I thought the survivor arc actually interesting. It had a few problems and may have been longer than necessary, but it worked. The major bumps for me were Cole's dismissal and Cuddy suggesting a woman. We barely got to know some characters and I think that's fair, because we were getting to evaluate them along with House. He barely knew them, and so did we. I agree with Poeia on the episodes that worked but I place the blame mainly on the uninteresting POTWs and in House's somewhat forced antics. To me this season is the one when he started being overly abusive around the clock for seemingly no reason. And those episodes that worked for me are the ones where he was too worried about something else (Alone with his loneliness, Ugly with the TV crew, It's a Wonderful Lie with the kid's sincerity, Frozen with a semi-romatic involvement and HH and WH obviously with his obsession and Amber) to devote his time to randomply pissing people off for the heck of it. Everything just flows better for me when he pisses everyone off as sort of collateral damage. Also I didn't like the old ducklings being kept in the background. And I think I still don't. Chase and Cameron are interesting characters, but the show would have worked better if they had moved on or at least vanished for a while. They were present for 20 or so seconds in every episode and I didn't think it was worth it, even though I like them. And Foreman did not bring one single interesting bit to the story since he came back, so I believe him to be expendable.

I'm watching Season Four for the first time (except for the finale episodes). It's interesting to me, because I'm getting the backstory on the characters who are there on Season Five. I still think 13 can't act, but somebody in TPTB likes her...a lot. I liked the part where Foreman got fired for doing a House-like action to save the patient, and discovered he was blackballed (pardon the pun) because of his association with House. However, after that he had nothing to do whatsoever except sit around and look pissed. I found the Survivor arc a lot of fun and kind of stupid--glad I saw it after the first three seasons! It's weird that there's no blooper reel on the DVD collection, and all of this fairly dull stuff. I enjoyed the interview with the writers and the visual effects. I also wondered how Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison felt about being thrust in the background, when I saw a Season Three interview in which she was saying she didn't think the basic ensemble would change, "because you don't change a winning thing." I loved Ugly, Frozen, Mirror, Mirror and of course the two-part season finale. Also, after having watched the first three seasons back to back on DVD (obsessively, of course), it was a lot of fun to finally have some House that I hadn't seen before! And the love triangle with House/Wilson/CTB - priceless! And the part where Wilson stole House's guitar and imitated a guitar string being pulled too tight. RSL can really play comedy and he doesn't get to do it enough, IMO. I enjoy Kutner blowing up things, and the night they had to dig up the body (I enjoyed his enthusiasm and goofiness more this season than Season Five, where I wondered way before his suicide if his character would be kept around, because he was becoming as funny as House, and would that be allowed?). These are random thoughts. I have a feeling that Omar Epps the actor is bored rigid with his part, and that's one reason why Foreman is less compellling than in earlier seasons. I'm also glad they've been steadily having more Chase/Cameron in the series now, and I'm guessing more so in Season Six, but who knows?