Newbies or oldies, I always found House's most illustrative depictions of misery when he was completely alone. Certainly true, but those musical montages of House sitting brooding in his darkened office were getting old.

While I suppose there may be other explanations for this than the content of the episodes this season, I have noticed (with disappointment :( ) that there hasn't been much in any of them to spark or fuel any long, meaty discussions. Where are the issues that had people going on for days back and forth about what really happened and what it really implies and means? Where's the contraversy, the partisanship, the uts, the outrage?The episode threads seem to peter out by Thursday morning. And I sure don't think it's us....If things don't pick up, I may have to resort to fanfic to get my House fix (I refuse to go back to lurking at that other place.... :roll: ).

Yes, namaste, I was thinking of that very thing when I said there may well be other explanations. I really wouldn't class the "Cameron sucks/no she doesn't" as the kind of meaty discussion to which I was referring and I don't miss them either. So, if what I am missing this season can all be put down to decimated boards, what are the meaty issues in season 4 which in previous seasons have resulted in such intense debates? I mean serious interpretive arguments or ethical issues, not if we love/hate Cam's new hair or 13's mystery (not) or how ugly/beautiful Foreman's pink tie is but addiction issues, betrayal (or not) issues, transplant issues, DNR issues, etc. that I have failed to notice in the new episodes?

I think I know what you mean, MaryIsobel. There's no long discussion on the ethics of euthanasia because there's been no episode about euthanasia, for example. Ethical debates have always been an important part of the show, and that's been sidelined while focusing on House getting his team together. Hopefully once they're in place, House can get back to making them do ethically ambiguous things. (I want to see an ep where a patient wants a healthy limb amputated). I also miss the clinic patients.

I concur that the discussion is down. There are a good number of people posting in both places, so you can't even add the posts from the other place to the ones here and get a meaningful number. I see two causes. First, it's a time issue. What with winnowing down from 40 to 3 candidates, a PotW and the main players (House/Wilson/Cuddy), plus trying to work in a few scenes for C/C/F, there probably isn't the time for anything else. This problem can be fixed once they get a team in place. If they want to fix it. Which brings me to my second reason. I think TPTB have opted to concentrate on the fun, zany, cool elements. Even the publicity for S4 is along those lines, starting with the Rock the House Harder ads, the rock-star House on the official website, and now the ads on Fox that call Tuesday "the most entertaining night of the week." It seems like a conscious direction, and possibly is prompted by the viewing stats or focus groups. However, it's still only 5 episodes in, and at the moment I'm just going to be grateful to have any new eps with the writers' strike set to go. The light ones may not resonate as much, but hey, it's still House.

The light ones may not resonate as much, but hey, it's still House. :lol: You do have a point there, peggy0! :wink:

Some interesting comments about this season so far. I have mixed feelings. I mostly like the newbies, but admittedly had no investment in Cameron or Chase so I am sure I would feel differently if I did. Thank god for Wilson and RSL. I am into him more and more each episode. The thing that I worry about is the whole "House as Rock Star" vibe. Sure it's fun to watch and HL is entertaining, but is the credibility of the character being compromised with all of his shannanigans? It's like TPTB have made a decision to focus on the more insane,adolescent qualities of House rather than explore other aspects of his character. One thing that bothers me about the whole "Foreman can't get hired anywhere else" theme is if that were true, why would anyone even want a fellowship with House? I don't know anything about the inner workings of teaching hospitals, but isn't the idea to fix the patient? Or is it simply about not breaking policy? It seems ridiculous that no one but Cuddy would hire Foreman. Or maybe I'm thinking to much and have to accept that it's a plot device.

One thing that bothers me about the whole "Foreman can't get hired anywhere else" theme is if that were true, why would anyone even want a fellowship with House? I don't know anything about the inner workings of teaching hospitals, but isn't the idea to fix the patient? Or is it simply about not breaking policy? It seems ridiculous that no one but Cuddy would hire Foreman. Or maybe I'm thinking to much and have to accept that it's a plot device. Don't forget -- somebody did hire Foreman. He had a very good job, which he lost through his actions and his decisions. True he saved a patient -- and that may indeed have been the very thing that House would have done, but Foreman isn't House. He lacks the credibility to pull a stunt like that and get away with it. Could House have done the same thing and not get fired? Maybe. We'll never know. But it was that stunt he pulled -- and continuing to emulate House while denying it the whole time -- that got him in trouble, not the fellowship alone. I tend to see what happened to him as just what House warned him of at the end of Human Error -- that Foreman's actions were all about his own ego boosting -- as contributing to Foreman's downfall. By House's reckoning, Foreman never completed his training -- never became the diagnostician he had the potential to be. Would a fully trained Foreman have made the same mistakes in New York? Hard to say, but he wasn't fired because he trained with House, it's that he couldn't differentiate himself from House. Now part of the question is whether now that Foreman's back -- and apparently has finally accepted his need to learn more -- can he really find the completion that House thinks he needs?

Yeah, lolligag I've wondered that, too. Since Foreman is now in contact with the newbies, I'm hoping (at least)one of them has the sense to ask him just that: if House is so great, how come you can't get a job outside this clinic?"Seems like something I'd want to know before succumbing to all these shenanigans. Right now I feel like House looking in from outside, except instead of "Attica, Attica" I'd be shouting "Drama, Drama!" And yet as Peggy06 says, "it's still House" and there's a lot to love...

The Foreman-can't-get-a-job storyline might resonate a bit more if we saw what was going on in comparison with Chase and Cameron. As it is, they just got absorbed back at PPTH (in somewhat bizarre positions) without any drama, conflict or, alternatively, great success at other institutions. The thing I find interesting in comparison with Foreman is that while Foreman expected to go directly from being House's fellow to running his own department, both Chase and Cameron went from their fellowships to another specialty training. And of course that choice more closely connects with House, who is a diagnostician, a nephrologist and an infectious disease guy.

That's true, Namaste, except that it really seems that the only reason they did so was to stay at PPTH. Or rather Cameron wanted to stay at PPTH so Chase stayed too; it's confusing, but I think we're supposed to believe that Chase really did have a job with the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. Since we've been given no explanation for Cameron working in the ER and she wouldn't learn any new skills there (I don't believe she needs to get caring out of her system!), I do reluctantly believe that she stayed because she couldn't bear to leave House. I'm not sure we're supposed to believe that Chase is learning new skills in the surgical ward either, since every damned doctor on this show is a surgeon now. Since they are keeping Chase and Cameron around (as far as I know), hopefully we'll get more of an explanation. Foreman isn't House. He lacks the credibility to pull a stunt like that and get away with it. Could House have done the same thing and not get fired? Maybe. We'll never know. We know that House was fired from four hospitals before Cuddy hired him, she said so in 'Humpty Dumpty'.