House, M.D.

If you’re watching a hospital soap, and it introduces a patient whose carotid artery is only protected by a thin flap of skin after an operation, what do you think’ll happen?

Yes, it’s Tuesday, which means that yesterday evening was Grey’s Anatomy. While it didn’t figure any pencils-in-eyesockets, it was still not exactly the show I should be watching while eating merguez. However, what usually ruined my appetite while watching the show was the increasing lack of development as far as the characters and their relationships are concerned. At times, the show now feels like E.R. as scripted by Beckett – for all the romantic back-and-froing, there’s a distinct lack of getting anywhere.

However, while too many of the characters now behave like lobotomised idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine (they’d probably be taxed by practising the recorder), the patients are where it’s at. The Grey writer are quite amazing, really: it takes them 3+ seasons to make me bored and annoyed with the main cast, yet it takes them 30 minutes to make me care about characters who come into the series to be sick and die.

Can’t say I care yet about Carotid Artery Boy, mainly because I keep looking at him and thinking, “I wonder if it’s full moon already…” Yep, that’s the problem you get when you play a werewolf on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I’d be the same if Leonard Nimoy turned up on House… “Do they have green blood on stock? I wonder…” Putting Greg House and Mr Spock in the same room would be sheer geek awesomeness, though.)

P.S.: Don’t worry, an entry on Fun Home is still to follow. Hopefully even before the move. (Sigh.)

On Monday, Swiss television showed the season 3 finales of both House, M.D. and Lost. We haven’t seen the latter yet, but it probably says it all that the best moment of House, at least for me, was the Chase/Cameron kiss. That scene was sweet, but the actual medical case was too vague and the character interaction not very interesting. The House vs. God angle had also been done previously. All in all it felt like the series could do with a couple of months off. Seeing as season 4, cut short by striking writers, is just about over in the States, we might get it fairly soon…

Gregory House, looking dark and depressed in between snarky quips

… but first, we’ve got the grand return of Grey’s Anatomy (at a point where I sometimes feel that if I have to watch McDreamy be a self-righteous, self-infatuated git for another minute, I’ll find the actor and put his face through a meat grinder), doubled up with Private Practice, the Grey spin-off that got started in an atrociously written and at best adequately acted two-parter on its mother series.

How’s a man to cope – especially when this man knows that there are only six more episodes of Deadwood? Like, ever? Come to think of it, I’d like to see a cross-over where some select characters from Grey’s Anatomy and perhaps Desperate Housewives stop by the picturesque little town of Deadwood. Derek Shepherd could open a practice with Dan Doherty as opthalmologist. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here, unless you’re still hoping to watch season 3 of Deadwood.)

Six Feet Under is also almost over – two more episodes. What next? We’ve got a fair choice of series: Rome, The Wire, Carnivàle, season 6 of The Sopranos. Then there’s more escapist or pulpy fare: Heroes, Veronica Mars, Joan of Arcadia, Dexter. I’ve heard very good things about the latter series, especially season 2 – which came as a bit of a surprise, as the second Dexter novel was quite a bit weaker than the first. I guess that sometimes film and TV can improve on books…

And to end this very meandering blog entry, here’s a YouTube clip – the very effective opening credits for Dexter, a show whose ‘hero’ is a serial killer… who is intent on only killing ‘bad guys’: