TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

'House' Fascinated By Death-Predicting Cat

ADVERTISEMENT

By WALT BELCHER wbelcher

@tampatrib.com

Published: March 16, 2009

"House" fans are eagerly awaiting the episode where the resident grump finally gets cozy with Cuddy.

The producers are such teasers. They have dropped hints that the sexual tension between Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) and Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) will be snapped a little with at least an on-screen kiss before the season ends.

But probably not tonight. On the "Here Kitty" episode, the irascible House gets cozy with a cat.

Judy Greer, a character actress whose credits include "27 Dresses," guest-stars as a nursing home caregiver with a pet cat that has the uncanny ability to predict death. When the cat sleeps next to people they soon die.

After finding the feline in her bed, Greer's character fakes an illness to meet House on the chance he can diagnose what is going to kill her.

The ever-skeptical House becomes fascinated when her illness becomes real. The March episodes have kicked it up a notch.

On the March 23 program, for example, Mos Def plays a paralyzed patient who communicates by blinking his eyes. The entire episode is told from his viewpoint.

PIG FARM: You may never look at pork the same if you watch "Death on a Factory Farm" debuting on HBO at 10 tonight.

The 83-minute film is about an undercover investigation of animal cruelty on an Ohio hog farm and a court trial that followed. The animal abuse depicted is not for the squeamish.

The film is an effort by the Humane Farming Association, a group that campaigns to protect farm animals from cruelty and protect the public from the dangerous misuse of antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals common on factory farms, and to protect the environment from the impacts of industrialized animal factories.

The organization received a tip from an employee at the farm that animals were being abused, including a claim that hogs were being hung by chains and strangled to death as a form of euthanasia. An undercover investigator wore a hidden camera while he worked as a farmhand.

Over six weeks, he secretly filmed numerous disturbing scenes, including piglets being tossed into crates from across a room, an unhealthy piglet being slammed against a wall to euthanize it, and a sick sow being hung by a chain from a forklift until it choked to death.

Not all factory farms are this bad, but the film does point out the need for oversight to stop the ones that are inhumane.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

"Kyle XY," 9 p.m., ABC Family

In the series finale, Kyle learns what Cassidy and Latnok's true plans are for Adam's experiment and must stop them at all costs.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT