Special Episode 33: House, MD

 
 
Episode cover: Promotional photograph for House, MD featuring Wilson seated at his office desk, feet up, looking at House, seated on his bookshelves and looking upwards. White fan logo in top corner.

When Elizabeth mentioned beloved 2000s-era medical mystery network television show House, MD was having a fandom renaissance, Flourish proceeded to mainline the entire 177-episode run in a few weeks. Now, many months later, Elizabeth has caught up, and the time has come to discuss. Topics include House as a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, compulsory heterosexuality versus believable character writing, the show’s perspective on the American opioid crisis as it was unfolding, and, of course, the most romantic series finale of all time. 

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Show Notes

[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. And for this episode’s subtitle, “It’s never lupus,” we refer you to:

 
 

[00:02:22] House was, in fact, mostly a Tuesday night show, though it got demoted to Mondays in its final few seasons. It was syndicated on the USA Network, home to beautiful, beautiful marathon blocks of shows, the experience of which was decidedly not like binge-watching on a streamer. USA & TNT, we miss you. 🥲 

[00:05:41] That’s “Skin Deep” from season 2, and strangely, when we went looking for the name of this episode, we learned the official House YouTube channel puts up “clip” videos that are basically like half an episode lol:  

 
 

[00:13:24]

Animated gif from Elementary of Joan hugging Sherlock.

[00:25:36] Who among us wasn’t RSL-pilled at a tender age? 

Animated gif of the Carpe Diem scene from Dead Poets Society, with a focus on RSL's Neil smiling.

[00:26:03] Well, now we have fact-checked it, and apologies to Robert Sean Leonard, who was in fact 43 years old during the final season of House??

[00:31:06] 

Animated gif of Chase snapping and pointing

[00:39:55] Correction: Grey’s Anatomy in fact debuted in the same television season as House, but in the spring of 2005, as a mid-season replacement for Boston Legal. It is now on its 20th season (not that far behind Law & Order SVU’s 25!), which does prompt the thought experiment, “What if House was currently on its 20th season?”

[00:40:08] 

Animated gif of Darwin in X-Men First Class

[00:42:44] In the words of Ms. Electra herself… 

[00:52:13] As the tag says, “#remember when queerbaiting was done with a passion for the craft.” 

[01:02:22] Our outro music is “Don't trust the cloud” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

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