Posted on Feb 9, 2006, by Ella

'Idol' Lead-in Should Send 'House' into the Stratosphere
Feb 08, 07:59 PM
By Ted Cox Daily Herald TV/Radio Columnist

Pity poor Hugh Laurie. Having just won a Golden Globe as best actor in a TV series for his role as the title character in "House," he tells Playboy magazine this month: "I feel like a hostage to fortune. Not that I am complaining. I wanted to play the role. But in truth I didn't think the show would be such a success. OK, I thought it would fail. Not because it was bad. I was confident it was good, but plenty of good things just sort of wither on the vine."

Sorry, Hugh, but it looks as if there's no immediate end to your fortunate captivity.

"House" returns from a monthlong hiatus at 8 p.m. today on Fox WFLD Channel 32. Already producing strong ratings, it will now benefit from the "American Idol" juggernaut as a lead-in. So for those who have been resisting this show, there's no better time to see what all the fuss is about.

It's basically a run-of-the-mill hospital drama, but with one thing that sets it apart, and that thing is Laurie. As Dr. Gregory House, he is quite possibly the most unsympathetic main character in broadcast TV history, and among his contemporaries only James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano and Michael Chiklis' Vic Mackey can top him as prickly, three-dimensional realistic creations.

Trust me, if you can make it through the end of next week's episode without rejecting House for what he does, you may never leave this show behind. This has all the earmarks of a series that's about to explode into a genuine cultural phenomenon.

So let's quickly bring new viewers up to date, shall we? House is a brilliant, but misanthropic doctor who suffers from chronic pain - both physical, from a crippling leg injury, and psychological, thanks to his own tortured psyche. This creates a problem in the typical hospital drama, but also a creative tension.

As I've written before, viewers don't really care about the patients in a hospital drama. They come, they go, they're either cured or they're not. What viewers care about is what the regular characters - the doctors and nurses - invest of themselves in these patients. A person dying from a car crash isn't dramatic; it happens every day. A doctor putting his or her career on the line to deal in a daring fashion with those car-crash injuries: That's drama.

Yet House would seem to short-circuit that. How is a viewer expected to care about patients House himself doesn't really care about? As he said way back in the pilot last season, diseases and ailments are basically academic challenges for him. The patients themselves only mess things up.

When he determines tonight that a woman's convulsions are the product of her abusing a Ritalin prescription, he tells her husband, "It should take a couple of hours to process her. You can take her home and divorce her."

The key, of course, is that House really does care, although Laurie and the show's writing staff both do an excellent job of keeping it hidden most of the time. He might disdain the sympathy shown by Robert Sean Leonard's Dr. James Wilson, at one point pounding on his locked door and shouting, "I know you're in there, I can hear you caring," but House cares as well - even if he cares most about himself.

That brings us to the subplot about Sela Ward's Stacy Warner. She's House's ex-lover - her leaving him was one cause of his psychological torment - but as the show opens tonight there are signs the "ex" might be coming off that label. House cares about her all right, and there's nothing he'd apparently rather do than steal her back from her wheelchair-bound husband. But just how bad of a cad is he? There are surprising answers tonight, and even more surprising developments next week.

Look, I don't want to overpraise "House." The hospital cases are kind of creaky and formulaic, as House and his team of experts work each week to solve the mysteries of a given ailment. The supporting cast, including Omar Epps, Lisa Edelstein and Jennifer Morrison, is basically just there to give him a flinty background to strike sparks against. (Look for Dan Butler of "Frasier" making an all- too- brief comeback next week as an old House rival.)

Yet the thing that makes this series exceptional, make no mistake, is Laurie. A Briton, an Eton and Cambridge alumnus with an impressive theatrical resume, he is probably best known to U.S. moviegoers as the mousy husband and father in the "Stuart Little" movies. The role of House is a great departure from that - a thorny, complicated character that Laurie makes both larger than life and all too human. He's going to dare TV viewers to detest him at the end of next week's episode, but I believe they're not going to be able to turn away. Laurie better prepare himself for more acclaim, redoubled success and a long captivity as star of a hit series.