House's House of Whining

[bailey]

[Boffle]

Must find some cocoa. Berendt's cocoa. And Nepalese maidens. And opera houses...

[iamdaffodils]

I heart Mr. Simnock.

[OldHamster]

So where's the line to give him his spankings?

I'm 49 1/2 today, so I expect him to reciprocate!

BTW, what are spoffles?

[bailey]

[marykir]

This is from The Sun, so who knows how true it is, but it looks like there might be a Blackadder special on UKTV sometime:

[iamdaffodils]

Calling DOB and DK - desperately need eye witness reports from the Emmy screening thing last night!

eta - Here is Gorblimey's report from the Emmy thing posted on the Fox board:

[DOB1234]

I got into the screening! I typed up a bunch of notes last night but I'm stuck on my sister-in-law's AOL internet connection from hell. I'm lucky to have gotten in here at all this morning. I guess I'll have to post my complete notes when I get back home in a few days.

I don't think the mod did a very good job and as Gorby noted, the audience questions were mostly lame. This wasn't as good as previous panels, but then again, we've only seen edited versions of those. They did tape the whole thing so maybe you will all get to see it eventually. Just seeing Hugh and RSL and Omar and the rest was just so great.

BTW, they gave everyone a button!

I'm going to post this and then have a try at posting my notes. Fair warning - they're not very well organized.

[iamdaffodils]

Thanks DOB! Hey, you got a button - yeah!

[Chipmunk_love]

[DOB1234]

My Emmy Screening adventure.

I’ve been staying with relatives in Mission Viejo, and my niece and her husband had told me that I5 could ruin the best of plans so I needed to head into Hollywood very early for the Emmy screening. I ended up getting to the Arclight Theater much too early and had to kill a lot of time. The drive itself was smooth, well, as smooth as I5 ever gets, and I was pleased that there was a nice parking garage attached to the theater. No one could tell me where the check-in table was going to be set up, and when I finally found it at about 4:00 o’clock there were already something like 25 people in line. No problems getting my ticket though. My name was actually on the list just as the nice email had said it would be. The tickets were for assigned seats, so I didn’t have to wait on another line for when the doors to the theater opened at 6:45. I was afraid that the ‘members of the public’ being admitted might be assigned seats in the back but I wound up right down in front, with an excellent view for the screening of Wilson’s Heart and the discussion afterwards. Oh, and they gave everyone a free popcorn and soda. Watching the episode on the big screen was great. It looked beautiful.

I absolutely cannot seem organize my memories of the event so I’m just going to present things in a scattershot way. I’m sure DK and others will provide a more coherent description.

I didn’t think the moderator, McGovern (?) did all that great a job. She sure was sweet though. You’d never know that she ever had an unkind word to say about the show in her reviews.

At the end of the screening of the episode everyone walked on stage together and seated themselves before the moderator introduced each person. I think you already know that they included Hugh, RSL, Katie Jacobs, David Shore, Omar, and the director of photography, Gayle someone I think. Oh BTW, I am typing this on my sister-in-law’s crappy little computer with a demented mouse and her crappy AOL Internet connection. I thought AOL died years ago. It should have. I can’t even get AOL to connect this evening, so I’ll try to post this tomorrow. In the meantime I can’t look up things like the names of the mod and the photog guy, so bear with me.

Strangely enough, Hugh’s British voice and accent kind of threw me for a few moments. Maybe it was because I had just sat through ‘Wilson’s Heart’ on the big screen and it was a little jarring for ‘House’ to walk on stage and pipe up in those Oxbridge tones.

RSL was wearing his glasses. He talked about how strange and wonderful it was to him to still be doing the same role after 5 years and how the character continued to grow and change. He said it was so unlike any of his previous acting experiences, the way a TV role goes on and on. He mentioned that in the finale there was a very touching scene between Wilson and Cameron in the cafeteria but unfortunately it got cut. He really loved the scene and was sorry it didn’t make it. Poor JMo can’t catch a break.

The Director of Photography, Gayle something(?) didn’t have a lot to say, but he got one of the biggest laughs of the night when he said something about not being sure why he was there and how he felt like the plumber invited to the picnic with all the artists, or something like that. Oh, and he’s a British bloke.

Hugh was very playful when the interviews first started, jumping up from his chair and handing RSL an extra mike when he started to answer something, and then jumping up again to take it away from him. He seemed very relaxed and I didn’t think he seemed bashful or embarrassed as in the past when the subject of House’s sexiness came up. He said that in the beginning he didn’t think of House as being a sexy character, but he did think he was a romantic one, a sort of Byronic hero. He noted how in the pilot House didn’t want patients to see him, and not just because of his limp. He just didn’t want to face them. Sort of a Phantom of the Opera thing.

David told the story again about how they ‘found’ Hugh to play the role - how he wrote House the way he wanted him to be, watched audition after audition and started wondering if he’d ever find the actor who could bring the role to life. Then they saw Hugh and knew he was the man. He and Katie talked about how when they were searching for their leading man Fox kept pushing for a younger and younger age for the lead (to fit in with the Foxilicious crap) and finally David placated them by listing House’s age in the script as 34, and then going right ahead and looking for an older guy to play the part.

Katie mentioned the ‘Sexy’ button that Hugh was wearing when he first showed up for the audition in Hollywood, explaining that it was meant to be ironic. Hugh said he should have worn a button that said ‘Ironic‘.

Katie mentioned that before House she was completely unfamiliar with Hugh’s previous work, never even seeing Stuart Little although she has three kids, so when she saw him for the first time, with the scruffy, bearded look from the Phoenix movie she had no preconceived notions about him and he has always been House to her, just the way he looked in that first audition tape. She did say she is now a big fan of Blackadder and has seen his other work as well.

They talked about the survivor arc and when they knew who the final cast members would be. David and Katie still insist they didn’t make their final decisions until the very end. I know some of you still don’t believe that. They said they had given contracts to eight actors which could have turned into full time contracts. David said that he just couldn’t resist mocking all the reality shows now on the air by doing the survivor bit.

At one point Katie said something about Hugh having veto power on the new cast but he said “Oh, I absolutely did not.� I think Katie was just joking. HL went into his ‘royal we’ voice and said something like all he had to do was say something like “Oh, do bring me the blond one.�

Katie and David talked about how much everyone liked Anne Dudek, referring to her as Annie. David said that when he got the idea of bringing Amber back, having Wilson fall in love with her, and then having her die, he called Annie up and broached the idea to her. He said she was so excited when she realized she was being asked back that he doesn’t think that she even heard the part about her dying in just a few episodes.

They refused to give any hints about how House and Wilson will be getting along and how they will be able to get over the circumstances of Amber’s death. No season 5 hints at all. but someone asked about the possibilities of romance in the future for House. Katie and/or David mentioned Cuddy, 13, and Cameron. Yes, I know how pleased some of you are to hear that. Hugh and Katie joked about sending each of them to his trailer for auditions. Hee.

Somehow that segued into the pole dancing that Lisa did. Hugh said that Lisa has the courage of a lion, and that she is completely fearless as an actor. He also joked about how nervous he would be about doing something like that, but of course he didn’t think House would be called upon to do that sort of thing. The audience seemed to think it was a great idea though. House doing a pole dance, oh yeah.

At one point there was some static on the sound system and Katie joked that Omar was probably receiving a text message about the Lakers-Celtics playoff game. Someone in the audience called out the score - Celtics leading by five with 2 minutes to go. Omar got up and started to march mournfully off the stage. Got a big laugh. A little while later someone provided that final score - the Celtics won - and I managed to stop myself from clapping and getting myself thrown out.

There was the obligatory question from the audience about how Hugh managed to do the accent. He said the usual things about just doing it and there’s just not time to check pronunciations while they’re shooting so he just has to get it done as best he can, yada, yada, yada. Then he joked about how that sure was a cracking good answer, wasn’t it, and he’d have to put that in his memoirs. He did a face-palm in mock embarrassment.

Of course there was a question about the sequel to The Gun Seller. No hope there. Hugh did say he’d signed the contract and spent the money and someday there were supposed to be five more about Thomas, but... He did mention that thanks to House the Gun Seller is doing very, very well and has been translated into 12 languages. He claimed he couldn’t even name 12 languages.

No autographs at the end, at least not by Hugh, so I carried The Gun Seller around all day for nothing, but they did give out those ’Thank Hugh’ buttons to everyone. Ha. I wonder if I’ll get another one in the mail.

All in all it was a great evening, but right now I feel like a little kid on Christmas night. All the anticipation and hopes and worry that I wouldn’t get what I wanted are now over. I got just what I asked for and it was great, but I’ve torn off the wrapping and played with the toy and now I’m sad that the excitement of Christmas, er, Emmy Screening, is over. Damn. I'm gonna have to do this again.

[Boffle]

Very cool, DOB! Glad you could go, and yay, button! Hey,if you could smell my breath, well, it does smell bated! ;->

[donkeykong]

Wow DOb you did a great reporting job. I dont really have much to add, but will add more after my meeting this afternoon until then I have to prepare!

[TJRX]

Thank you so much DOB! Don't apologize for your "scattershot" retelling, it is great and full of all the details we could ask for.

[NightOwl]

Thank you for that wonderful recap, DOB1234! Would you or donkeykong answer a very shallow question for me?

What were Hugh and Robert wearing?