This isn't current, or even related to TPTB for House, but as I've been deep in my X-Files mania over the last couple of weeks, I was digging through some old posts at Frank Spotnitz's blog. A few years back, he answered a fans question about visiting online sites and message boards for feedback. This is what he replied: "The X-Files" was one of the first series to benefit from an active and articulate fan base online. Especially in the early years of the show, I found it useful to see how fans were reacting to different episodes and storylines. I tried to look at online response as one tool (among many) to gauge how the show played with the audience at large. (For legal reasons, I had to be careful never to wander into the fan fiction boards.) As the show went on, I found it less useful to go online -- the discussions generally became more baroque, views of various fans (both positive and negative) more entrenched and predictable. I haven't visited any "X-Files" sites in quite some time, although I will be sure to visit the one you mentioned. That sounds about right to me. No writer, producer or director should be taking plot cues from their audience, but knowing (and caring) about what your most passionate audience thinks or reacts to has to be valuable information, to some degree.

As the show went on, I found it less useful to go online -- the discussions generally became more baroque, views of various fans (both positive and negative) more entrenched and predictable. I haven't visited any "X-Files" sites in quite some time, although I will be sure to visit the one you mentioned. Although, at this point I think the House boards are at the point Carter mentions, where there are entrenched views that are less useful for the showrunner. They're great fun for the fans, though. :D

bailey, I wonder if you read this interview with DS a few days back. For everyone else, it's a tad spoilery, so watch out. Anyway, this little bit addresses somewhat DS's relationship with the online world: AS: Did you get any hate mail from Scooter or Big Love fans? DS: Who? AS: Scooter and Big Love? The old guy and the black Mormon? From that show you write? DS: Oh. Sorry. That was quite a while ago. They don't forward that stuff on to me. I try not to go online too much, but I can't resist every now and again, and I'll see someone write, "You shouldn't have gotten rid of him, he's the greatest thing in the world!" and I go, "My god, they're right!" That was great. The fact is, when you start something like that, you expect to bring in a dozen actors and have nine of them not be that good and the choice becomes easy. But these people were really good, and people had their favorites. People liked Scooter and they liked Big Love. And, by the way, Edi (Gathegi) was fantastic. It was funny, we thought we'd establish the older guy for an episode or two, get rid of him and it's nothing, and we found ourselves liking him -- which doesn't normally happen. Reading this interview reminded me of everything you've been saying, and I wanted to hear your opinions on it.

I don't think you can fairly balance the 'net response the first few years of the X-Files to the 'net response to the first years of "House." After all, the 'net was in an infancy as a pop culture thing when XF first aired. I remembered finding the first discussion boards on AOL, back when you'd go to AOL or one of the other dial up providers. You didn't have huge international fansites, just 30 or so people on a discussion board, max. No blogging, no recaps, no LJ. The amount that there was was small and manageable. Ten years later, the 'net and on-line fandom is a whole different beast. Shows are having to face online scrutiny from the start at a level the X-Files didn't see for five years. It's far too easy for a show runner today to become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of 'net responses -- never mind on-line 'ship wars (and remember that the term 'ship didn't even exist when the X-Files began -- XF created it). I think it's even more imperative today that show runners have their own vision, because it's too easy to lose sight if you allow yourself to be pulled in a million directions by a million points of view.

Although, at this point I think the House boards are at the point Carter mentions, where there are entrenched views that are less useful for the showrunner I have the impression that the showrunners over at NCIS are paying more attention to what is being said on the House boards than Shore and Jacobs. After the season finale on NCIS where the team is broken up, the show's executive producer, Shane Brennan, hastened to assure their worried fans that their show wouldn't be "doing a House." (From the TV Guide online site, "Ask Ausiello," May 28th.) Matt Roush also wrote of NCIS in his 8/8/08 column to reassure fans of the show who were upset by their season finale, and House was again used as a reference. Negative reaction to the cast changes at House have obviously been noted by other Powers-That-Be. Then again, since both have made comments that they still don't seem to know how to integrate their own characters, I'm not convinced yet that next season will be any more balanced than this one. (And by balanced I mean organic, logical use of characters, not just x amount of minutes for any particular person. Bailey, that's the way I see it as well. All during last season, well-intentioned people kept pointing to the strike as the reason why many of us weren't bonding with the new team and why we weren't seeing Chase and Cameron. Yet, after reading the transcript of the last David Shore interview, I'm not getting the impression that the strike had much to do with it. DS seems to be happy with the way the Survivor arc turned out and the time given to those choices, therefore I feel that what we saw is what he intended us to see all along when it came to the newbies. With regard to Chase and Cameron, the writers' strike was again blamed for not seeing more of these characters, yet after filming at least 8 episodes into the new season, Shore still admits he doesn't quite know what to do with them. I don't think those missing 8 episodes would have made much difference to C&C last year after all.

From the Spoiler Discussion thread: Should people take the actor's word over what is canon on the tv? Bluntly - no. Actors have their own biases & wishes & also may not know everything that's been filmed or what is planned by TPTB. And they in particular have no business contradicting canon because of what they would like the character to be. With House, there's loads of evidence as well that what TPTB think is going on on the screen isn't what the audience sees (yes, Foreman is the most scintillating character EVAH!) - due to poor acting, writing or whatever. Is LE playing the role as if Cuddy is in love - sure, that's what she's suggesting in the press. Doesn't mean that Cuddy IS in love - TPTB haven't said that yet, the s5 eps haven't even aired & anything else is pure fanwank in my book (& there's loads of that going around right now). I think much of what we assume about the show is of necessity fanwank since on the one hand we get DS telling Maureen Ryan that House/Wilson is better in fanfic than on the show while HL is saying in interviews that "the lovers" reunite and the show itself is teasing H/W as a couple with lines like "You're sleeping with me". I agree that there is much to suggest that what TPTB thinks the audience cares about isn't what they care about. If there had been a poll at the end of season 3 "which character do you least care about whether he/she will come back next season" I think Foreman would have won easily. And I doubt Thirteen's death diagnosis and how she deals with it is going to have anywhere the impact of Amber's death no matter how much they push it. But while the actors can say whatever they wish in interviews, TPTB should have some sort of control in what they say about their characters just as they do about what spoilers the actors leak. When LE says that she thinks Cuddy is in love with House and that's how she's been playing her since the start of the show, if that's not what Shore wants the audience to think, he could take her aside and say "Lisa, I love what you're doing with Cuddy but that's not how I'm writing the show so you can keep playing Cuddy like that but don't say it in interviews because we don't want the audience to think that." Since he hasn't done that and since LE said in her interviews last spring that Cuddy is in love with House and lives vicariously through him and she's been supported in that by KJ's interviews, I'm taking it that Cuddy loves House. Unless what the actors say in interviews contradicts what has been on the show without explanation as to why they think differently, I go with what the actors say. It's what has been called "soft canon", the information from interviews with the actors and tptb. But then, with this show, who knows?

All of the supporting characters are drawn as incomplete sketches. TPTB only give us little glimpses into who they are, and where they come from. I think the ambiguity is deliberate on the part of TPTB, and it's no surprise that the audience and the actors are left to fill in the blanks for themselves. The upside of this is that everyone gets to put their own interpretation on the show. The downside is that there is very little "canon" for those who want definitive answers.

Number one: I believe canon is what only occurs on the show. We can imply some background based on comments by the creators off screen, but that isn't canon. For instance, they may have teased a Cuddy/House event that took place sometime in the past -- LE may have even talked about about affection for House from their shared past during interviews -- but until the "one night I gave you everything you asked for" comment in "Top Secret," it wasn't canon. That's why I don't buy into the idea that Chase is head of the surgical department until they say it on the show, no matter how many times the phrase has been used in interviews. A caveat to the above: canon does not require a declarative sentence. For instance, no one has ever said: "You're Jewish" to Cuddy as House said it to Wilson, but they've mentioned it enough times -- J-date, the "Jewish number," the menorahs - that its canon. (And no, I don't believe that Chase's presence in Cuddy's office during "Living the Dream" was canon inference that he was head of surgery, since Foreman was there too and he isn't in charge of anything.)

Can you see House attending a department head meeting? Even if he agreed to go, the first thing he would do would be to disrupt it. Foreman, on the other hand, loves the authority that kind of position brings. I can understand Foreman attending in House's place. Cameron said that she's got her own department to run so it looks like she's ER chief. As little sense as I understand having Chase jump over the established surgeons' head and become head of surgery, that scene looks like a department head meeting and Chase is either chief of surgery or representing the chief. It seems as strong canon to me as Cuddy having a menorah or looking on J-date. David Foster said in an interview that Cuddy created the diagnostic department to bring House back to medicine after his infarction. It doesn't fit in with Cuddy's line in HD that House had been fired from 4 hospitals before because if he was that depressed, he wouldn't have been looking for work that much but it does fit better with the House and Cuddy we've known over the course of the show.

Cameron said that she's got her own department to run so it looks like she's ER chief. Actually, it was said in "The Right Stuff" that she was a senior attending. Not the same as chief. She could have been there in the same role that Foreman was. Perhaps Chase was also there in that role. Or perhaps TPTB just needed a reason for the three to be in the same room without having to be separately called down to Cuddy's office. It doesn't fit in with Cuddy's line in HD that House had been fired from 4 hospitals before because if he was that depressed, he wouldn't have been looking for work that much but it does fit better with the House and Cuddy we've known over the course of the show. Well, I don't that he was depressed, but if he was pulling the same kind of stunts that got Foreman fired from New York Mercy, then I could see how he could be fired four times. I don't know, kooky timelines. since LE said in her interviews last spring that Cuddy is in love with House and lives vicariously through him I can place the "living vicariously through him," but I'm not sure that I can place the "Cuddy is in love with House." Is there any way that we get a link to that interview, just so we know that we're debating a comment in context? Otherwise, I would agree with what was said above -- take canon over comments. While actors certainly have a lot of insight into their characters, as well as some say as to what happens to them, I would always take what happens on screen to be the final word. While I could certainly make an argument using what happens on the show to say that Cuddy has deep feelings for House, and vice versa, until there's more of an on-screen confirmation, I'd call it my own fanwank.

Can you see House attending a department head meeting? Here's the thing: At no point in the show that aired did anyone ever call it a department head meeting. Cameron refers to her department, but no one else ever does. Cuddy tells the assembled group about the inspection, asks Cameron, Foreman and Chase to stay and gives Cameron and Foreman their assignments, and Chase leaves. That's it. People who had read the interviews assumed it was a department head meeting, but the show never claimed it was.

I assumed it was a department head meeting because it's the only thing that made sense to me -- Cuddy had a bunch of people (including Foreman from diagnostics, Chase from surgery and Cameron from the ER) and told them things she wanted from them while the hospital was being inspected. No one said anything about their departments other than Cameron. Wilson called Cameron a senior attending in The Right Stuff (4 x 2) but by LtD several months later, she was talking about being responsible for her department and Cuddy told her that the ER paperwork was in the best shape of any in the hospital so she had time to do House's. I can't find a transcript of the episode but from what I remember of their conversation, it sounded like Cameron was running the ER. I can place the "living vicariously through him," but I'm not sure that I can place the "Cuddy is in love with House." LE did a phone press conference and several news sources reported it, each varying slightly. I think one or two of them reported that she said Cuddy was in love with House but I don't have the links. Just out of curiosity, how much difference would it make on the show if Cuddy is in love with House as opposed to she isn't?