Watching Sitcoms

Well, if you’ve seen tonight’s episode of House, and you’re a fan, then you are probably either upset or angry right now. I’m leaning more towards upset right now, but I may hit angry later.

First of all, let me say that although I used to really, really love House , I haven’t been as happy with the show for the past couple of seasons. I loved the original trio of docs, Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), Chase (Jesse Spencer) and Foreman (Omar Epps). When they moved on and were replaced with the cast of dozens, which were slowly whittled down to a different three, I wasn’t happy. I never really came to like the new group, Taub (Peter Jacobson), Thirteen (Olivia Wilde), and Kutner (Kal Penn). Time and again, throughout all the episodes, I found myself missing the relationships and interactions between House (Hugh Laurie) and the first group. Then they brought back Foreman (admittedly, my least favorite of the original three) and while it was a little like coming home, it wasn’t enough. Sure, they put Chase and Cameron in a relationship and they each had occasional cameo appearances in nearly every ep (maybe it was every ep, but it didn’t feel like it). That was nice, but it wasn’t enough. It was like giving you a taste of something amazing and then snatching it away again, leaving you sad and hungry for more.

I kept waiting for something to happen, for the show to get really good again, but it never happened. The only bright spot in the “new” show was Kutner. He was the only one I actually liked.

Then they delivered tonight’s episode. It was all built up like the most amazing, unbelievable thing, and instead, they start the episode with Kutner’s death - his suicide - without any build up at all. The secondary story of a husband and wife both dying together had completely unsympathetic characters and somehow fell flat for me. Maybe I was just too confused and upset about Kutner’s apparent suicide to really connect with the other storyline. But I don’t think so. The episode ended and I just felt empty and unclean somehow.

Honestly, I think this might have been the straw (you know, the camel’s back breaking straw). There are three more episodes of House this season, and I’m not even sure I want to bother watching them. I’d like to think that maybe there is something else going on here, maybe somehow the show is going to get really good again. But I’ve been hoping and waiting for that to happen for a couple of years now. I may be a delusional optimist, but I’m afraid I’m not that delusional.

Fox has done a lot of unconscionable things to shows I’ve loved in the past, but this might actually be the worst.

I’m editing this post to add a link to Ausiello’s exclusive interviews with Kal Penn and executive producers David Shore and Katie Jacobson at ew.com. While this explains a little of why what happened happened, it still doesn’t make me any happier. I understand that they have to do what they think will make the show exciting and move their story along, but I just feel like they’ve changed the show so much over the past couple of years that they’ve killed off most of what made it interesting and what made me want to watch.