Frank wasn't as prickish as House is, though. And he didn't balk at doing what he was hired to do.

I'm not saying people shouldn't be unpleasant (okay, they shouldn't, but they are, and I'm not allowed to hit them for it, I accept). But some characters transcend the boundaries of what I consider reasonable and are misanthropic prima donnas that demand different rules apply to them because they're so damned marvellous.

Makes me itch.

Whooo! Most people are predicting some form of minority government, so we could be doing this again next year.

Ahhh, the joys of a 4+ party system.

Sue, Hope you are feeling bettah!

I really appreciate that they aren't sweetening House up. I would slap a man into next week for reading my medical records, and I think his would-be sweetie just wrote him off her list forever. Wilson's appalled, the plan backfired, and he's left with a rat.

On the other hand, the rat subplot made NO sense. Who ever heard of a house with only one rat?

I think the sweet girl doctor whose name I'm blanking on has no chance with House ever. He likes people who don't cave when he pressures them. He wants a good fight. He thinks wossname is a marshmallow, and he has only contempt for people he can steamroller. (He has contempt for everybody, but he has more contempt for patsies.)

But some characters transcend the boundaries of what I consider reasonable and are misanthropic prima donnas that demand different rules apply to them because they're so damned marvellous.

But that's what I like about the show. Everybody thinks House is a prick, and he is paying for it. As Cuddy once said, she's the only hospital that will hire him because he's such a jerk.

But some characters transcend the boundaries of what I consider reasonable and are misanthropic prima donnas that demand different rules apply to them because they're so damned marvellous.

This is funny to me because, the roommate-who-couldn't-stand-me that I talked about yesterday? That's how I read her behavior to pretty much everybody (I'm saying "read her behavior" because I'm sure this wasn't what she meant to radiate, it's just how it looked to my seeing-a-different-wavelength eyes), and that was what mostly disturbed me about her. In a real-life sense, not of a fictional character, so it wasn't that pronounced, but still.

So I guess I'm agreeing with ita.

Betsy -- you need some whitefonting up there.

I haven't watched the last few episodes, but he was tolerated way more than I was comfortable with in the season+ that I watched. Recent development aside, working at the only hospital you seem to want to work at (which has the closest things which you can call friends (yeah, that's not English)) and finally having to do clinic hours (which you dance around and abuse people for anyway) doesn't seem the hugest loss.

Unemployed or forced to follow everyone else's rules -- that'd be a fun time for me to watch.

As my math-free understanding of entropy goes, it's not strictly the amount of disorder always increasing so much as the amount of available energy in a closed system always decreasing. You can temporarily increase the amount of order in a specific system (object, what have you) by moving things around and reorganizing, but the process of doing so involves expending energy and having some of that bleed away as useless random heat.

Sue, Hope you are feeling bettah!

I am better just thinking about the fact that I am not at work! Even if I have evil CONTAGION!

I think that House would be unwatchable if it wasn't for Laurie's acting. The plots are generally formulaic, the science is dubious and the medicine moreso. The dialogue often shines, but I think even that would clunk with lesser actors. (And I don't know if the Cottages have the chops.) Yet still, I love it.

sorry, ita. My brain, she is still in last week.

Recent development aside, working at the only hospital you seem to want to work at

Not true. He's been fired from several hospitals, and Cuddy is the only chief of staff who would hire him. It's pretty clear that if he loses this job, it will be a long cold wait before he finds another.

And Cuddy keeps him because, as he pointed out to her, she wants to believe that the universe can be improved, she wants to believe that people can be saved.

They've done a good job of setting up in-show why he is tolerated. He's one of the best diagnosticians going (witness how he solves everything at the 50-minute mark *g*), Cuddy has emotional reasons for keeping him on, so he has a job.

Laurie is brilliant, and the only reason I've watched as much as I have. But in those moments where I remember my time is finite (and that I can't stop entropy), he goes by the wayside.