Category: House

• May 21, 2012

  Goodbye, House: Ranking the seasons of House

  

  With House airing its series finale this evening, I thought it was time to bust out a list or two. I love House and I love lists. It seems only fitting. First up, one of the lists I “do best”: ranking the seasons. Obviously, the finale could have some influence on the placement of season…
• May 1, 2012

  Recent plugs from around the web — Mad Men, House and more

  

  As I think most of you know, this has been an extremely crazy, busy time for me. Content has been sparse around these parts — something I promise that will change as early as next week — but I’ve still been lending my voice to various television-related works over the last few weeks. I just…
• February 7, 2012

  Review: House, “Nobody’s Fault”

  

  I’ve said this a few times this season, but House has few good ideas left. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the series quite a bit, and I think this season has been mostly solid because the writers finally realized that the few remaining strengths of House are twofold: Hugh Laurie and moderately amusing…
• December 5, 2011

  TV Surveillance Podcast Episode 20 — Be More Like Lost, Walking Dead

  

  In the new episode of the podcast, I’m joined by The A.V. Club’s Zack Handlen for a discussion about the “mehs” of House season eight and the highs and lows of The Walking Dead season two. You can pre-order Zack’s new book on Amazon and also don’t forget to subscribe to the pod on iTunes.
• October 18, 2011

  Review: House, “Charity Case”

  

    Even at its lowest point (which was definitely season five, by the way), House has never been a bad series. It has turned in some really tepid episodes – and even those are relatively rare – and for the last three seasons, the series has been generally coasting, but there’s still something about House…
• October 4, 2011

  Season Premiere review — House, “Twenty Vicodin”

  House is pretty much out of ideas at this point. The series spent the majority of last season focusing on the House-Cuddy relationship, a decision that made half the audience swoon and the other half vomit. I was somewhere in the middle on Huddy, but it always sort of felt like if the series was…
• September 6, 2011

  Fall Television “Preview”: Four series with problems to solve

  

  With September upon us, the fall television season is just around the corner. At random times over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting some preview-like pieces about what is to come over the next few months. Just like last year, I haven’t seen any of the season’s new series – no pilots or anything.…
• May 31, 2011

  2010-2011 season wrap: House

  With the 2010-2011 television season officially over, I’ll be taking some time over the next week or so to look back on how some of television’s best fared this season. General thoughts: End dates are not normal in television and most series limp towards the finish line. This is often more true for series with procedural…
• May 24, 2011

  Season Finale — House, “Moving On”

  For a season finale, “Moving On” is not an entirely exciting episode. In fact, this episode includes one of the season’s most obvious commitments to a medical case. At various points of the episode, I found myself just slightly bored with the proceedings. But despite all of that, “Moving On” is exactly what House ends as…
• May 17, 2011

  House, “After Hours”

  When heading into a season finale, there’s always a danger of ramping things up too much. The desire to make everything seem MORE IMPORTANT and MORE URGENT is always there, especially for drama series, but it doesn’t always work in the context of the episodes that came before it. Histrionics for histrionics sake is never, ever a…
• May 10, 2011

  House, “The Fix”

  UGH. I have no problem with House going to extremes at the end of its seventh season. This is a series that likes to pull out “big” moments and twists during the final few episodes every season, so I expected season seven to try to accomplish those same goals. It’s part of the series’ storyteling DNA…
• May 5, 2011

  #TVFail Entry 2: House, “Simple Explanation”

  

  The accused: House, “Simple Explanation” (Season 5, Episode 20) The crime: Presenting a terribly manipulative version of the “Very Special Episode” gimmick. Television’s failures are supposed to be obvious. From the overhyped non-starters that flop from the very beginning (hello, FlashForward, Lone Star) to the much-discussed clumsy conclusions of series we were convinced had it all planned…
• May 3, 2011

  House, “Changes”

  There’s a weird thing going on. I think I’m the biggest critical supporter of House left. I’m not really sure how this happening, especially when I spent a good portion of the last two seasons thinking that the series should be cancelled. I’d like to think I have mostly high standards. Maybe I do, maybe…
• April 19, 2011

  House, “Last Temptation”

  Thirteen’s back, so naturally that means Masters has to leave! Okay, that might not be the exact logistical explanation for the transition between last week’s very good episode of House and this only-okay episode of House, but it does seem a bit obvious that this series refuses to have two female characters on the team.…
• April 12, 2011

  The TVS List: Three broadcast series that need to be canceled

  

  Note: I’m hopefully going to have more time to write things here over the next few months, so I’ll be trying to bring back the weekly list feature. Trying. Anyway, here’s the beginning of that attempt. It’s spring, which means it is the time of year that everyone takes to the internet to stump for…