bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
bironic ([personal profile] bironic) wrote2007-02-06 10:14 pm

House 3.13 (or 3.12, depending on airing order): "Needle in a Haystack"

Bo-ring. Lots of dead time, boring dialogue, uninteresting developments, lack of Wilson.

1. House’s three-mile-long nickname making fun of Wilson’s obscure pop culture references, and Wilson buckling his belt. That makes, what, three times now that we’ve had gratuitous Wilson-at-urinal scenes? Wait, no, two. Feels like three for some reason. Someone set me straight here.

2. House doesn’t usually do it for me, but he looked darn cute in that knit hat and one other time when he was looking up from that chair, maybe around the nurse’s station with the files. Some kind conjunction of hair and eyes and expression and lighting.

3. Exploding spleen!

4. Dr. What’s-her-face leering over Cuddy’s C-cups. Heh. She had House for a second there.

5. Uh... There must have been a fifth thing. Oh--Chase trying to pull a House when he walked in on the couple having sex at the “patient’s” home, managing some quick observation but balking when the woman insulted him. Almost, kid. By the time your fellowship’s over you may be able to swing it.

Anyone else spend the first few minutes of the show clutching their hair and muttering through clenched teeth, “Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor. Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor”?

Nice to see House sacrificing his personal image for the sake of the patient again, baiting the parents and letting them pour out their wrath on him so Foreman and Chase could do the colonoscopy. Bit of the old “Socratic Method” House there. Looks like they’ll be making up for that next week.

Liked the tic-tac-toe patient diagram. And the kid--though not enough to make up for the played-for-laughs Romany extended family--with his interest in medicine, sacrifice for his family and keen insight into the three fellows being alone. (Everyone together now: Awwww, they’re all alone.) I kept thinking the patient’s father got lost on his way to the set of The Sopranos, and am still trying to figure out who the mother looked like, besides Ileana Douglas; one of the writers from Buffy, maybe.

Chase was eating again. For someone who’s got a problem with overweight people, he sure does snack on camera quite often.

In closing: Wilson in a scarf in the snow = yummy. Why didn’t House lean on him? Would have made up for RSL’s two-minute screen time. But no, House has to be all uber-self-sufficient.


Commentaries: elynittria ep-specific and series-at-this-point

[identity profile] elynittria.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
“Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor. Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor”?

Yes! I was all ready to call my review "Attack of the Mary Sue." She came very close.
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
She suuure did. When they first met in the lab, my chant changed to "Please don't snark back at him, please don't sn---aw, man."

[identity profile] elynittria.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
The only reason she didn't qualify as a Mary Sue was because she didn't have enough screen time. One more encounter and the label would have definitely fit.

Wilson in the snow definitely looked yummy. Oh, what I would have given to have House use him as his cane!

[identity profile] jdr1184.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
Or had House slip a little and have Wilson catch him. [sigh]
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:32 am (UTC)(link)
Mm, yeah. But right from the slushy setup we were (supposed to be) biting our nails waiting for House to slip or fall or tilt too far backwards or tumble down the stairs. Much more powerful writing to have had him remain steady the whole episode.

Although it would've been funny if he made it through all those antics and slippery floors and then someone else fell at the end.
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2007-02-07 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
He should totally have leaned on him. And Wilson could've looked all put out but wouldn't have shaken him off. And they would have limped off into the sunset parking lot.

Key factor was definitely screen time (followed by name), since she met most other criteria. She may have had more than Wilson, but the fact that the camera stayed away from her from the lab scene until the hallway encounter ~15 minutes later allowed the focus to shift elsewhere. It really could've been ugly, with the obsession.