House and Manchild

Last night's episode of House was pretty good. The acting, as always, was superb. The central conflict regarding House and his estranged ex dominated the show and I am ambivalent about its resolution. On the one hand, House's breach of professional ethics was a natural reaction to his own conflicted feelings about his ex and her husband, which is satisfying from a dramatic point of view. On the other hand, no real consequences flowed from his act. As I pointed out before, House must give the hospital counsel fits with his near-constant brushes with unethical behavior. He gets away with stuff because the show teaches us that the ends justify the means when the doctor right. The successful result of his actions in this episode does not deviate from this theme. Although I am always happy to see the hero win, I am sorry that the writers did not take the opportunity to exploit his ambivalence and create new conflict with it. A round or two with his state's Board of Medical Examiners would fill up several episodes next season quite nicely, as it intersects legal thrillers with medical thrillers (both are popular genres) and allows the writers and actors to take the show's theme into a diferent direction and see where it leads.

But all is not lost. We can look forward to seeing more of the ex when she becomes the hospital's general counsel next season. We may see more personal conflict as well as medical/legal conflict. I regret that this will likely take even more time from the other characters (especially the hospital administrator, who showed great potential as a source of more conflict but has been woefully underutilized this season).

As always, I refer you to Polite Dissent for a look at the medicine and science in this episode.

My wife and I also watched a few episodes of Manchild, a British comedy about four middle-aged men indulging in adolescent fantasies (or wishing they could so indulge) using the wealth and experience they have accumulated in 40+ years. On a superficial level, the show resembles a male version of Sex and the City because its cast of people of the same sex undertake sexual adventures with attractive people of the opposite sex and talk endlessly about them. Unlike Sex and the City, these guys are not rewarded for their behavior. Although each character is sympathetic in his own way, they are by-and-large delusional buffoons who are clueless about how ridiculous they look to other people and delusional about their own superiority. Don't get me wrong: the result is quite funny and sometimes thought-provoking. I don't feel that way about Sex and the City - perhaps it is a gender thing.

And the show features Anthony Stewert Head, who played Giles the librarian in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like Hugh Laurie in House, Mr. Head is playing against type and doing very well with it.