That collective, nationwide groan you heard on Monday, May 23rd, didn’t come from Oklahoma City where the NBA’s Thunder blew a 15 point lead in the NBA Playoffs. That groan wasn’t the result of a dramatic injury in the Dancing with the Stars ballroom. No, that groan came collectively from fans of the Fox medical drama House who were on the receiving end of a gut punch from the writers and producers of the show they once loved.
House and Cuddy
The May 23rd finale of House had a number of dramatic stories running through it. Our hero, the cranky Dr. Gregory House was still bedridden after having attempted to perform surgery on himself. House and his ex-girlfriend and boss, Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein, leaving the show for good after this episode) were still trying to find a common ground on which they could continue working together despite the dramatic end of their relationship.
And let us not forget the travails of House’s team of doctors who this week dealt with one of the stranger patients ever to pass through Princeton Plainsboro Hospital, a performance artist who knew her own diagnosis but wanted House and his team to figure it out as part of a performance art piece that she recorded on a nanny cam. If that wasn’t dramatic enough, Dr. Taub’s (Peter Jacobson) ex-wife Rachel informed him that she is pregnant, a week after he’d found out that he had knocked up a young nurse.
Heads in the Sand
Yes, that is a good deal of drama and contrivance piled upon contrivance in one of the worst hours in the show’s seven years on the air. TV critics have been complaining for a while that House had lost its dramatic edge and that the angry charm of Hugh Laurie had faded, but fans had found ways to ignore that fact. The seventh season offered a few flashes of dramatic brilliance that allowed fans to keep their heads in the sand a while longer about the show’s declining quality.
The reward for the fans collective ignorance came last night when the creators of House offered a ludicrous, over-the-top finale that they simply cannot write themselves out of. In the final moments of the season seven finale Dr. House went to Dr. Cuddy’s home and upon seeing her having dinner with another man, revved the engine of his car and drove the car through the side of Cuddy’s house nearly killing all inside.
Attempted Murder
Yes, an attempted murder brought the end of this season of House. Moreover, Dr. House wasn’t captured and punished, nor did he wake up back at the hospital in the ‘it was all a dream’ scenario. The final images of the episode found Dr. House walking on some foreign beach with a smug, self satisfied grin.
What makes this season finale even worse is the fact that not long ago this was nearly the series finale; the show was picked up for an eighth season just over two weeks ago. The series nearly ended with House committing an attempted murder of Cuddy, her sister, two strange men and, don’t forget, Cuddy’s two-year-old daughter.
Then again, coming back for an eighth season isn’t exactly a cure-all. How do the writers of House write their way out of this scenario without Dr. House going to prison for several years? Is his team moving to that exotic isle with him to start an illegal foreign diagnostic group? Or, is the hoary ‘it was all a dream’ scenario still on the table? Whatever the show’s writers decide to do they will undoubtedly do it minus millions of fans who were let down by this bizarre and ridiculous season finale.
Sean Kernan - Sean Kernan is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics and Broadcast Television Journalists Associations. Contact him ...
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