House "Broken" (S06E01, OAD 9/21/09, Spoilers)

Agreed. I only watched 4 or 5 episodes last year. I got tired of his character. If they go back to same old same old, then I'll drop the show again.

 

Heh. Housebroken.

Haven't had a chance to watch it yet. This is the first season I've given House a SP. But I've seen enough episodes to know pretty much the back story so I won't be lost. Looking forward to it!

 

This show is AWESOME!

 

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Funny you say that, because even though it wasn't a medical diagnosis, I felt like the "magic" music box was just an extension of the same magic bullet formula they use in every other episode of House. How convenient was it that once the "superhero" was finally allowed to give the music box to the woman, they both were "cured" and all was right in the world?

 

Alan Sepinwall (the NJ Star-Ledger's extremely astute TV critic) said the writers had a "failure of nerve" toward the end of the story. I wonder if he was referring to House figuring out that the music box would cure both Mute Girl and Superhero Guy.

If House returns to his bad old ways within 2 episodes, I'm going to be unhappy because it'll mean that this episode was nothing more than a way for him to get the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama.

 

I was riveted by the episode and loved the character development. I was also waiting for the House epiphany moment and felt when he realized the guy was staring at the music box that the girl was staring at - that was the moment.

I thought maybe he would be finding something 'medical' with the way one of the patients was acting and cure them that way. Maybe by telling the piano woman to go home and check around quiet girls pantry to look for stuff that would cause her to have this physical reaction....but I like their solution better.

I sincerely hope his character does not go back to the way he was.

 

I'm a bit annoyed that this got wrapped up so quickly and neatly. We were led to believe that happened last season, but now I assume we just watched it for real. When the normal main title sequence never came, I thought maybe this would be a more prolonged visit to the mental hospital. Nope, all done with that storyline by the end of the episode. I don't know why the writers are apparently so eager to get back to the CBS Mystery of the Week when they've dragged out much less intriguing storylines to multi-episode arcs in the past. Maybe they thought it was too schmaltzy for "House?"

 

I REALLY liked this episode, and wished that the rehab would have gone on longer. I don't by that all of a sudden the dr. lets him go the next day. I was confused by Lydia... I thought at first early on in the episode, that she was a plant by the dr., then when he came back late at night and she was there I thought it was his imagination, because she was a visitor why would she have been there that late?

 

I love House but I felt like I was watching a remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

 

Nice to see Andre Braugher - hopefully he keeps this as a recurring role... though man, he has put on a bunch of weight since the last time I saw him...

 

Aside from Andre Braugher and Franke Potente having serious charisma in this episode, I thought it was complete and utter garbage, and one of the worst episodes of House ever aired. It was completely unrealistic, cliche-riddled, rarely funny, and just an overall mess. None of the emotions were earned and it was completely derivative nonsense. Terrible...

Not to say that the standard formula episodes are writing masterpieces, but at least they are usually funny and mildly interesting. The only possible redeeming quality of this episode is if Braugher has a recurring role in the future.

 

Were we watching the same show? The character of House's roommate got on my nerves. I don't like hyper personalities; they make me crazy. I loved that Wilson finally said no to House and meant it. Wasn't too crazy about the storyline with the married woman falling for House, but they had to put in the emotional break-through somehow.

All-in-all, I liked this episode. I liked House being an ass, and finally figuring out that it really doesn't work. And that it took his almost killing someone for him to get message that he's not god and he isn't always right. House's personality was so extreme that it makes sense that it took an extreme event to get through to him. And I think we all saw the music box thing happening. They'd built it up so much earlier in the episode that they couldn't let it ply through by the end.

 

House is always an ass, so it should hardly be a measure for the quality of an episode. His antics weren't all that amusing, unfortunately. There were a lot better ways for him to have his epiphany than to have a direct rip off of 32,098 other mental institution episodes/movies/books. This episode would have been better if it had been just Braugher and Laurie and no one else.

 

Part of me is still waiting for House to have this look on his face that tells us that he was still faking the whole recovery thing.

But it was kind of heart breaking...even though you could totally see it coming...when House took superhero guy to "fly" and then he ends up leaping off the garage. House was just standing their totally helpless as he watched.

All in all...I liked the episode and I think its a good start to what will hopefully be a very interesting season.

 

At least in the medical arena they have some justification for the quick recovery.
Rapid turn-arounds on serious mental illnesses are just not the norm and we saw far too many of them in this episode.

On the other hand some of them were handled quite well.

I hope this changes House. The character has room to grow if they'll trust their audience.

 

During the last scene when he got on the bus they started zooming the camera out. I kept expecting the zoom out to reveal Amber sitting next to him.

 

I did, too!

 

I'm sure the Emmy was what they were after, but I just didn't find it all that compelling of a performance. In fact, I think he shows more real acting chops in a regular weekly episode than he does in an episode like this where he spends most of the time looking somber and introspective.