Anatomy of a Medical Drama: House, MD
This post is part of a series on the Anatomy of a Medical Drama.
The first thing to know about House, MD is that Dr. Gregory House is One Cranky Jerk.
The second thing to know about House, MD is that it isn’t a medical drama.
Oh, sure, it pretends to be. We get all the furniture of a medical drama: the dying patients, the worried family members, the gruff attending physician, the compassionate and sensitive younger doctors. We get death and we get life and we get medical miracles.
But that’s not the true genre of House.
House is a detective show. In fact, it’s a medical adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes.
Instead of a doctor, I want you to consider Greg House to be a detective. (Even the name House is supposed to get you to think of Holmes.) He’s arrogant, he’s rude, he’s problematic — and he’s brilliant.
Instead of a disease, I want you to consider whatever improbable virus, condition, or disease to be a criminal, a devious mastermind out to do harm. The symptoms, the actual disease process, are thus its crimes, and the patient is its victim. The loving family members are witnesses to the crime with valuable information for our detective, while the junior doctors, House’s intrepid fellows, are the junior detectives.
Lisa Cuddy, the hospital’s chief administrator, plays the role of obstructor and leader. She’s the less-than-brilliant chief who’s supposed to see things done the “right” way. She is the Lestrade to House’s Holmes; she’s there to get in his way.
And what would a Sherlock Holmes be without a Watson, or in this case, a Wilson? A best friend who enables and supports our main character not because he doesn’t see his flaws, but because he loves him in spite of them?
House, my friends, is a crime drama.
House, our brave detective, … [Tumblr Mobile: Read More Here.]
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