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Link Time!

BuzzSugar — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:33:30 -0700

Which of the latest New Moon posters is the hottest? - PopSugar
Michelle Obama heads to Sesame Street - The Wrap
5 reasons to keep watching The Hills - TV.com
Olivia Wilde and Jonathan Tucker have joined the Russell Crowe thriller The Next Three Days - Coming Soon
Thom Yorke's putting together a brand new band during his hiatus from Radiohead - Stereogum
Go behind the scenes of Where The Wild Things Are - Cinematical
Going forward, TLC is dropping Jon's name, calling the reality show Kate Plus Eight - LilSugar
Survivor creator Mark Burnett gets real for a new CBS drama - TV Squad

House Rundown: Episode 22, "House Divided"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:15:00 -0700

Back when Amber was competing for a job as one of House's fellows, I sometimes thought of her as House's perfect counterpart - his mirror image. Well, I didn't mean it literally! But in this week's House, Amber is essentially haunting our cranky doctor, showing up as a hallucination and speaking his thoughts. What does it all mean? Help me figure it out when you read more.

Everywhere House turns these days, Amber is there. He assumes it's just an effect of insomnia: he hasn't been sleeping much since Kutner died. But as we see at the end of the episode, even a well-rested House still sees Amber. She's in his brain, in his thoughts. And for all her wry smiles and clever banter, she's kind of an evil little friend, isn't she?

Had this been anyone but Amber, I probably would have rolled my eyes and assumed that Grey's Anatomy had forever ruined any plotline involving the return of a dead character. But I absolutely love watching Anne Dudek and Hugh Laurie play off each other. It's this great mix of flirting and fighting, and it kept me laughing even as House sets up Chase to go into allergic shock at the bachelor party. Whatever part of House's brain Amber's inhabiting is clearly the part that enjoys scheming; House even looks a little shocked when he realizes he knew about Chase's strawberry allergy. I loved the way Amber calls out House's thoughts in Wilson's office, urging him to knock over a pencil cup so he could get a clean shot at the file they were reading. Is this what it's like inside House's head all the time?

Between Amber's appearance and the story of the deaf teenager, this could have easily been a very serious episode. (And speaking of the teenager, his story is one of the few medical stories in House recently that's truly held my attention. Everything about it seemed to work well, from the mom's conflicted reaction about the cochlear implant to the sweet interactions between the boy and his girlfriend.) But I was surprised at how many times I laughed. I loved House striding down the hall with his ridiculous old boom box and Kanye shades; I loved the idea of throwing the bachelor party at Wilson's place so he couldn't escape it. (Might I suggest to Wilson that if he wants to get away from House's over-the-top bachelor parties, he marry a woman he won't divorce?) I especially loved Taub awkwardly grinding with a couple of the "dancers" at the party.

But what happens now? Amber's still there, and House knows she can do bad things - or that his brain wants him to do bad things, though I imagine Amber makes them even more enticing. Whatever comes next, I feel more invested in House than I have since the last time Amber showed up. What about you?

Some other thoughts:

Foreman's never been my favorite, but it's still nice to see him solve a case.
That's not the only great Foreman moment: He and Thirteen get some of the best stuff in this episode. I love their stripper research - and it doesn't surprise me that Foreman would pay $50 to watch his bisexual girlfriend do a body shot.
Even at his worst, would House really try to kill Chase just to prevent someone else's happiness?
I'm also not convinced that Chase would really give a patient a cochlear implant on only House's orders with no paperwork to support it. You know how much he lies!
Love Cuddy trying to sober up all the fellows so they can go solve their case (and sending them off with breath mints, to boot).

So, what's Amber doing in House's brain? And what will it take to get her out?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 20, "Simple Explanation"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:30:56 -0700

In this age of spoilers, I'm always impressed when a TV show manages to pull off something shocking. So kudos to House for keeping a secret; that made what happened in Monday's episode mean even more. To say more would risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it, so if you're ready to chat, just read more.

If you'd asked me which House character would be most likely to commit suicide, I never would have said Kutner. Taub, sure. Foreman? Wouldn't have been surprised. Thirteen? Definitely. Even Wilson and Cuddy have gone through things this season that could drive them to the edge. But Kutner? He's the goofy one, the Guiness Book of Records crawling champ, and the surprisingly good doctor who - in his last act on House's team - let Taub take credit for one of his discoveries. And maybe that's why it's so interesting for him to commit suicide: There is no simple explanation. House, whose entire idea of himself is built around solving mysteries, can't crack this one.

As he tries to figure it out, House does some truly terrible things. Telling Kutner's parents it's their fault? That's awful, and even though he does look a little shamed when he realizes how far over the line he's gone, that's not a thing you take back. He's ruthless in his investigation, breaking into Kutner's apartment multiple times to search for clues (to the shock of Wilson, though I don't really know why: House's primary motivation is never kindness). And in the end, there's nothing - no outward signs of pain, no diary. House even believes for a while that Kutner must have been murdered; he can come up with a better explanation for that than for why Kutner would take his own life.

Watching the rest of the doctors deal with Kutner's death reveals a few interesting things: One, Foreman doesn't know how to get and give support in a time of crisis. He's used to dealing with things alone, so he rejects Thirteen at first - but finally steps forward at the funeral to take her hand. Two, Taub would rather wait with his dying patient than mourn the death of his friend. But this episode also made me sad that Kutner (and Kal Penn) didn't get to do more on the show. The fact that Kutner is a blank slate may be why his suicide is intriguing, but it made me feel much less than Amber's death did last year, simply because Amber was such a rich character and Kutner (other than a few key touches, like his childhood trauma or his geekiness) was always on the periphery. I'm sorry to see Kutner go, and I wish we could have known him better first.

Some other thoughts:

It's impossible to separate what happened from why, so here's the quick answer: Kal Penn asked to leave the show to go work in President Obama's White House. ~~I'll be talking to him, and to House producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs, later today, so leave any questions in the comments.~~ Update: Here's more on that.
The patient-of-the-week story barely held my attention given everything else that was going on, but I will say there seemed to be some pretty significant ethical lapses going on re: potentially letting patients die rather than treating them appropriately. An intentional side effect of Kutner's suicide? Or did the writers figure we wouldn't spend a lot of time picking apart the case when there was so much else going on?
So who's looked at Fox's Kutner memorial yet? It's a very web-savvy thing to put together, but at the same time, something feels very eerie about it. And I wish there were some info about prevention of actual suicides (which I'm glad they included at the end of the show).
Everything in this episode was so dark! Especially at the beginning, that upped the eerie feeling; the first shot back in the hospital after Foreman and Thirteen find Kutner felt particularly ghastly.

Were you shocked by Kutner's death? Sad to see him go? Wondering what this will mean for the rest of the season?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 16, "The Softer Side"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:30:23 -0800

Only when you're dealing with someone as crotchety as Dr. Gregory House could a good mood be a sign of major trouble. But that's exactly what happens on this week's House, when House's heart suddenly grows a couple of sizes and he starts being . . . well, I wouldn't go so far as "nice," but maybe "less mean." Finding out why House is acting civilized becomes a major focus of the team, which is otherwise working on a medical case that's reminiscent of last week's Private Practice. Ready to chat about it? Just read more.

It's interesting to see the way a small change in House's behavior affects his relationships with his colleagues. Kutner is the first to spot it after House appeases his patient's parents; he tells Wilson, who thinks House must have had sex with Cuddy; when the answer to that is no, he realizes that House must be keeping something from both of them. Each person tries to come up with a rational reason House is acting polite - "Maybe he had a great cup of coffee. Or a tremendous bowel movement." - but when House stops breathing at work, they know there's a real problem. So, of course, they make the logical leap to House being on heroin. Heh. At least they got the drug part right: House has switched to methadone, which makes his pain go away so completely that he tosses his cane into a dumpster in a particularly amusing "Tiny Tim can walk!" scene. It's so good that when Cuddy tells him it's the drug or the job, he chooses the job. Of course, she'd rather have him ("if he buys a new pair of shoes, should we let him smoke crack?"), so she draws up a list of rules - but it doesn't matter. In the end, House realizes he needs his bad mood to be an effective doctor.

About the case: Take last week's Private Practice, age the kid a few years, and you have this week's House patient, born part male and part female. His mom's been pushing him to be all boy, and the kid has been kept in the dark - until Thirteen finds a suicidal-sounding poem and tells him he should ask his parents what his "vitamins" really are. Yeah, turns out that poem was part of an assignment to write like Sylvia Plath (which cannot possibly exist, or every parent in that school would think their kids were suicidal), and Thirteen has just destroyed the kid's relationship with his parents unnecessarily. It's interesting to watch her with this kid: She sees connections to the way her father handled the possibility of her having Huntington's, and she clearly thinks she's doing the right thing by intervening.

Meanwhile, Thirteen and Foreman's attempts to keep their relationship a secret aren't going so well, but I confess: I'm bored again.Kutner and Taub badmouthing one of them to the other made me chuckle, though, with Taub doing his robotic Foreman face face and Kutner telling Foreman at least he won't be dumped for a girl.

Some other thoughts:

Signs that House is happy: He shaves, he wears a tie (he owns a tie!), he doesn't make a patient in pain be more in pain.
House to Cuddy after Foreman's nipple-twist shocks House's heart back to normal: "I think my penis stopped breathing. Do you know CPR?"
I cracked up at Wilson trying to have a phone call about House while House was right there: "Well, that would certainly explain the inappropriate responses."

So: Do you prefer mean Vicodin House or slightly less mean methadone House? Are you still on board with, er, Foreteen? Sound off below.

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 15, "Unfaithful"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:35:28 -0800

This week's episode of House deals with one of the show's old favorite themes: faith in religion/the unknown vs. a steadfast belief in science and clinical evidence. House and the team treat a young priest who shows up in the ER with a variety of symptoms - including a hallucination of Jesus. Meanwhile, House gives Foreman and Thirteen an ultimatum: Break up, or quit their jobs. And there's a whole lot of passive-aggressive posturing around whether House should go to the naming ceremony for Cuddy's daughter. To talk about it, just read more.

The religion vs. science seems like one we've seen pretty frequently on House in the past, and it never really seems to go anywhere. That's not entirely surprising: House is pretty set in his science-first ways; it's what makes him such a brilliant doctor. But it was interesting to see him make a little concession in this episode - not to religion, per se, but to the idea that sometimes, coincidences do happen. The most unbelievable part of Daniel's symptoms - the levitating Jesus - turned out to have the most rational explanation: scotch. It wasn't medical at all, which House eventually accepted; it just happened at the same time an actual disease was manifesting itself.

Meanwhile, House gives Thirteen and Foreman a "split or quit" ultimatum: He doesn't want them working together and impairing each other's good judgment. Foreman quits first, but it's not like we've never seen that before, and now he's even more dependent on House: Cuddy doesn't want to write him a recommendation letter based on the fact that he should have been fired for monkeying with the clinical trial. So Thirteen goes and gets a job offer, which just makes Foreman whiny because he said he'd handle it and he doesn't want to be beholden to House. Of course, like so many of House's little games, it's not about what actually happens but the appearance of it: It doesn't look like Foreman's chased after Thirteen, but at the end of the episode he's there waiting for her.

And speaking of games, the back-and-forth between House, Cuddy, and Wilson over whether House should attend the naming ceremony is just short of epic. She invites him so he'll decline; he realizes that's what she wants, so he accepts; she yells at Wilson for making House want to go; Wilson makes the ceremony sound miserable so House won't show, etc. etc. etc. Not till the end does someone finally say something honest, when Cameron figures out that Cuddy really does want House to be there, for better or worse. Too bad he's spending the night playing piano instead.

Some other thoughts:

Taub's moralizing can wear on my last nerve, so it figures he'd take on the case of the possibly molested youth group member all by himself. I'm not sure what to make of the moment with the kid's apology; do you think Taub feels that what he did was wrong in any way?
That fallen-off toe was just nasty.
Chase and Cameron's banter about office romances being a very bad idea made me chuckle a little. I wonder if it's hard for them to play those scenes given their real-life ups and downs.
House to Cuddy: "Hey! I was just talking about you. Not you specifically. Whores and hypocrisy."

Are you tired of House taking on issues of religion, or does that story still work for you? Do you buy the Thirteen/Foreman relationship any more now? And do you think it's time for some more movement on the House/Cuddy flirtation?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 14, "The Greater Good"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:30:00 -0800

House episode No. 100 is all about happiness: who has it, who wants it, who will probably never find it. It starts with a patient of the week who's had some controversial revelations about what makes life worth living and ends with Wilson finding a way to let go of his pain. In the middle, there's a lot of drama with Foreman and Thirteen, so to chat about the hundredth House, just read more.

I'll get to Foreman and Thirteen in a second, because the story I liked most is that of Wilson and the patient of the week, a cancer researcher who was seemingly one experiment away from a cure when she had a health scare and decided to leave the profession in favor of activities that made her feel free and happy. Many of the doctors can't understand this (Kutner suggests that not helping people when you have the skills to do so is selfish), but Wilson has the hardest time of all. That's partially because, as an oncologist, he treats people this cure could help - but mostly because he's stuck. He's unfulfilled without Amber. He's living among her things, with books still open to the last page she read and coffee cups stained with her lipstick. So yeah, I'm a sap, but I'll admit it: Watching him wash off that mug is moving, darnit.

Meanwhile, the saga of Foreman and Thirteen reaches its fever pitch when Thirteen starts to suffer side effects from the switch to the new drug - serious ones, like a brain tumor that causes her to lose her sight. Foreman's torn: Does he admit he messed with the trial to get advice on how to treat Thirteen, or does he stay quiet and let the woman he may (or may not) love suffer? House actually covers for Foreman a lot, which is interesting to see; they've had their differences, but House doesn't want to see one of his ducklings go astray. Ultimately, the situation resolves itself: Thirteen gets her sight back, and Foreman doesn't lose his medical license. I am a little surprised that Thirteen takes Foreman back; she seems genuinely freaked out when she realizes a man she'd been dating for two weeks would risk his career for her. But I guess near-death experiences cause all sorts of revelations.

This episode also shows us Cuddy at her most malicious. She's out to physically hurt House, making him climb stairs and walk cane-free (or, rather, using the janitor's bucket). She blames him for taking her away from her daughter right when she was starting to feel a connection - but in the end, he points out that she's making a choice to work with him. She could leave and let a new boss take over. But for whatever reason, she won't go.

Some other thoughts:

I wonder if Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer cared that Cameron and Chase were nowhere to be found.
It's oddly fitting that an off-color comment about Cuddy's "Aunt Flo" leads House to a diagnosis.
I find interludes with Taub and his wife a little distracting, because it's been so long since I last had to care about his personal life.
My favorite line of the night is what Cuddy says to House when he comes in with the janitor's bucket: "I don't remember demoting you."
My second-favorite: "It involves House, Foreman, and Thirteen, which means it's either dumb, dangerous, or tragic."
House calls his cane "little Little Greg."

Were you satisfied with this as episode No. 100? And if you were House's boss, would you have quit by now?

Photos courtesy of Fox

TV Tonight: House Turns 100

BuzzSugar — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:15:37 -0800

At TCA last month, House creator/executive producer David Shore wasn't interested in making any fuss over his show filming its 100th episode. "It just annoyed me that everybody was getting excited about the 100th episode," he said, adding that it seemed like kind of an arbitrary time to care. "If we had nine fingers, would episode 81 be the big one?"

So we shouldn't expect House to blow out a bunch of birthday candles tonight; the show isn't going out of its way to make a Very Special Episode for No. 100. But that's not saying it won't be good: Last week's episode set up some interesting stuff, especially with Foreman and Thirteen, and a lot of that should be coming to a head tonight.

In the episode, called "The Greater Good," the case of a woman who gave up a high-powered career to pursue personal satisfaction makes House's team question their own happiness and life choices. Thirteen starts to suffer some side effects from Foreman's clinical trial switcharoo, and Cuddy decides to torture House even more than usual.

To check out a couple of clips from tonight's 100th episode, just read more.

Photo courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 13, "Big Baby"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Hey, it's Cameron! Fresh off her job offer last week, the long-neglected Allison Cameron gets some time in the spotlight on this week's episode of House, filling in for Cuddy while she stays home to be a mother to Rachel - a process that's not going all that well, as it happens. Meanwhile, Foreman considers stepping over a major ethical line and switching Thirteen's medicine in the clinical trial. To chat about it, just read more.

As good as it was to see Cameron back - as the boss of House, no less - it was a situation that seemed doomed from the start. She knows House too well, and House knows her too well; the temptation to play games with each other, asking for and approving inappropriate things, is just too high when lives are at stake. Cameron realizes this in the end and tells Cuddy she won't be going back to the job, but in some ways, that's a shame: Cameron's instincts actually are right in this episode, and House manages to only perform procedures that help him get to a diagnosis. (Sure, one of them meant lopping off the patient's skull for a few particularly gruesome moments - but who's counting?) In the end, though, Cuddy's a better gatekeeper, and so it's back to babysitting House for her.

At least her time at home seems to have paid off: Stressed and sullen for much of the episode, she's not feeling like much of a mother to Rachel. In fact, she's not feeling much of anything at all; she feels lost without work and with this new, little person who can't communicate with her. House's words of comfort are typically, well, House-ian: He suggests that since she hasn't formally adopted the baby yet, she just return it, like an unwanted video game. Wilson, on the other hand, tries to push Cuddy to recognize her mothering instincts, even making up a long story about how he took a photo of Rachel to one of those digital aging places to see what she'd look like when she was 18. (I was pretty relieved to find out he'd actually just brought over the same picture that came with the frame.) In the end, in the midst of a particularly difficult moment of balancing work and family, Cuddy and Rachel finally connect - just in time for her to puke all over House, a move that I'm sure made her mother very proud.

Foreman, meanwhile, is ready to go off the ethical deep end, contemplating switching Thirteen from the placebo to the active drug in the clinical trial. Everyone thinks he's nuts, of course, from Chase to House himself, who actually gives a surprisingly well-reasoned explanation for why it's the wrong move. Until, that is, House adds a caveat: If Foreman loves Thirteen, he'll do stupid things. So I guess he loves her - fatal disease, sudden desire for children, and all - because we see him switching the drugs. I can't imagine he won't be found out almost immediately, so here's the question: Is there any way he's not insane?

Some other thoughts:

For some reason it's weird for me to hear Foreman call Thirteen "Thirteen." For some reason, I figured that now that they're in a relationship, he'd use her actual name. (Granted, he did call her "Remy" to House, who of course pretended to have no idea what he was talking about.)
House's response to Thirteen's suggestion that he judge their ideas on their merits: "Oh, you really don't want that."
The diagnosis in this episode is pretty fascinating: There's a way you can be physically unannoyed by annoying things?
I'm a little surprised Kutner's the one to call Cuddy. I thought Taub was supposed to be the moral center of this team.

Your thoughts? And ready for the big 100th episode next week?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 12, "Painless"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:30:06 -0800

In this year's first new episode of House, House takes a case that hits a little close to home: The team treats a man with chronic pain who had tried to kill himself to get away from it. Meanwhile, Cuddy struggles to balance her job, her new duties as a foster mother, and her wrangling of House, and Thirteen and Foreman get all awkward with each other following their big kiss. To chat about it all, just read more.

Even though House's cane and Vicodin are a constant presence on House, it's still somehow easy to forget that House is actually in real, constant pain that nobody's ever been able to solve. He's functional, he's brilliant, and he never complains - other than the occasional sarcastic comment about being a cripple. So it was interesting in this episode to get a glimpse of what life is really like for House - and it's not easy. Taking a bath is a horrible, painful experience; he needs so much help lowering himself down that he's snapped a pipe in his ceiling, ringing up a $2,200 plumbing bill.

So taking Jeff's case is a little like looking in a mirror. The major difference, of course, is that Jeff can't handle his pain, to the point that he'd leave his wife and child to get away from it. But it's true that House is a little more - well, "sensitive" is probably the wrong word. But he's a little more aware of what his patient is going through. Normally if House considered taking a patient off the medication that made him functional, I'd think he was just being nasty and uncaring; when he suggests taking Jeff off his painkillers, he actually knows how awful that might feel. Of course, at the end, House's pain persists while Jeff's is treatable. He's done what Cameron hoped for, "curing a guy who has even less to look forward to," but getting himself into the bathtub is still a nightmare.

Meanwhile, Cuddy's dealing with a mini domestic nightmare of her own. She's officially taken over as foster mother for the baby she named Rachel, and she looks like she's adapted well to being a mom. But to being a working mom? As the family inspector tells her, she's better than most foster moms he sees, ants in the living room and diapers in her briefcase notwithstanding. But that's not enough for Cuddy; she "passed by their meager standards" but failed by hers. And after talking with Cameron, she has a solution: It looks like Cameron will be taking over some of Cuddy's responsibilities from here on out.

Some other key moments:

Is Foreman monkeying with his clinical trial just so he can sleep with Thirteen? She doesn't want to get into a relationship because she cares about him and she knows what she'll be going through in a few years; Foreman doesn't want to give up. Switching the appointments seems pretty harmless, but now he knows Thirteen is on the placebo drub, and I can't imagine he'll be letting that stand.
Wilson showing up at Cuddy's place with a giant stuffed duck is pretty amazing.
Was there a giant, fancy water fountain-thing in PPH? Has it always been there? I was so distracted by it that I could barely pay attention to Taub's pain profile interviews.
Love this exchange: "You hang laundry in there?" "I'm about to hang a plumber in there."

Your thoughts? Can you still work House into your schedule now that it's on Mondays? Can you see Cameron rising to power? What is Foreman going to do? Discuss!

Photos courtesy of Fox

TV Tonight: House, Now On Mondays

BuzzSugar — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:00:47 -0800

Monday night was already crowded on my DVR, but apparently it wasn't enough just to juggle Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, and Heroes - among others. Nope, tonight brings a new entry to the Monday night race, and it's a doozy: House.

On the bright side, the move to Mondays gets House out of the way of American Idol, which usually knocks it off the air for a while each Winter. But will fans follow?

If they do, it sounds like they have some meaty things awaiting in the second half of the season, including more of the budding potential romance between Foreman and Thirteen. "I'm wondering if part of [Foreman's] attraction to Thirteen is that his mother has Alzheimer's and there's nothing he can do about that," Omar Epps said last week at TCA. "He wants her to have what his mother doesn't." (Beyond any deep psychological explanations, there's another reason Epps enjoys that relationship: "It's great being in those scenes with Olivia [Wilde], because she's hot," he said.)

That relationship will continue growing on tonight's episode, which also finds Cuddy balancing the responsibilities of motherhood and work and House's team taking on a patient with chronic pain that resembles House's own symptoms. To watch a preview for January's episodes, just read more.