House

Spoiler:

House at his conniving best as he outsmarts his staff (particularly Adams), his boss and the normal quirky case - this time a homeless girl with the usual escalating symptoms, with a problem solved with a House epiphany.

Lots of chuckles, interesting out-of-hospital locations, a funny clinic case, and a couple of interesting side stories, one with Foreman having an affair that House exposes, causing the girlfriend to admit her affair to her husband. Foreman loses interest - something House puts down to a similar love of adrenalin that he has. He describes Foreman as himself without the limp.

Meanwhile Taub is struggling to bond with his two little girls, until he gets some sage advice from Wilson.

The show is really struggling to keep up the quality of previous seasons, IMHO. Possibly on its last legs. Not sure what the ratings or the Fox execs say. Will be interested to see if the show gets a 9th season.

Spoiler:

Episode is shot in present time and flashback. Starts with a patient's room covered in blood. Then House is fronting a disciplinary hearing being lead by a Dr. Cofield, a former mentor of Foreman's.

Turns out Chase almost died after being stabbed in the heart by a psychotic patient. Chase and Adams, against House's orders, were following a theory of Adams' that differed from House's. Chase took a scalpel in to do a biopsy, but the patient spazzed out (an outcome predicted as a possibility by House) and turned the scalpel on Chase after hacking Adams' arm. Quick work by Adams, Taub and Park saved Chase's life but he ended up paralysed. In the post-Op room House overruled all theories and said Chase had a clot from his wound that was blocking a key artery, causing the paralysis, and ordered an immediate operation on Chase to remove the clot, which is found and removed. As the episode unfolds Chase remains paralysed.

In various flashbacks we see that the team had their usual disagreements, House was his usual obnoxious self, and pranks are played, the main one being House turning Chase's hair orange because he worked out that he was late a few times because he'd been out late, and was rocking next morning to shower at the hospital, using Adams' shampoo. House put orange dye in it.

Throughout the hearing, Dr. Cofield increasingly is drawing the conclusion that House is uncaring, arrogant and reckless, but that Chase's defiance of House's orders actually lead to his own stabbing. He tells Chase as much while holding a bedside interview, during which Chase's foot twitches. House was right, and Chase is regaining feeling in his legs.

During one of final sittings House takes a bottle of Vicodin out of his pocket and it explodes, a revenge prank by Chase. But this gives House his usual epiphany. He works out that the patient, a science teacher who'd been in a classroom explosion, had a tumour in his lymph nodes. The tumour burst when the teacher was thrown against the wall. He races out of the hearing just as the patient is being transferred via ambulance to another hospital on Foreman's orders, so begs his wife to ensure that a full body irradiation and plasmapheresis is carried out on her husband. She apparently ignores him and storms off in disgust.

Decision time arrives, and the team (less Chase) listen pensively as Cofield begins delivering his findings. Just as it all looks bad for House, the patient's wife bursts in and says that while she thought House was an arse, she followed his advice, they found the tumour and did the plasmapheresis, which will save her husband's life. Cofield is stunned and then says that his decision is that while unconventional, House's methods are effective, and that Chase's stabbing was nobody's fault. House calls bullsh!t, grabs the file and sees that the finding was adverse against him and Chase and that Cofield was going to send him back to jail. House storms out.

House visits Chase, who is in rehab. He says it wasn't "nobody's fault" and apologised to Chase. Chase looks bitter. Not sure whether Chase will regain full mobility.

Yorkie Jill wrote:Poor Chase! Taken House a while to do a 'member of staff gets stabbed' ep? Good for realism.

Spoiler:

Basically the aftermath of the stabbing incident, revolving entirely around Chase. He is back on his feet but still on crutches. He is off work but House is badgering him to get back to work as he needs him.

The ep revolves around a young soon-to-be Nun who Chase treats in the Clinic. He falls for her after admitting her with a lump in her breast. She goes through lots of weird symptoms before Chase, with House's help, solves the problem, as she hovered near death. She almost gave up on her vows after a fling with Chase but the near-death experience has renewed her faith.

The sideline stories are Park's remorse for what happened to Chase, and a came of ambush between House and Taub. Chase rejoins the team.

Zat wrote:

Yorkie Jill wrote:.

Stuff like that should be in spoiler tags...

Spoiler:

apologies, Zat!

skully wrote:Ratings have steadily declined from a peak of an average 20 million per episode in S3 (5th most popular show) to last season's average of 10.3 million (42nd most popular) in S7. This season the show has failed to crack 10 million for any episode, with the ratings hovering between a low of 6.6 mill to a high of 9.8 (Premier).

This, plus Laurie's rumoured position, does not augur well for an S9.