of the series: how does one create and depict conflict, the key to any good dramatic situation, when one of the poles of that conflict is an unknown and ultimately invisible microbe?
It was precisely the way in which all involved in the show dealt with that challenge, though, that made the initial episodes of "House" so remarkable. The fact that the writers succeeded in meeting that challenge, and -- equally important -- that they trusted in the intelligence of their viewers to recognize and appreciate their success, made "House" a uniquely thoughtful and stimulating, indeed bravura, ensemble performance of producers, writers, directors, and actors.
After those first 13 episodes, however, the writers introduced human antagonists to personify -- and thus, to simplify -- the dramatic structure of the series, first in the character of Edward Vogler (Chi McBride) and then in the character of Detective Michael Tritter (David Morse). We now learn, from today's Times article, that this decision was the result of pressure on the producers by Fox executives:
Just before breaking for the Christmas holidays, Fox called the producers in for a meeting. “They were demanding changes,” Mr. Shore said. “They wanted a bad guy.” The character was meant to be in constant conflict with House.
I don't care about the rise in ratings; the result of that pressure has been two cringe-inducing multi-episode story arcs in a row. It's not that I think "House" is bad. Clearly, anyone who has read this blog will know that that is not the case. It's just that I can't help thinking how much better it would be if the producers had been able to just say no to the hackneyed and overused formulae Fox forced on them, and had instead been allowed to continue to explore the more innovative path on which they began.
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