OurStory

Posted here.. please find tvguide.com's watercooler reviews of "House" since february written by Rhoda Charles. I personally do not like her analysis, her writing style or her outlook on the show. I just think she doesn't get it - at least half the time if not more. I keep these here as a reminder to myself sometimes of all the fine qualities the show does have that other idiots often don't see. I've often expressed by disgust and frustration with her commentary and actually (can't believe I did) but did write a letter of complaint to tvguide.com regarding her - because I believe 90% of the time she just doesn't get the show... but here I am posting her reviews.. just as that fine reminder that there is so much more to it all! And for a review that is five times better... I highly recommend the reviews written by Diane Kristine on www.blogcritics.org... they are almost always thoughtful, thorough and insightful without ripping apart the show or the characters... Okay, I've said my peace... (and yes, a small part of me thinks I'm a total idiot of posting this...)House by Rhoda Charles May 9, 2006: ForeverIt's funny how this show, which touched on postpartum psychosis, reminded me of Tom Cruise, albeit for an entirely different reason than his public battle with Brooke Shields. In my humble estimation, most of Mr. Cruise's flicks contain a trio of elements that I've come to find tiresome, but that I mentally tick off as I watch. There's the all-out Tom Cruise run, the over-the-top emotional flip-out scene, and the intense close-up of a deep-thinking Cruise where he has his a-ha! moment. We get a weekly rendition of that moment from House when something inconsequential lights the imaginary bulb over his head and he solves the case. Let me just say, it's getting a little hackneyed. I mean, if you're so brilliant, Dr. House, then why can't you figure things out without some random diagnostic segue from an offhand pop-culture reference? Nevertheless, it was pretty cool how House figured out that Cuddy was shopping for a man to aid in her baby-making. Wait... where did that come from? Why, I'd say left field. Now I realize the finale is around the corner and all, but you just can't cram a million stories into one episode and expect any of them to get the attention they deserve. It's too much, especially after last week's fantastic two-parter. But I suppose with every peak there is a valley. Let me list this week's numerous plot points. Back from the brink of death, Foreman's new outlook the one where every day is a blessing makes him less of an asset to the team. House attempts to resurrect Foreman's much-needed pre-brain-biopsied argumentative attitude. Cameron struggles with her feelings of guilt and worry over Foreman's recovery as well she should. A disinherited and financially strapped Chase takes an ethically debatable break from House and in so doing reconnects with his faith. A lonely Wilson wants to date Cuddy. All that and I haven't even touched on the codependent alcoholic parents and their doomed baby. Like I said, it's too much for one show. Any second now and I'm going to start demanding my own intense close-up. Posted by Rhoda Charles 05/10/2006 12:26 AM | Permlink | 11 Comments | Report May 3, 2006: Euphoria, Part 2It's clear Foreman's having a bad day. The question is, how much of his bad behavior (and by that I'm referring to his stabbing Cameron) can be blamed on his infection? Foreman was clear-minded enough to contribute meaningfully to his own diagnosis as well as identify pills and make phone calls by touch. Was his apology to Cameron an expression of sincere remorse or was it the disease talking? Im torn on that because Foreman certainly tore into Cuddy with a recognizable vengeance. Cuddy's presence was all over Part 2, but I must say I found her to be somewhat harsh in her tte--tte with Foreman's father. By the way, excellent casting of Charles S. Dutton as Foreman's dad, though to me he will always be Roc. Tonight's conclusion was the stronger half of this two-night event. We were treated to a stellar Omar Epps performance, privy to some Foreman backstory and to top it off we got a wonderful insight into House. Rather than sidestep his patient, he shared of himself in order to care for Foreman. "Pain makes us make bad decisions," he counseled. "Fear of pain is almost as bad a motivator." For a man who is constantly in pain yet buries his true emotions, that is akin to baring his soul. Talk about tugging at my heartstrings.While House and Wilson's buddyship is entertaining and at times heartwarming, Cameron and Foreman are fast becoming the most interesting twosome in the hospital. The emerging layers in their relationship coupled with the medical proxy/brain biopsy situation is glaringly reminiscent of House's history with Stacy. (We know how that ended.) Cameron showed true fortitude in standing up to both Cuddy and House. I wonder if that will continue as the team deals with the residual effects of Foreman's grueling day. But let's get real: I want to know how things will play out with Alison and Eric. Posted by Rhoda Charles 05/4/2006 7:56 AM | Permlink | 25 Comments | Report May 2, 2006: Euphoria, Part 1You know what I liked best about the show tonight? It's something we have sort of known but hasn't been articulated. House truly cares for his staff. He even said as much, in his own way, while taking a jab at Wilson. I didn't like that so much, but House jabs out of love. You know what else I didn't like? Watching Joe, the pot-farming cop, slowly die. I wanted a happy ending for Joe, whose life was pretty pathetic. He didn't even get to go quickly. He took the express train from euphoria to abject pain and it wasn't pretty. That train will be making a return trip for Foreman, whose symptoms might have been recognized sooner had he not been acting like such a jerk lately. Despite his recent bad behavior, I feel for the guy.So does Cameron. What does a guy have to do to make Cameron hate him? A lot. He could steal your article. He could disavow your friendship. He could stab you with a diseased needle. Cameron would still enter a hot zone to save him. That, my friends, is the mark of a special person. Whether it be short-bus special or uniquely gifted special, the jury's still out. Speaking of the short bus House broke the MRI machine. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't broken on its own given the workout it gets from House's team. It's fitting that it was the man himself who overloaded it with a corpse's bullet-filled head. Is shooting a corpse in the name of a differential diagnosis too much? You tell me. All I know is that it was creepy watching John Doe go all "night of the living dead" in the chamber. I look forward to Cuddy's reprimand for this stunt. And where is she by the way? She's certainly not in this half of the sweeps opener. Tune in tomorrow night when we find out if Foreman lives or dies, if Cameron is infected and if House can forgive Wilson his transgressions. Posted by Rhoda Charles 05/2/2006 10:08 PM | Permlink | 7 Comments | Report April 25, 2006: You Gotta Have FaithI can't decide if this episode was a horrific mess or a carefully constructed amalgam of profundities draped in a seemingly thought-provoking discussion of faith. My beef is that there was too much happening in this show for any one plot point to make an impact. Clearly, we are being set up for the end of the season. The hook was the teenage faith healer. Boyd of Arcadia serves more as a plot device to expose the main character's issues than as a compelling medical case. His first move after falling ill was to turn to earthbound doctors for his own healing. Long story short, he has herpes. Yet through his divine insights, Boyd reminds us where the players are on the chessboard. Chase cannot make decisions. Cameron and Foreman have trust issues. House views faith as a four-letter word (yet he tickles the ivories with the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"). Most importantly, Boyd's presence sets events in motion that reveal Wilson to be a "functional vampire" a man feeding off of others' neediness to gain fulfillment. It's been established that Wilson is a philanderer whose ethics have not kept him faithful to his wife. I'm not quite sure why Wilson's affair with Grace, his terminal cancer patient, is so shocking. It just is. Wilson is the voice of reason on the show, and though flawed, he is held up as a foil to everyone else's inadequacies. Now we see that he's a master manipulator. Wilson's "silver tongue" can convince a recalcitrant child of faith to put his trust in science and can tell a control freak of a doctor that he is as God made him. I have faith that we'll see the repercussions of tonight's revelations down the road, and if tonight's show served only to set up a story arc with a much bigger payoff, then I'm satisfied. If not, then I'm leaning toward "horrific mess." Posted by Rhoda Charles 04/26/2006 7:59 AM | Permlink | 15 Comments | Report April 18, 2006: Would You Like Some Cheese with That?Cameron needs to get a backbone. In between her whining about the ethical dilemmas of allowing a patient, Hannah, to receive a liver transplant from Max, the girlfriend who's about to be dumped, and whining about how Foreman "stole" and published "her" medical article, I've about had it with Cameron. Even Cuddy told her to get over it. Yet my favorite advice of the night, "I need you to relax your anus," came from Chase. Sure he was speaking to Hannah while performing a colonoscopy, but it's advice our dear Cameron should take to heart as well. However, after Foreman's verbal smackdown, I suspect Cameron will be even more tightly clenched. I'm not saying Foreman wasn't a jackhole when Cameron, hat supposedly in hand, suggested mutual apologies, but her starry-eyed world view can be tiresome and at times disingenuous. When you juxtapose Foreman's coldhearted "we're not friends, we're colleagues" response against Cameron's magnanimous forgiveness, it's easy to overlook the fact that Cameron had not so innocently spent the day maligning Foreman. That's reason enough for his surly 'tude. Cameron admitted that Foreman had as much claim to the case as she did, so her tirades stink of sour grapes. It would have been nice if Foreman have given her a heads-up, but Cameron could also have been more aggressive in getting House to sign off on her article. Like Max, whose liver donation was not entirely selfless, Cameron chose instead to use guilt to aid her cause. The thing is, Max, Foreman, Chase, Cuddy and House are all much better game-players, and Cameron again finds herself the odd woman out. Posted by Rhoda Charles 04/19/2006 12:45 AM | Permlink | 17 Comments | Report April 11, 2006: "All In"House took quite a gamble with tonight's patient, who was technically Cuddy's patient. Six-year-old Ian (Carter Page) exhibits symptoms strikingly similar to a patient who had died 12 years before. Obsessed, House is out to solve his old case and this new one. In the process Ian undergoes a colonoscopy, tissue biopsy, MRI and a separate biopsy on the heart. He also suffers kidney failure, respiratory distress and cardiac arrest that leads to his brain's eight-minute oxygen depravation. Tuxedos, party dresses and oncology benefits aside, my question is: Did Ian suffer brain damage? The writers certainly made this issue disappear as easily as House's magic poker chip. I'll let it go because it was nice to see everyone out of the standard lab coat. Cameron's red dress took House's breath away. It's a good thing he has a new cane for support the thing can even break through metal locks should one's after-hours access to the cafeteria be impeded. As always, Wilson is best when interacting with House, even over the phone using cloak-and-dagger references to poker partner Cuddy. "The chicken is still in Picadilly Square," he says. I'll never think of Cuddy the same way again. When not spouting inanities to House, Wilson makes an astute point about the element of luck in House's diagnoses, and though House denies it, we know the secret is out of the bag. Now when are his protgs going to call his bluff? Posted by Rhoda Charles 04/12/2006 12:55 AM | Permlink | 10 Comments | Report April 4, 2006: Oh, Snap!It pains me to say this because I just love Sela Ward, but the show is better without the Stacy drama. She's gone, and House, though masking a broken heart, is pretty much over it. And if these last two episodes are any evidence, he's back to his old self. Dirty dishes and stethoscopes on the doorknob aside, Wilson and House have a better shot at a long-term relationship than House and Stacy ever did. And if Stacy had sabotaged the cane, there'd be hell to pay rather than the grudging respect Wilson's prank earned. House earned some respect from me, too, with his touching comment about apartments and divorce. Can you tell I'm loving their living together? Another fantastic effect of a Stacy-less House is that the core cast is back in sync in a way that I didn't know was missing. I admit I only started watching the show this season after many rave reviews from my sister, and at times I felt that at least one doctor, Chase, was getting shortchanged story-line-wise. That still may be the case but I don't mind because I, along with millions of viewers, witnessed a momentous realignment in the show tonight. Did you catch it? Foreman took the "black" marker and gained control of the "white" board and Im not talking race relations. House actually took a seat and let Foreman take the lead. Pretty significant, I'd say. It seems that Foreman's recent argumentative, and now cane-grabbing, ways have proven to his mentor that he's got the right stuff. And here Cameron thought she had to sleep with House to write on the board.So, Mel Harris and Michelle Trachtenberg guested this week as an overprotective mother and an allergy-prone daughter whose unrelated anaphylactic shock and progressive paralysis stumped the doctors. What most surprised me about the show was that House figured out the problem and no one agreed with him. I mean that's not a tried-and-true formula or anything. Even more shocking was House taking such extraordinary measures as trapping himself in an elevator with Foreman and the at-death's-door patient to search her nether regions for a wayward killer tick. Surely that would incur the gloriously coiffed Cuddy's wrath. Unless, of course, he found the tick which, of course, he did. Surprised?Posted by Rhoda Charles 04/5/2006 1:04 AM | Permlink | 17 Comments | Report March 28, 2006: CluelessYay! House is back from its American Idol-induced hiatus. Don't get me wrong, I'm digging Mandisa and Chris, but it is nice to have the good doctor back in his time slot even if when I turn on the TV, I think I'm watching CSI. Maybe it was the "rape" scene that opened the show or House talking about Australian ants as if he were channeling Grissom. I'll forgive Fox for these mind games because House roared back on the scene with an outstanding episode that was more murder mystery than medical mystery. A loving wife tries to kill her husband by poisoning him with gold dust. House quickly identifies the source of his patient's illness and he pegs it on the wife. His team disagrees with him there's a surprise. No, Foreman, it's not Lupus. You know, I don't understand why Cameron, Chase and Foreman ever doubt House's diagnoses. Then again, I'm asking this of people who seem genuinely surprised by and slightly fearful of the ringing from their beepers. Listen up, folks, House is always right. Say it with me: House is always right, from the diagnosis to the whodunit. And come on, how cool was it when House barged in to the ladies' room, grabbed the wife's unwashed hands and turned them purple with some chemical solution? The only thing missing from the episode was her teary confession, but the ambiguity surrounding her motive was intriguing. Let's follow the clues: The threesome, the role-playing, the wife's dispassionate discussion on why marriages fail. Apparently, the danger in marrying your high-school sweetheart is that people grow up, change and then you want to kill them: A lesson for us all. Good thing new roommates House and Wilson waited until after graduation to move in together. Between Wilson's blow-dryer-aided hairstyling and House's eating Wilson's food, it's safe to say these two will drive each other batty. But at least they won't be plotting one another's demise. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:33 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report March 7, 2006: Sex KillsHere's something I've been wondering: This whole "searching the patient's house for clues" business. Does that really happen? Do you need special health insurance for that level of treatment? Just curious. Anyway, I realize that this is kinda the point of the show, but House is such a know-it-all it's no wonder Wilson is his only friend. Speaking of which, House should tread carefully or he might just lose that one friend. After all the shoulder support Wilson provided during the Stacy episodes, you'd think House could at least pretend to care that Wilson was "going through something." Perhaps I ask too much of the man whose motto, when desperately hunting for a transplantable heart, is "a big, fat sloppy heart beats no heart at all." Somebody call Hallmark. So, Howard Hesseman: Aged a bit, have we? I thought he was playing Amy's (Keri Lynn Pratt) grandfather initially. Then she called him "Dad"; color me surprised. I can sense that this line of thought will not endear me to the man, so I'll end it now. All the same, it was good to see Dr. Johnny Fever out and about and apparently still getting it on. So Greg Grunberg: you left Alias for this? Again, just curious. While I enjoy the comedy provided by House's clinic scenes, I had a "Wow, they are not doing a bestiality subplot" moment and then things veered off into oedipal regions. I then had a "Wow, they are not doing a... " you get my point. Maybe House ought to search this guy's home. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:26 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report February 20, 2006: Skin DeepHouse's emotional pain is manifesting itself physically. So much so that he's having Cuddy shoot morphine directly into his spine. The fact that the placebo Cuddy gave him relieved his pain proves everyone's point, especially Wilson's, that the increased pain in House's leg is psychological. See? House really does have a heart, and it's aching for Stacy. Since Stacy left, he has been in increasing pain, and it's getting hard to watch. Frankly, I wasn't sure where they were going when he started to undo his pants in Cuddy's office, but like everything else House does, his actions served some nobler purpose. If exposing his atrophied thigh is what it takes to get some relief, then so be it. If only there were some of that purpose in the medical story line. Fifteen-year-old supermodel Alex has a heroin addiction, naturally perky boobs and boy parts. Oh, yeah, and she's seduced her father, but he's only really disturbed by that fact when he realizes that his hot daughter is really a boy. So then it's OK to sleep with your daughter? I wish the writers had shied away from the hermaphrodite shock value and written a decent child-abuse story instead. I wish that Cameron would stop being so predictably annoying. Most of all, I wish for more of Wilson and House playing around in the MRI, "House, this is God." Priceless. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:20 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report February 14, 2006: DistractionsSting advises, "If you love someone, set them free." House's rendition includes banishing all thoughts of the love you threw away, so to distract himself, he:* induces migraines in himself and in Comatose Man, * destroys his med-school rival's clinical trials, * drops acid and * entertains a call girl. All of these, of course, are disguised as clever means to work-related ends. All except the prostitute. Whether House is exposing the bad math of the doctor who got him kicked out of Johns Hopkins 20 years before or waking up his teenage burn patient to take a medical history, it's all about going to the extreme to avoid his own pain. "Nothing can hurt my heart," House says, though we all know that's a lie. Wilson, as ever, is filled with witty comebacks that balance out the caustic doctor's ill mood. Slipping into the light-sensitive doctor's darkened office, Wilson greets him with, "Dr. Jekyll, I presume? They found a half-eaten sheep in the zoo. The police want to ask you a few questions." Even that didn't get a smirk from the heartbroken one. With Stacy gone, House swings dangerously between hurting himself and hurting his patients. Hopefully somebody at Princeton-Plainsboro will catch him before he flies over the edge. Is it wrong to hope his salvation will come in Stacy's surprise return to the show? I don't think so. Fingers crossed. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:18 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report February 7, 2006: Need to KnowWhat do you do when you don't want any more children than the one you already have, but your new husband wants to have a child of his own? You undergo fertility treatments while secretly taking birth-control pills until hubby finally gives up hope, of course. The downside: flailing limbs, a stroke and a liver tumor. That sums up the medical portion of tonight's House, except to note that the little girl (Elle Fanning) is the spitting image of her older sister Dakota.The real meat and potatoes of tonight's episode was the end of the Stacy-House affair. It was definitely an affair to remember, complete with a full-fledged, if brief, sex scene, several moments of ardent, soulful stares and a final self-sacrificing moment in which House walks away from the love of his life. I'm disappointed that Wilson did not recognize the maturity behind House's actions and instead chose to berate and belittle his "miserable" friend. Actually, Wilson was very annoying this week, lecturing House for potentially breaking up Stacy's marriage and then for not following through on that course. With all this drama, a few clinic scenes would have been most welcome. Instead, we were left to grab some humor from a few precious moments: House tricking Cameron into taking her HIV test through a jaw-droppingly insincere declaration of love followed by a quick cheek swab. Cuddy's confusing impression of Stacy, complete with a Southern accent that even the Mississippi-born Sela Ward doesn't brandish. The ugly neckties that every man but House wore this week were also good for a laugh. By episode's end, the patient was healed, physically if not emotionally, Cameron was not HIV positive, Foreman's reign of terror was over, and so were Stacy and House. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:11 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report January 10, 2006: Failure to CommunicateHouse and Stacy are stuck in Baltimore overnight due to inclement weather while the "kids" try to solve the case of a famous journalist whose fall has left him speaking gibberish. That happened to me once when I fell off my bike and cracked my head on the asphalt. Concussion. I haven't ridden downhill, standing up, with no hands, ever since. I tell you, it's the darnedest thing to think you're speaking in proper sentences only to have nonsense coming out of your mouth. If only House had been working my case... Anyway, Stacy admits that she likes curry and that, though she can't have it all the time, she craves it now and again. This is sexy lawyer-speak for "House, I want you now!" It turns House on so much that he plants a couple of kisses on her, yet he can't refuse the siren call of his true love his work. When House leaves Stacy alone in the hotel room because the "kids" call in with more symptoms, he goes and scribbles random words in red lipstick on the airport's wall. This would probably earn most frequent-fliers a fine at least. House, though, can do so for hours without any harassment from security. What he can't do is leave a backpack on the plane without boarding. I loved how that security guard tracked down the pack's owner lickety-split and then left him standing in the hall, still not on the plane! I bet House didn't have to remove his shoes at any checkpoints either. Really, why bother with scripting airport security if it's not going to make any sense? It's nice to know that House can make sense of things from afar and diagnose his patient with cerebral malaria. (Yay! It's not a tumor!) What's disturbing is that his team is basically useless without him. Exactly what is House teaching them, or are they just slow learners? They didn't even order a MRI, House's favorite test. I did notice that in House's absence, Chase was smug, Foreman was insecure and Cameron was somewhat commanding. House, however, was unchanged. Thank goodness the show is named for a certain surly doc, or it just wouldn't have been the same. Posted by Rhoda Charles 03/30/2006 1:04 PM | Permlink | 0 Comments | Report