'House': More extremities

So here's a question: What exactly constitutes a fireable offense at Princeton Plainsboro?  Well, now we can take "sticking a knife in an electrical outlet in order to have a near-death experience" off the list. Because that's what Dr. Gregory House did on last night's episode of "House," in a weird and obsessive attempt to prove there is no afterlife. (This from a man who underwent semi-successful medical treatment that came to him in a dream after being shot two seasons ago.) 

Also, "allowing a patient to die through negligence" can be struck, since he had one of the 10 applicants competing to be on his team dose a young man in a less-than-rigorous way -- anyone who's ever been in hospital knows that the nurses deliver the meds and stand there like grim death until they see you take it.  Anyone but this young doctor apparently.

House felt bad about the second offense, if not the first, though the only consequence of either was a gentle remonstration from Dr. Cuddy, who, we are hoping, has other things on her mind that will be resolved soon.  Otherwise, House might just have to burn the hospital down to get a little decent banter.

Every week, "House" tests the ascendancy of drama over common sense, and every week, at least thus far, drama wins.  The show's writers pepper the script with a barrage of symptoms, conditions, tests and treatments, creating a narcotic rue of medicine that, once ingested, allows the Avid Viewer to overlook the most ridiculous things -- all those same-day MRIs, for instance, or Dr. Wilson's strange lack of patients.  The knife in the electric socket may have been pushing it -- I'm pretty sure any sort of suicide attempt requires a visit to the psych ward.  At least that's what happens on "ER."

Fortunately, the rest of the show was so good that even exploratory electrocution gets a pass. House's need to see if there is an afterlife revealed a hope not usually seen in his crusty, cynical character, as did the fact that he paged the least likeable candidate to revive him -- House may have met his match in the cutthroat pixie (now upgraded to bitch).  She is just as cold and calculating as he is, and that would be interesting.

The 10 doctors, well, nine and one impostor, left vying for the team are becoming such good characters that the sight of House, bunsen burners ablaze, about to vote a bunch of them off the island struck fear into the viewers' hearts.  It seems clear the twins are going to go, also the boring white guy with no back story, leaving the plastic surgeon, the cutthroat bitch, the lovely doctor who flubbed the medication, the old guy, the Mormon and the mouthy young man played by Kai Penn who we love so much.  Wait, that's six, and the website says five will remain.  I hope the old guy goes because I really love the plastic surgeon and the old guy isn't even a doctor.

Not that a detail like that really matters at ol' Princeton Plainsboro.

-- Mary McNamara

(Photo courtesy Fox)