Saturday 24 March 2007

House Dissapointment



I loved the first series of the, award winning, medical drama House. I loved the irascible character played by Hugh Laurie and loved the medical accuracy of the complex diagnoses, arrived at by tortuous routes, just in the nick of time to the grateful - but unwelcome - thanks of relatives. On Thursday though, the scriptwriters let us down and treated us like idiots, here's why:
  • In a moment of inspiration House identified a case of scurvy on the basis that a young female patient had internal bleeding. He dashed into theatre where she was about to undergo unnecessary surgery. "Close her up." Shouts House, indicating that she was already 'open'. Why had the surgeons not noticed the fact that they could not stop her bleeding as the result of the scurvy, if she had had already had spontaneous internal bleeding?
  • In another miraculous moment, a patient who has been immobile and mute in a wheelchair for eight years is, again thanks to House's god-like intuition, given a large dose of Hydrocortisone which, with immediate effect, causes a resurfacing of consciousness. The grateful patient stands, admittedly with some difficulty, and hugs his family. Eight years! What muscles were left after eight years of muscle wasting? And, as if that wasn't bad enough, House mentioned to us, the gullible audience, that the patient had suffered significant muscle wasting.
Are we really that stupid? I for one will watch one more episode out of blind loyalty to the last series. If there are crass errors like this episode I'll abandon House.

That'll show them!

2 comments:

David Hodges said...

Serves you right, going to a TV doctor!

Crofty said...

I suppose I should have added, after last week's episode, that I have partially forgiven House MD and placed him on the 'at risk' register rather than sacked him outright.