So... like a madman, for the past two weeks, I've been watching seasons 3 to 8 of House MD. I am just so relieved to finally be fucking finished. Most of it was on 1.5x speed, which I think may have fucked over my brain because watching on normal speed genuinely feels like slow mo.
Anyway, clearly I enjoyed the show. Everyone is excellently cast, the medical mysteries are genuinely fun, and frankly, after four years of streaming service drivel, I had completely forgotten how good TV could actually be.
That's not to say I don't have my nitpicks. A consequence of shotgunning episodes like House pops Vicodin pills is that the pattern gets obvious really quickly. Patient comes in, the residence is visited, a red herring is discovered, a wrong treatment is ordered, another diagnosis is made, another wrong treatment, then House puts it all together at the end. Every episode, for 22 episodes a season. It's a credit to the show that they kept things interesting for so long, but at the same time I got a little annoyed every time a wrong diagnosis was made. You already knew it was wrong, and yet the doctors are presenting it with such confidence. Really takes you out of the whole thing.
But like I said, the show reminded me that TV can be good. It's two decades old, and looks better than anything Disney+. The absolute creativity of certain episodes, to effort to make shots of the same people in the same room not so boring, and the general charisma of the cast takes this show to another level. You can just feel the passion the writers, actors, and staff put into the show.8 seasons of a show is no mean feat