House won’t play nice in Season 3
Series creator honoured at Banff Television Festival
By JUDY MONCHUK
The Canadian Press
BANFF, Alta. — Don’t expect acerbic Dr. Gregory House to adopt a caring bedside manner after his near-death experience.
Being shot by an angry widower in the season finale won’t trigger an epiphany for the cynical and sarcastic master diagnostician, says the Canadian-born creator of the hit show House.
"We’re going to go down that road a little bit, but people don’t change," David Shore said at the Banff Television Festival.
Audiences adore the caustic House (Hugh Laurie), whose inclination is to insult patients as he and his medical detective team deduce whatever bizarre malady is triggering the confusing, usually grotesque and generally life-threatening disease of the week.
"This character’s bread and butter is shocking people and he’s shocking people for a reason," said the Emmy-winning Shore, executive producer on the hit Fox show, which is broadcast in Canada on Global.
Many of the good doctor’s flippant observations and retorts, deemed "Housisms" on one fan website, flow out of his personal credo: "Everybody lies."
That’s the core of the series and Shore says what helps keep it from slipping into a disease of the week format.
"Often now it starts without the medicine — it starts with the character and a lie or a secret," he said.
"House looking at a blood test and seeing something on that blood test that shouldn’t be there isn’t that interesting. House realizing something about a person that we didn’t know and thus coming up with the ultimate answer because of that character flaw: that’s interesting."
Not that House doesn’t have his own character flaws. The brilliant pill-popping doctor, who munches Vicodin for pain in his leg, will see his addictions escalate during Season 3.
"He’s going to get in trouble with the drugs," said Shore.
There were fleeting moments last season when House appeared to show glimmers of humanity and decency. Don’t get used to that.
"If we were making him softer, I’m sorry," laughed the self-effacing Shore, a former lawyer from London, Ont., who was honoured at the festival with the award of excellence. "That was a mistake."
Although Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), part of the elite medical team, became much happier and nicer after his own brush with death late in the season, that won’t work with the arrogant House.
"I think in TV that rather than have characters evolve, you want to peel more of the onion away," said Shore. "It’s still the same onion, but you show surprising aspects of it. You want to raise as many questions as you answer."
Shore cut his writing chops with a far more likeable character: Mountie Benton Fraser on cult favourite Due South, which was created by Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis — who has the same Ontario hometown.
Haggis, who is returning to the small screen with NBC’s The Black Donnellys in January, was also honoured at the Banff festival with the award of distinction.
The fact that two writers from one medium-sized Canadian city are currently the hottest thing in the entertainment industry is an anomaly.
"I was very lucky to have Paul be the first to hire me," he said. "You learn as you’re going along and I could have ended up on a show that wasn’t as good as Due South and learned from lesser writers."
Shore’s resume includes writing stints on some of the strongest dramas of the last generation: NYPD Blue and The Practice. He was twice nominated for Emmys as a producer on Law and Order before winning for writing an episode of House.
Some aspects of the show are highly implausible, such as members of House’s team breaking into a patient’s home to look for medical clues. But Shore says it’s not a bad idea.
"Frankly I think it makes perfect sense," he said. "If you tell my mother you’re bringing somebody over, she starts cleaning up. If you want to know what people are really doing, don’t tell them what to look at."
