I vote extra_cat for Chase. Oh, I see how it is. I walk away for a few hours and you're giving Chase away to e_c. :P One of the things I particularly enjoy is watching House as a teacher; if that is to continue, then he needs fellows I enjoy House as a teacher as well. I just don't see much teaching opportunity with this new crew. Taub is older, has had success, and is likely set in his ways. Thirteen is already "perfect" and probably poised to outdiagnose House. Kutner is the exception as he would probably make an eager student, but it's often difficult to believe he's actually a doctor.

I *do* think there are opportunities to teach the newbies. Taub may be older, but his background is in plastic surgery. He has a lot to learn about diagnositcs. Kutner needs to at least learn not to set his patients on fire! :P And 13 is perfect? Better tell that to all the folks who are convinced she "killed the patient and his little dog too" and "drugged House and stabbed him." I think there are lots of isses with 13 that could be explored further - issues I find far more interesting that the ones hoisted on us (i.e. her illness and bisexuality.)

And 13 is perfect? Better tell that to all the folks who are convinced she "killed the patient and his little dog too" and "drugged House and stabbed him." IMO she's "perfect" in the sense she's a complete House clone off the bat. She's pretty near perfect diagnostically, she's capable of out-diagnosing House and she's got just as many negative qualities in how she treats her patients if she's drugging & mistreating them (never mind the additional Cameron parallels with the drugging & hurting patients - IMO the only reason we didn't see Cameron kill a dog is because she wanted to be a vet originally ) :twisted:

IMO she's "perfect" in the sense she's a complete House clone off the bat. Because she is able to diagnose well? Isn't that supposed to be her job? Surely there is more to House than his diagnositics... or I wouldn't bother watching. And I haven't seen a lot of negativity in how she treats her patients. (Aside from House, who wasn't really her patient at the time, and was being a real jerk.) Indifference maybe, but not the outright snarkiness we get from House. 13 is hardly a "House Clone" IMO. If she were people wouldn't be calling her boring so often. House is anything but boring! And are you comparing her to House or Cameron here? Or to both? As far as similarities to Cameron, there are some, I agree. I found it rather interesting that a lot of the viewers who seemed willing to give Cameron a pass on her treatment of patients came down on 13 so hard for the same type behaviors. I don't particulary like 13. But I don't dislike her either... which puts her a step up on Cameron and Foreman in my book. At least for the moment... :wink:

And are you comparing her to House or Cameron here? Or to both? Both. C&C, for example, both evolved over time to have more of House's traits, even though they didn't have his personality. Chase to grow a backbone to back up his diagnosing abilities, Cameron to lose some of the bleeding heart aspects of her personality & learn to detach or be more objective. If 13's already got very visible aspects of House (some of which Cameron also embodied by the time she left House) plus she's able to diagnose as well as him of the bat (CC&F still had a way to go when they started & Foreman still does), what exactly is she going to learn? There's a difference between being a decent diagnostician as a sounding board for House & being able to out-think House immediately (which she was shown to do in Right Stuff).

IMO she's "perfect" in the sense she's a complete House clone off the bat. She's pretty near perfect diagnostically, This read of 13 puzzles me. She's been shown to be able to get a diagnosis and she's been shown both to react against House's intuition when she identifies too strongly with the patient due to her issues with HC, and being able to trust his intuition when she's working off her own instincts. But she's no further ahead as a diagnostican than the other two. If anyone has had more Houselike epiphanies, it's Kutner, not 13. And Taub is shown to be just as efficient and good with patients. One thing I like about the new team is that their screen time seems fairly balanced--if one gets more focus one ep, another will get it in the next. I don't feel like the new team is 13 and those other two. Unfortunately, I did feel CC&F suffered from unbalanced screentime, with Chase getting the least consistently, Foreman getting just a bit more in the usual run of things but then suddenly getting a whole arc where we suffered from Foreman overkill and Cameron getting featured too often most of the time, with most of that time going to how her feelings about House impact her job. I think so far the new team has avoided some of the issues with CC&F. Now we just need to get a sense of what C&C's new arcs are. And if Cameron's new arc is the same as the old arc . . . very dramatically unnecessary and unsatisfying. C&C, for example, both evolved over time to have more of House's traits, even though they didn't have his personality. All of the original ducks started with some Houselike traits, right off the bat. Cameron was stubborn and obsessive, Chase was creative and Foreman was arrogant. They evolved as a consequence of spending time with House, but those essential traits didn't change. They were always meant to mirror some aspect of House, right from the get go. I think the new ducklings are meant to mirror more of a journey that House is on--13 with trying to redefine who she is in the light of hopeless news, Kutner in terms of retaining enthusiasm and finding joy in work despite a troubled past and Taub with the difficulties of making oneself follow ones' integrity when it's relatively easy to get away with fudging it.

sorry--computer burped :oops:

In order for House to be able to teach the new team, they have to want to learn. So far, it seems that only Kutner is eager for it. Taub is treating House with more disdain than Foreman after 4 years and Thirteen is refusing to do what he wants and shutting the laptop on his hand while he's checking something because she's annoyed by him. When Foreman, Chase and Cameron came on, they had definite personal learning curves as well as the general one of learning to be a diagnostician, they were more than just mirrors of House. Foreman needed to appreciate House instead of always butting heads with him, Chase needed to learn to stand up to House and trust in his own diagnostic abilities, and Cameron needed to be more assertive and to put House into perspective. What does Taub need to learn? He's already assertive and self-assured and trusts his own judgement. He's a successful professional and from scenes where he fondly talks about missing plastic surgery, it seems like he'd rather be there than in the diagnostics department at PPTH. Thirty nine people wanted the job as their first choice and he, who would raher be elsewhere, got it. The most interesting storyline I can think of for him is either he realizes he doesn't want to be there after all and leaves, or he learns to love diagnostics. I can't think of anything Thirteen needs to learn other than to develop a personality and that's not House's job. When she's making a diagnosis, she's brilliant, the rest of the time she's sulky or wallpaper. Every new "mystery" we find out about her (her name, her diagnosis, her sexuality) fizzles out as an anti-climax. By the time Cameron hurt her first patient (Spin), which was not shown but implied by a line from Chase, she'd been on for 28 episodes so we'd seen several examples of her caring side. It was an arc for Cameron, 3 episodes from 2x06 to 3x03, and it was wrapped up in Informed Consent when Ezra praised her for it and shocked her. In contrast, when Thirteen drugged and stabbed her potential boss without anaesthetic because he made her mad, it was only her seventh episode and I have yet to see her caring for anyone but herself. That's the difference for me. Oh, I see how it is. I walk away for a few hours and you're giving Chase away to e_c. My deepest apologies. :oops: She called it and you were away. Maybe Chase would be amenable to sharing?

One thing I like about the new team is that their screen time seems fairly balanced--if one gets more focus one ep, another will get it in the next. I don't feel like the new team is 13 and those other two. Unfortunately, I did feel CC&F suffered from unbalanced screentime, with Chase getting the least consistently, Foreman getting just a bit more in the usual run of things but then suddenly getting a whole arc where we suffered from Foreman overkill and Cameron getting featured too often most of the time, with most of that time going to how her feelings about House impact her job. You read my mind. I'd like to see Kutner get featured a little more but overall, I don't think that one newbie has dominated the screen unlike CCF where it seemed like Cameron was almost always front and center followed closely by Foreman with Chase a tragically distant third. Maybe I could have liked CCF more if they had more equal screentime and Chase got a fair share instead of one ep. per season and sexcapades with Cameron. At the beginning of S2 it seemed that nearly every ep. subplot was about Cameron, Acceptance, TB or not TB, Daddy's Boy, Spin, and Hunting, those are five of the first seven episodes and it baffled me. Then we got Foreman dying (and of the original cast, I think it's safe to say he generates the least emotions, positive or negative) and the longest resignation in history. Geez, both times Cameron quit she was just gone, no lingering on and b*tching about it. I think they have a better balance with TKT, but now of course they have none with CC. And if Cameron's new arc is the same as the old arc . . . very dramatically unnecessary and unsatisfying. Personally, I don't know where else she can go unless it has something to do with Chameron. IMHO, she's the one who seems perfect now. She seems to have finally backed off of her obsession with House, she's assertive and confident, the only area I can think of where she could have improvement is in her relationship with Chase, and if she could do something with her hair, that would be nice because it used to be so beautiful. The ducklings definately evolved, I think they were meant to, I think CC are near perfect now (except for their own relationship) and that's another reason why I think TPTB should have dropped them. House, Wilson, and Cuddy have better staying power, IMO, because they essentially don't change, we get more layers to them and we learn more about them but they are pretty static for the most part, except for Cuddy progressively losing more and more of her spine as the seasons go on. The ducklings, except Foreman, have grown up, let them fly, YMMV. On an ensamble show this would be no problem, we could follow CC, but since it revolves around one man, it is a problem and CC don't really fit into his world anymore. They don't work for him and while I agree that he does care about them to an extent, he's not suddenly going to become Mr. Social and start hanging out with them all the time, bowling with Chase was a good start but I don't see him becoming close friends with him or Cameron, out of 16 episodes there just hasn't been enough evidence to me that he misses them enough to do what he has to in order to keep them in his orbit. Thirteen is refusing to do what he wants and shutting the laptop on his hand while he's checking something because she's annoyed by him. She's also the one that did what he wanted despite Cuddy's protests in H's H, I think there's room to grow there. She could change after finding out about her Huntington's. She shuts people out for the most part, but maybe someone will get to her (Kutner's my best guess there), then she'd have to deal with caring about someone knowing that she has this horrible disease. Personally, I don't think Foreman's learned that much. He was a boring jerk who thought he was better than everyone else in the Pilot and he's a boring jerk who thinks he's better than everyone else now. They sloppily dropped his "I don't want to be like House" garbage by saying, "oh deep down you've always wanted to be here." That's not growth to me, that's getting bored with a storyline and finding the quickest way to drop it.

In order for House to be able to teach the new team, they have to want to learn. So far, it seems that only Kutner is eager for it. Taub is treating House with more disdain than Foreman after 4 years and Thirteen is refusing to do what he wants and shutting the laptop on his hand while he's checking something because she's annoyed by him. We saw 13 listen to House over Cuddy two episodes ago and we've seen her find out about her HC because she listened to House's analysis of her problem. That was a big step to take to be the doctor she wants to be. 13 was specifically suggesting other things than what House wanted in WH because of her identification with the patient, and we saw her confront that head on. Other than that, how is 13 trying to stop House from doing something she thinks is unethical different from Cameron or Foreman doing something to stop House from doing something unethical? Were they refusing to learn from House? Cameron took herself off a case twice and frequently ran to Cuddy to report on House--did that mean she had no use for House? I don't think so. I think the only duckling we've seen of the new or old that resisted learning from House was Foreman, and he did it by never changing his initial opinion. 13 doesn't do that.

By the time she was getting unethical herself (Que Sera Sera), she'd stopped going to Cuddy. I don't care how scared Thirteen was when House gave her caffeinated coffee, her behaviour in You Don't Want To Know was so unethical and inappropriate that she's never going to be able to play the ethics card again... Cameron's issues with ethics and her own sense of morality began way back in S1 with "Fidelity". I remember staring at the TV in shock when she berated Elise's husband, thinking how unethical and unprofessional she was. Of course, now, it pales in comparison to other things she's said and done in a similar vein. Even if one explains away what she did to Jeff in "Spin", there was "Sleeping Dogs Lie" and "Informed Consent" long before "Que Sera Sera". I absolutely hated Thirteen doing the biopsy on House without anesthetic, but it is, in my opinion, much more understandable than what Cameron does. The main difference here is that Thirteen "hurt" someone who had hurt her personally, whereas Cameron, with seemingly little control over her personal emotions, "hurts" patients because she doesn't approve of them and deems herself judge and jury. We built up a relationship with Chase, Cameron, Foreman and Wilson as we did with House himself so that by the time they did something badly outrageous (as opposed to Kutner's well-intentioned outrageous), we were willing if not forgive them, to understand how it fit into context with their characters. When Chase went to Vogler, we understood how it fit into his character and sense of loss. Not me. I adore Chase now, but I didn't like him at all for going to Vogler. It wasn't until "The Mistake" that, in retrospect, I understood.

When Cameron or Foreman tried to stop House from doing something unethical, they hadn't done anything medically unethical themselves yet. I know Cameron did the biopsy from Jeff's thigh but it was the test she was supposed to to do diagnose him. By the time she was getting unethical herself (Que Sera Sera), she'd stopped going to Cuddy. Foreman was horrified to find out how easily he could inflict pain even when medically necessary and it caused him to resign. I think this is agree to disagree territory, since I saw Cameron do or try to do more than one unethical action, which certainly undermined her to me as the voice of ethics on the show. And she never stopped going to Cuddy--she went to Cuddy in the last half of season three. People may respond better to one character than the other, but 13 isn't being written radically differently in terms of her willingness to stand up to House when she thinks she's wrong or in having her own issues to deal with. Likewise, telling House she's not going to lie to the patient for him in IAWL (I guess she found an old script of Cameron's) rings false when she's spent much of the past 9 episodes lying to people about herself. 13 didn't lie to anyone about herself, she withheld information about herself, which is very different. There's no correlation between being personally forthcoming about personal details and deciding where your own line is on lying to patients. Nor does Cameron have the patent on those kinds of decisions. As long as there are ducklings working for House, that will be an issue on the table, because of his working method. Some will be fine with it, some won't, and some will evolve. When Chase went to Vogler, we understood how it fit into his character and sense of loss. When Cameron took herself off the case in Informed Consent, it was because she felt House had broken a deal he'd made with the patient and she wasn't going to go along with it, after several episodes where Cameron had kept her part of a deal even though it could cost her. I think for much of the audience (not hard core Chasers) that is a hindsight view of Chase. At the time, he was judged harshly by many audience members, and the tide didn't really swing the other way until the last half of season three. Same with the infamous methsex incident, which Chase was very harshly judged for by many fans for a long time, and some do still. I also thought Cameron's main issue was her own stance on euthanasia, not House's lying to the patient--that's what House told her to make her mind up about and do her job. I don't think there was anything in that episode to judge Cameron or House harshly about--it was a difficult ethical decision and meant to be seen that way. For the new team, when Taub offers money to Cole for immunity when we've seen him at least three time indicate he misses plastic surgery, or when Thirteen suddenly starts listening to House for no discernible reason because she's opposed him so often before or she plays the ethics card, it rings hollow. It feels like the formula ("we need someone to be support House against Cuddy, let's make it Thirteen") rather than something that organically comes out of who the character is. (The scene in HH when Thirteen keeps Cuddy out because she believes in House while he does the procedure felt like DNR redux.) I have a different impression of where the new team is, so the writing allows different interpretations. I don't think we're meant to think Taub is unhappy with where he is as that he valued plastic surgery as much as he values diagnostics. He wouldn't have changed careers had he not, um, screwed up, but he's not unhappy learning from House. And I think we had it very nicely laid out why 13 sometimes opposes House--it's when she overidentifies with something a patient is going through because of her own fears. That's been consistent and specifically referred to in IAWL and WH by House, and acknowledged by 13 in WH when she chooses to test. That particular journey is specifically part of 13's arc. When a patient doesn't touch her in that way, she's willing to listen to House, and that's been consistent, too. It really has become same old, same old and far from making the season fresh with adding new characters, the new team has just shown even more how formulaic the show has become. Different strokes again. I'm on the edge of my seat, waiting for next year. I want to know more about every storyline they raised.