Whilst Cuddy is trying to persuade Wilson to stay, those complicated cases keep on coming and it's up to House and his three little helpers in the department of diagnostic medicine at Princeton Plainsboro to try and work out exactly what is wrong with the patient, chasing every blind alley and bending every rule in the hope that they can cure them rather than kill them.
Rather than tell Wilson how sorry he is and that he wishes he wouldn't leave, all House does is tell Wilson is that he's an idiot and is just going through clichéd bereavement behaviour. Picking up where the previous season ended, House still hasn't approached his best friend, Wilson, who is mourning after his girlfriend died and has decided that the best thing to do is quit and get a change of scenery. House being House, he appointed all forty of them before referencing all manner of game shows and whittling the group down to three: Taub, Kutner and Thirteen (names don't really matter to him). For the following season, House tried to prove that he could manage without a team but was ordered by Cuddy to hire a new one, giving him a pile of applications. Season three finished with House's team ceasing to exist, with Foreman and Cameron resigning and Chase being fired.
#HOUSE MD SEASON 5 DVD COVER FULL#
* I bring a water cooler wherever I go so I may discuss things around it.After the frankly silly fourth season which was badly hit by the writers' strike and saw the whole season disrupted and become disjointed and unsatisfying, we're back to a full 24 episode season. Extras include commentaries with Cast and Crew, 5 featurettes (New Beginnings, Meet the Wirters, The Visual Effects House, Anatomy of a Crash, My Favorite Season 4 Episode), a gag reel, and a Season 5 Sneak Peek. Each of the episodes are presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround tracks. – Season 4" contains four discs containing sixteen episodes with an MSRP of $59.98 (which is the same MSRP as the other three seasons despite having eight fewer episodes).
Even if every other aspect of the show rubs you the wrong way (and it really shouldn't), "House" is still worth watching for his performance. Of course, at the end, it's really all Laurie. Returning cast members like Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) also continue to grow and take their characters to new places. The new cast members are a joy, from familiar face Kal Penn to breakthrough performances from Olivia Wilde as the enigmatic "Thirteen" and Anne Dudek as "Cutthroat Bitch". House may not like people, but he still needs to work with them and choosing the right colleagues is the only way he can fill that magic whiteboard of his and solve the mystery. While it's fun to watch House be snarky, wry, and sometimes downright cruel, it's nice to see him let loose some actual wisdom and that in order to be on his team, it's not how much you know that's important (since he knows everything): it's your character. Rather than stuck in his office, we spend a lot of time in an auditorium and it calls to mind one of the series' best episodes, "Three Stories". It automatically adds suspense beyond just the cases which continue to be formulaically paced but still surprising when it comes to the final diagnosis. Viewers will find characters they want to see as permanent additions and root for them as they would for any contestant. Gregory House (the always-brilliant Hugh Laurie continuing to entertain and amaze with his iconic portrayal of the misanthropic doc) must wade through a pool of applicants and he does it in the way he (and us) will find most entertaining: rounds of eliminations.
Enter a wonderful parody of reality shows and the re-introduction of one of the show's more brilliant concepts: House as Teacher. After a disappointing third season which wasted an antagonist and backed itself into a corner, the show made a much-needed shake-up. The word around the water cooler* is that the fourth season of "House, M.D." is that it was a weak effort.