House Rules

Well, this was the House episode I'd been waiting for: the episode when the legal chickens came home to roost. I've been anxious to see this in action in a show that practically begged for a disciplinary proceeding. Alas, there isn't a lot to sink my teeth into. Disciplinary proceedings vary from licensing board to licensing board within a state, let alone between states, so I have no idea if the process we observe in the show comports with what would really happen. We only see the dramtically important bits. The inevitable paperwork (such as a notice stating the allegations against Dr. Chase, the written response to those allegations) is not exciting stuff. And the meeting between Chase and the members of the disciplinary committee would not be very exciting even if we were allowed to listen in on it. So there isn't enough data upon which to comment with the same level of analysis as Dr. Scott provides us in his excellent blog.

However, I wonder about the way the disciplinary sanctions were imposed upon House and Chase. Under most circumstances, a disciplinary committee doesn't have final say on the sanctions it imposes. Rather, the committee makes a recommendation to a board consisting of fellow members of the profession and a few "public" members (people not in the profession). The board can then impose the sanction or not. Settlement agreements between the committee and the respondent are not uncommon but they too have to be ratified by the board before they have any effect. There is plenty of room for legal wrangling along the way and there is a process to appeal the final board action. In the episode, the sanctions were imposed upon the doctors immediately. Granted, the sanctions were not onerous. In fact, the sanctions imposed upon House were pretty weak: having a doctor in the same hospital supervise him is not unlike having the fox guard the hen house. Too much self-interest involved in such an arrangement. But it is fraught with dramatic possibilities, as we will learn in the next episode.

I am also curious about the doctors' legal representation too. Is it common practice for a hospital's general counsel to represent individual doctors in disciplinary proceedings? I wouldn't think so but we see it happening here. Also, I think it is a potential conflict of interest (all soap opera stuff aside) when a lawyer represents two different people with potentially opposing interests in the same proceeding. Yet Stacy Warner advises both Chase and House. If the outcome had been different, either Chase or House could have reported her to the state's Bar Association. But this wasn't an episode of Warner.

Bertie Cures A Rat

The above title sounds like something P.G. Wodehouse would have written while on the same stuff Dr. Cameron took in last night's episode of House. Last night's episdoe was all about role-reversal. Our man House, played by the same man who portrayed Bertie Wooster in the excellent Jeeves and Wooster series, takes advantage of a rat infestation in his once-and-future love interest's home to apply the knowledge he gleened from her therapist's file. The set-up gives us an opportunity to see House as he might have been: a caring man fully engaged in his life. It was a mercifully brief glimpse; although we'd like the characters in our fiction to end up as nice, caring people, this show does not take the easy way out with House. He is a misanthropic curmudgeon and that is that. But I liked the idea that we are never sure if the warm fuzzies are pretext or a genuine reaction to his proximity to the woman he loves. In the end, he gets the rat and loses the girl.

Our Dr. Cameron takes a walk on the wild side last night and tries on a wild girl's costume. We have seen this character supressing her baser intincts and doing the right thing throughout this series, and this sudden change under the influence of drugs (crystal meth?) is a desparate cry for release. And our man Dr. Chase gets caught up in it. This transformation is expected, almost cliche in television, but what makes this one interesting is the complications that may spring from it. Dr. Chase's reaction to the event is more illuminating of HIS character than Cameron's character. He is still very vain and self-centered but it may lead to further developments. As Dr. Chase has been more-or-less underdeveloped this season, I welcome the opportunity.

You know where to go for the medicine. All I will say is: where the heck is the local board of medical examiners? They'd have a field day with House!

China Invades Tuscany, England Embraces Confucianism

I picked up Civilization IV this weekend and played it like the obsessive fiend I am. I am still working my way through all of the changes made to the game but I am very happy with it. And you get Leonard Nimoy intoning pithy phrases every few minutes! What's not to like?

I tore myself away from the game long enough to take my wife to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We enjoyed it. I appreciate the fact that much of the story had to be stripped away in order to meet the demands of the medium and I think they did a good job with the story's two main themes: the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Teen Angst. The filmakers did a great job illustrating the simmering resentment the kids at the school have of Harry and how that came to the fore when he was picked to play in the tournament (although I think Ms. Rowling is a fair writer, I haven't really seen this in the books - Harry sometimes just comes across as a whiny git) and the adults' sheer panic when events spin out of their control (again, not something I really see in the books). I could see the almost impossible pressure Harry must feel every time he faces adversity and I have a better understanding of why his adolescent ranting is so overblown. Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and Brendan Gleeson were AWESOME in their roles too. And did you know that the fellow that plays Crouch in the film is the same actor who played the earthy farmer in the Vicar of Dibley (the same comedy that featured Dawn French - the Fat Lady in the painting that guards the entrance to the Griffindor common room)?

What interested me most about the film was the misplaced love triangle. By that I mean the obvious chemistry between Harry and Hermione and the resounding lack of it between Hermione and Ron. I think it is supposed to be the other way around. I get that Ron and Hermione are supposed to be attracted to each other (scenes that focus on one or the other of these characters do a fine job showing this - particularly Hermione's scene after the ball) but I didn't see that spark between them when they are together. I don't blame the actors (they are excellent); the story just isn't set up to accomodate the relationship. Harry and Hermione, by virtue of their characters and the circumstances of the plots, just have more opportunity to "hook up" and their pairing makes more sense.

Which leaves Ron is an even suckier situation. He's the average guy cursed to be in the shadow of greater people. Harry is the savior of the wizarding world. Hermione is smart and proactive. Ron is just...Ron. He is steadfast and brave (at least he is in the books, not so much in the films) and we are led to understand that he will get together with Hermione in the end. But for the time being he suffers from some serious self-esteem issues. Adolesence magnifies everything and in this instalment, we see how this knowledge starts to gnaw at him. Frankly, he is ripe pickings for Voldemort's crew: in exchange for attention and a sense of importance, he could act as the Death Eater's inside man (a sort of reverse Snape). This would generate some interesting conflict for the character. But it is no spoiler by now to learn that this is not the direction the story takes. In the end, Ron chooses his subordinate position as the least of the three main characters. Oh well.

Brutal Reality

I think this is the kind of reality show Grinding Metal can get behind.

And speaking of harsh reality and television, check out this blog post from a writer and budding tv producer about the trials and trevails of producing a tv series.

She Sat Around the House

On last night's episode of House, we learn that cheaters never win. Unless they do win. Having a disease helps.

On the soap opera front, we finally get to spend some time with Stacy Warner, the hospital's general counsel and House's former love interest. We learn that she hates House and loves him too. We also learn that she devotes chunks of her doubtlessly busy day making sure that doctors are up to date on their paperwork. One would think that House's antics would keep her busy trying to fend of the local board of medical examiners, but I suppose that she has a personal interest in making sure that House's, er, house is in order. This subplot is woefully underdeveloped and the quasi-love triangle between Warner, House, and Warner's new husband is, at best, comical in the way it really reaches to find some dramatic conflict.

The ongoing conversation Dr. Cameron has with the other doctors regarding cheating (and controlling one's actions) was far more interesting. The ambivalent positions taken by the other characters sounded right to me, given how ambitious they are. I particularly liked Dr. Wilson's attempt to help Cameron see his point and justify his own actions at the same time.

And the whole bicyclist/doping thing was pretty interesting. I guess I should be offended, since Lance Armstrong is something of a local deity around here, but I don't really have a dog in that fight. As always, I refer you to Polite Dissent for the medicine.

In other news...

If you have the time, please check out the links to the right. Something Old, Nothing New has an interesting essay about the Xander character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Answering the Wrong Questions has posted links to some very good fiction freely available on the web. And 2 Blowhards takes some time to talk about afternoon naps.

Family House

In a very special episode of House, we learn that: 1) lying is bad, but everyone does it; and 2) families sure are complicated. Last night's show wore its morals on its sleeve, which is pretty unusual. I am much happier when the characters show us rather than tell us (a notable exception being the episode where House demonstrates his point about perception versus reality but that was itself a marvelous bit of character), and there was a lot of telling last night.

That said, there were several things I enjoyed. I liked House's experiment with money. I liked the fact that Dr. Cameron was eager to learn more about House's family, but when push came to shove she left it alone. I REALLY liked the fact that R. Lee Ermey played House's father (I must be honest that I had hoped that a couple of well known British actors - like Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer of As Time Goes By fame - would walk in sporting American accents). And I like the fact that House insists on riding a high-performance motorcycle when he has a bum leg.

Of course, I refer you to the excellent Polite Dissent for the medicine.

Oops, Wrong Scooter

Grand Jury Indicts Muppet.

Did you think that Grinding Metal provided all of the hard-hitting political commentary around here?

Sony CDs

Apparently, in an effort to protect its content from nefarious CD-rippers, Sony will include software with each new music CD that forces the user to download a proprietary media player in order to play the music stored on the CD. The CDs will also install stealth software, called "rootkits," into your computer. I am not sure what this software does (I am not as sophisticated about this stuff as this guy is) but I don't want it. It's hard enough to keep track of the crap that currently vies for space on my PC as it is.

I guess I won't be buying Sony music anymore. Great job, guys!

Are You Pondering What I am Pondering?


BRAIN: Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember: you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?

PINKY: No, Brain, don't think I can.

(Pinky and the Brain "Where Rodents Dare")

Yoinked from the estimable (Something Old, Nothing New).

House Call

I appreciated the contrast between the apparent selflessness of the "missionary doctor" (I cannot remember the character's name) suffering from the ailment-of-the-week and the apparent selfishness of our dear Dr. House. It was an excellent opportunity to peer into our hero's psyche and learn more about what makes him tick. On the one hand, was the "missionary doctor" an extreme narcissist, willing to kill himself slowly in order to attract attention to himself, or was he someone who loved his job so much, and believed in his cause so much, that he was willing to subordinate his self-interest to the interest of poor people in Africa? On the other hand, was Dr. House more concerned about healing the dying man in front of him than the abstract notion of people dying thousands of miles away, or was he simply treating (and hopefully curing) the patient to make a point? We do not get direct answers to any of these questions and, unfortunately, the interaction between them was minimal and other characters had to do most of the compare and contrast. What I did like was the bit at the end of the show, where House demonstrates the ways in which appearances can be more important than the reality (it also nicely tied the main story to an underdeveloped sub-plot). Although I wish the show would spend more time (or, perhaps, better time) with the characters (where was the lawyer, anyway?), this episode is another example of the proposition that House is still one of the best shows on television.

Again, I refer you to Polite Dissent for a look at the medicine in the show.

I also picked up the DVD of Star Wars: Episode III yesterday and began watching the documentary that comes with the film. I like the idea behind it: there is an enormous amount of effort and care that goes into every minute of a film like this one. The documentary visits everyone involved in the scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin fight on the "lava planet", from the carpenters to the actors to the kid who gets the coffee. I am in awe of their skill and their ability to plan around what must be a logistical nightmare. What an extraordinary collection of talent!