MAN CAVE: House, M.D. marathon

POSTED: Monday, April 18, 2011, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Man Cave

Man Cave is a testosterone-laden Monday feature that highlights the weekend haps of an everyday, pop-culture-loving Philly dude.

In between a bachelor party in A.C. and a housewarming party on 42nd and Chester streets, I squeezed in a couple multi-hour sessions with House M.D. I am currently feeling generous enough to offer you a brief rundown of each season. But be warned: There are spoilers.

Season 1: Fox introduces the world to Greg House, M.D., a cranky genius with a team of hungry young doctors and a friendly foil named Wilson. Wanting to create a medical Sherlock Holmes, creator David Shore made him morally ambiguous, misanthropic, and addicted to pain pills — a great leading character.

Best Episode: "Three Stories"
House agrees to do a lecture in exchange for fewer clinic hours and weaves a series of hypothetical diagnostics scenarios together (SPOILER!) in a way that reveal his own history with leg pain and subsequent Vicodin addiction.

Season 2: Things are starting to get interesting with House and his ex-wife Stacey. Stacey is now a lawyer at the hospital, and therefore involved with the ramifications of House's regular guideline stomping.

Best Episode: "Failure to Communicate"
House and Stacey have to tolerate each other on a business trip to Baltimore, while a famous journalist comes in unable to correctly remember the meaning of words. House's team is on the front line, reporting back frequently to House, who has to solve the puzzle from the road while simultaneously dealing with various tensions between himself and Stacey.

Season 3: This was the best season, both in ratings and because I said so. It had far and away the best season premiere (SPOILER!: House is running to work with help from experimental leg treatmentS) and the most compelling season finale (SPOILER!: His team members quit/get fired/quit). It had the best recurring character and mid-season story arch with Detective Tritter (David Morse) who brings the law down on House for his shady Vicodin prescriptions. And it simply had the best episodes in spades.

Best Episode: "Half Wit"
Dave Mathews guest-stars as a piano genius that can't button his own shirt without help from his dad--Kurtwood Smith of That 70s Show. Eventually they have to choose between a risky hemispherectomy, which may render him capable of getting a job and maybe even living on his own but no more concertos--or keeping things the way they are--glorious but severely handicapped.

Season 4: This is when most shows really start to struggle and would benefit from a finale. However, House got two things right: (1) They canned the original team. Love them as we did, no show can survive with the exact same dynamic for four straight years. (2) This may or may not have been a lucky coincidence with the writers' strike of 07/08, but House utilized reality TV-style weekly elimination of a large group, and spent almost the entire season picking the future team. This was a gimmicky move but the casting was good and the swirl of visiting actors carried this short season through the show's transition.

Best Episode: "Games"
House tells the group that whichever mini-team properly diagnoses a nihilist punk guitarist will win fellowship. Amber ("Cut Throat Bitch") reveals herself as a more dynamic character than just fast-paced overachiever, and the new team is established (including Kal Penn and Olivia Wilde).

Season 5: The original team is hanging out in various capacities around the hospital — occasionally showing up as House-psychology guides for the young team — and House hires a private investigator (Michael Weston) to spy on ... well, everybody. House starts the season on the rocks with Wilson after the death of (SPOILER!) Wilson's girlfriend, and ends the season with a loose grip on reality and in need (SPOILER!) of psychiatric hospitalization.

Best Episode: "The Social Contract"
A patient loses his ability to tell "little white lies" and, needless to say, his lack of verbal filtration elicits an episode stacked with Housian waxation on modern culture.

Season 6: We get House-centric and watch his wellness arch as he completes psychological treatment and icking-kicking. I found this season somewhat less interesting because it's mostly about House (a character we've already spent a tremendous amount of time with). But I have to say, the tail end of the season gets pretty jacked up.

Best Episode: "Help Me"
A nearby disastrous building forces House to drop the "anti" from his hero and attempt to save a trapped woman who is pinned down under rubble. When she dies, he spazzes out and runs to the last double-secret Vicodin stash about to crack, except Cuddy shows up and they fall in love. Is it real or is he having a psychotic relapse? We'll find out soon enough!

Season 7: In progress! I never watch House on TV, I wait until the season is over and watch the entire season binge-style. And I really can't wait for this season to be over, so NO SPOILERS in the comments, please!

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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