Wait a second...his manhood?? He's in a relationship with a strong woman and he's lost his manhood? It's not just homophobia, it's also chauvinism, and of the worst kind - from a woman.

As for "House," well, now that House has, basically, two diagnostic teams, maybe the writers should figure out what he, and they, are going to do with them. Or give Wilson and Amber a relationship that is recognizable as human. Or make Dr. Caddy (Lisa Elston) a real person again. Well, I'm not sure how much I want to listen to someone who not only gets the name of a major character wrong, but, even worse, the name of the actress! :roll: And, apparently it's her job to track this particular show.

I'm not sure where you're getting homophobia from that review, Chipmunk.

Funny how differently people can read the review. I didn't see homophobia. I didn't see chauvinism. I saw a complaint that in the scenes with House and Amber, Wilson was portrayed as a child. ("I wanna listen", "You have Mommy's numbers, right?") Not that he was a wuss for being in a relationship with Amber, but that he was shown as a child being shuttled between divorced parents rather than being shown as an equal partner.

And that's definitely a valid reading. However this got to me: House and Amber (Anne Dudek) divide up visiting rights with Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) in such a patronizing manner that I spent the entire episode wondering why Leonard did not threaten to quit if his character were not returned to adulthood, much less manhood. If she had left it at adulthood, that would have been peachy keen, but what does being a man have to do with it? Because he's a man he should be able to stand up to Amber? No, ma'am. They should be equal partners, yes, and Wilson could have handled his role better, but to assert that he's no longer a man is just too much for me. Let's postulate that it had been House and Amber who had been friends first, and then Wilson comes in. If they were to shuttle Amber back and forth, would there be this outcry for Amber to grab hold of her womanhood? Hell no, because womanhood implies inferiority and weakness. *Sigh*...sorry. Radical feminist thoughts this late at night cannot be healthy. I should go to sleep now so that I can up early and go burn a few bras in the morning. :D :roll:

I think that's a rhetorical device to emphasize just how childlike he was acting. I don't see the review's statements about Wilson as any different than someone saying after an episode that Lisa Edelstein should complain because Cuddy was portrayed as an incompetent doctor or administrator. They might even say Cuddy needs to grow a pair and I wouldn't read that as any-phobic or any-ist, I would just think they were using a pop culture phrase to indicate she needs to toughen up. But then I'm about as un-radical and un-{fill in the blank}-ist as they come. Strongly held opinions aren't really my strong point :)

In reality, reviewers opinions are no different than our own - some reviewers loved this episode, others apparently thought it was the "worst House episode evah" (Personally, for me, that distinction goes to the episode in which they fried some guy's brain, removing the memories of his childhood and adulthood, all without bothering to find out if his love interest *was* actually getting married! But as always YMMV.) The thing is, "professional" reviewers comments carry more weight - so they should at least get the characters' and actors' names correct! I think she missed an important point. IMO, this episode didn't emasculating Wilson at all - if anything, he was leading House and Amber around by the nose, and loving every minute of it. Sometimes, there is real power in a passive-aggressive approach!

ITA with marykir and Lagniappe on reactions to the review. I could understand someone feeling that the storyline was silly and the situation being beneath all of them, in particular Wilson. I've said previously that if Wilson and Amber had switched places the realtionship could be seen as borderline abusive so I do think the reaction to the setup could have been negative regardless. I didn't share her reaction here as I said and I think she misses that the arrangement and the way each of them handle it and reacts to it points up their flaws. Including Wilson's inability to know what he wants and what he doesn't want and take an actual stand about it. But the arrangement seems to be giving him the chance to figure out what he really does want while at the same time he's trying to learn something about House and Amber too. Do they care more about having their own happiness using me or the chance to be happy with me? Although that is also something that could be asked of Wilson. That may be were we get to next in LTD. ETA, one other thing the arrangement showed is that when they are operating outside of it, like at work, that the H/W relationship is built on a solid foundation and is one that they both get joy out of. It can be seen as a healthy relationship or an unhealthy one but it is solid. :) We were not shown a comparable scene with W/A. Make of that what you will. The misspellings are a case of abysmal copywriting but in itself doesn't negate the reviewer's opinion.

Hi What intrested me about this episode was the song played at the end"You keep me hanging on" I wonder if it has any significence or not :?:

scrivo35 try the episode thread there was some discussion on that in there.

Later in her review she mentioned the sorts of things the show should do, such as have Amber and Wilson in a "healthy relationship" (right, who's going to watch that?) Actually, what she said was "a relationship recognizable as human," suggesting that this didn't even make the cut for an unhealthy-but-interesting relationship. Probably because in a way, what happened in the episode was so contrived that I wouldn't find it out of place on say, How I Met Your Mother, but on what has often been a very intimate human drama, it falls a little flat. However, I do feel like she missed the boat on not catching on Wilson controlling the whole situation. That was sort of hard to miss, with the "snickering" and all.

"Dr. Caddy (Lisa Elston)". Heh, that is so "The Outside Scoop" with Jackie Harvey at The Onion.