House

The significance of House going off the air is that this is going to be the end of a television era, one that started in the 2004-5 season. That is generally considered one of the best seasons for TV drama, and maybe the last great season for broadcast network TV drama. House started that season, so did Desperate Housewives, so did Lost, and so did Grey’s Anatomy. Along with cult favourites like Veronica Mars and flawed-but-fun new shows like Boston Legal, it was a very strong season, which seemed to prove that broadcast networks were going to be fine up against the onslaught of cable. It completely turned around the ABC network, and gave Fox a new flagship scripted drama in House (which they followed up the year after with Bones, also created by a Canadian). Since then, basic cable has become a bigger player in drama, the broadcast networks have had trouble developing new drama hits, and the explosion of 2004-5 seems less like a new golden age and more like the last flowering of a previous era: the last big burst of big hit mass-audience drama. We may never see its like again.

Hugh Laurie’s knowledge of the blues rivals his alter-ego doctor’s medical expertise

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, Molson-Coors and Labatt Blue, The NHL and Stan Lee

Is television critical analysis taking the place of good old-fashioned fandom?

Today the popular shows, like ‘Parent­hood,’ are sweet and mushy, not mean like ‘Damages’

Corbin Bernsen partnered with Kipling, Sask., for his new film

Suddenly, Asperger’s is the new ‘it’ disorder on screen and in fiction.

I’ve seen this idea thrown around a few times, but rarely as explicitly as in this comment on a House season finale review. In response to the reviewer’s criticism of the fact that House never changes (and the writers always pull back and go “psych!” every time they make it look like he’s going to), even though the show keeps throwing stuff at him that would require any normal person to change, the commenter responds that — and I’ve put in capitalization n’ stuff, since the commenter is apparently e.e. cummings: “The series told you years after years people don’t change. People, grown up people don’t change. They REACT to change.The show tells that years after years. And you still discover that ?” In other words, it’s pointless to complain that nobody ever changes, because that’s the whole point of the show.

Is it late enough now that this doesn’t count as a House spoiler? Probably; the episode’s already been everywhere, and even has a political angle to it. If you’ve already seen the episode or have already been spoiled, Click to read about why last night’s House played out the way it did.

It isn’t just the twenty-somethings who are asking questions

TV super-blogger and House super-fan Diane Wild brings it all together in an interview with House writer David Hoselton. She also has an extra at her own blog which, as a fellow U of T law school graduate (though my parallels with him end there), I kind of appreciate: