DVD Review: House Season Five
Hit Medical Show Hits Best Season Yet, Filled with Character Drama
Oct 31, 2009
For those who haven't really been following the previous season of the hit show, House had been admitted to the hospital after having been involved in a dangerous bus accident which left several passengers dead. During the two-part season finale, House had been trying to get past his trauma to solve the mystery of who he may have been talking to at the time, after the mystery passenger in question had come to pick him up from a bar he'd been drinking at.
As it turns out, the passenger was Amber, aka "Cutthroat Bitch" (Anne Dudek), a student of House's who had been let go by the curmudgeonly doctor, having shown too much ambition at the expense of the patients' well being. She then took up a romance with Wilson, though the audience really couldn't tell whether it was out of genuine love, or to get back at House for firing her.
House Season Five Brief Synopsis
Four months have passed since the fatal event which took Amber's life, and Wilson hasn't been able to move on with his life. Cuddy pleads with House to try and repair his relationship with Wilson, and House in turn starts to question his own feelings on the company he keeps in general.
Meanwhile, there are several developments amongst both the old and the new team members still under House's tutelage. In "Lucky Thirteen", Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde) has to contend with the fact that their latest patient is a woman she'd had a one-night stand with the night before. Also, she continues to deal with the inevitability of suffering from the incurable Huntingdon's condition House diagnosed her with last year.
Dr. Taub (Peter Jacobson) deals with the infidelity he has lived through while being married to his wife, and when he accidentally discovers his wife has been secretly moving money to a secret bank account, he suspects she is doing the same. When finds out she was saving up to buy him a new car, he finally decides to inform her of his straying from the righteous path.
Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), the interim chief of the diagnostics' team when House isn't around, decides to show more initative but gets too uncertain when he realizes he can't work as brilliantly on his own. Also, he develops feelings for Thirteen, at which point he disregards protocol and offers to have her on a drug trial to possibly improve her condition. This shows foreman to be somewhat as unethical as house has shown in the past, and leads him to wonder if he's heading down the same road.
Chase (Jesse Spencer) and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) decide to seal the deal and finally get married, however it is discovered that Cameron has been holding onto her late husband's frozen sperm, out of insecurity in that she may never want to lose the opportunity to retain a piece of her life with him.
It's up to Chase to decide whether to accept this, or end the relationship permanently.
Finally, the entire team is floored when they find team member Kutner (Kal Penn) dead by suicide in his apartment in "Simple Explanation", leaving them to question what may have happened, and what they could have done to prevent it. While Dr. House suspects there may have been foul play, the possibility is never explored.
By the end of the season, viewers bear witness to the cumulative side effects of House's dependency on Vicodin, when he starts to hallucinate to the point where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable. Through the better part of the second half of the season, House deals with the apparition of Amber, who forces him to second guess his own sanity, and the medical advice he provides.
Overall Analysis of House Season Five
In terms of the entire series ths far, Season Five is the best written one yet. Mind you, there are more players involved, now that House contends with both his old and new teams interacting on many levels, and this allows more flexibility in terms of character development.
The producers have also become more daring, not only on the level of the characters themselves (i.e. killing off Kutner -- though this was due to Kal Penn accepting a White House positiion in real life) but in terms of how far they are willing to push the envelope story wise.Having a continuous storyline dealing with House'ss possibly loss of sanity, is unusual given the show's habit of producing stand alone weekly episodes. For this thread to continue over the course of half a season, gave viewers added incentive to come back from more.
The showrunners have also opted to continue in their quest to bring in the occasional special guest stars as patients, for an occasional boost in ratings. Rapper Mos Def portrays a man locked within his own body, in "Locked In". Rock singer Meat Loaf appears as a dying man who gets better when his supportive wife's health starts to simultaneously fail her, in "Simple Explanation". Finally, in what is possibly and arguably the best episode of the entire season, Emmy winner Zeljko Ivanek (Heroes, 24) plays a desperate man who takes House, Thirteen and a dozen other people hostage in Cuddy's office, in "Last Resort". He seeks a solution to his medical problem, and won't take no for an answer.
The season finale is a powerful one, which again forces interested parties to hold off for the summer until the show returns to announce House's fate, following the final events of Season Five. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, we discuss it no further.
Fans of a good drama, regardless of the medical content, should truly enjoy Season Five, for its overall improvement over the previous seasons. We can only hope that Season Six will keep the same pace.
8 out of 10 for very well written episodes, gripping dramatic moments generally focused on the characters' plight, and for having very capable guest-stars offer memorable performances.
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