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Even At 100, 'House' Formula Stays The Same

Fox

British actor Hugh Laurie plays Dr. Greg House on 'House,' which marks its 100th episode tonight.

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By WALT BELCHER wbelcher

@tampatrib.com

Published: February 2, 2009

Gregory House, the pain-ridden, pill-popping, atheistic, sexist, cold-hearted, wisecracking, sarcastic and brilliant diagnostic doctor, solves his 100th case tonight.

And it's a lot like the previous 99 cases: A patient arrives at the Princeton teaching hospital with an unexplained illness.

Resident grump House (Hugh Laurie), totally indifferent to the patient's feelings, only wants to solve the medical mystery.

He orders his bullied and baffled team of underlings to grasp at possible solutions, which usually involve putting the poor patient through hellish tests and procedures. (Call the malpractice lawyers!)

But nothing works. Amazingly, the patient's condition symbolically mirrors one or more of the personal dramas that House and his colleagues are facing.

House limps around uttering his clever "House-isms," such as telling a suicidal patient, "If your life's no more important than anyone else's, then sign your donor card and kill yourself!" Or telling his co-workers, "Treating illnesses is why we became doctors. Treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable."

He also may take time out to leer at and make suggestive remarks to his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelestein), the hospital administrator who dresses like she's headed out to a hot night at a singles' bar.

And then, with about five minutes to go, House will come up with the solution that pulls the patient back from the brink of death.

So there's nothing special about tonight's milestone at 8 on Fox, except that despite the formula, "House" remains entertaining as a mystery and a complex exploration of human emotions. It also remains Fox's highest-rated and most critically acclaimed drama.

House can be a jerk, but he's a fascinating jerk. And he is light-years away from the saintly TV healers of past generations such as Marcus Welby.

"House" has explored our fear of death and our beliefs about mortality like no other series.

House doesn't believe in miracles. His faith is in science. "Do you want to put your trust in me or in God? I'd pick me," he tells a religious patient resisting treatment.

His brutal honesty is delivered with clever, cutting wit. At times, there seems to be a touch of humanity lurking behind his grizzled face, but he will turn away from sentimentality with lines such as, "I gotta start pretending to care."

'CHUCK' IN 3-D: If you've still got 3-D glasses left over from the Super Bowl's 3-D commercial, you can use them tonight for "Chuck" at 8 on NBC.

Frankly, looking at the TV screen through those dark little plastic things actually detracts from the thrill of seeing knives, flames and bodies hurling toward you.

The 3-D "Chuck" tonight also includes female wrestling in lingerie and a nod to "The Shawshank Redemption," with guest appearances by Dominic Monaghan, formerly of "Lost," and NFL veteran Jerome Bettis.

It makes you wonder whether NBC was considering this for the post-Super Bowl slot before opting for "The Office."

"Chuck," starring Zachary Levi as a lovable nerd who becomes an unwilling spy, remains an underappreciated, lighthearted romance-action series. But Chuck's quest to win the heart of sexy spy Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) is wearing thin.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

"How I Met Your Mother," 8:30 p.m., CBS

The story line on this new episode doesn't matter as long as Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) makes a fool of himself again.

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