I can add viewing new episodes of House, M.D. to my list of things I can’t look forward to anymore. The last episode of the quirky, critically acclaimed FOX series aired last night. And all in all I thought the fat lady sang pretty well.
For eight seasons, the House series has been, if not always a pleasure, at least a thing to look forward to. Many fans say the series slumped after the first couple seasons, and they may be right. Personally, I didn’t notice. I didn’t mind when the cop (offended that House was rude to him and used an anal thermometer on him) threatened him with prison. I didn’t mind when House had to go to an institution to be weaned from his pain killer habit. I was fascinated by House, but I never liked him much, and I rather enjoyed watching him forced to confront his personal irresponsibility.
The final episode, “Everybody Dies,” (a word play on House’s motto, “Everybody lies”) had him facing the prospect of being sent back to prison for six months, for violating the terms of his parole (in typical irresponsible fashion, he calls his crime “just a prank”) just when his friend Wilson has cancer and only about five months to live. In between trying to get his friends to take the fall for him, he tries to treat a drug addict who appears to be dying. All this is in flashback. In the “present,” he’s lying in a burning building next to a dead man’s body, arguing with various ghosts from his past whether his life is worth living or not.
Our friend S. T. Karnick was pretty pleased with this episode. He writes,
…House’s story ends in a way that is both true to the character and, in my view, true to life. House does ultimately confront Pilate’s question and respond in a way that accords with the essential benevolence of the doctor’s lifework, the limitations of his philosophical position, and the desperate need for love the character has always conveyed under his surface cynicism.
Personally I thought the episode’s plotting a little loose (unless I missed some essential plot point, which is entirely possible). I’m not sure the meaning Karnick finds in the episode was necessarily the writers’ and producers’ intention, but that unsureness is part of what made the show so great. There are very few programs I can watch anymore that don’t offend me as a Christian. House sometimes offended me—but it didn’t matter because (as Dr. Wilson noted in the episode) “House was an ass.” And sometimes the believers got the last word. Not enough so that you could discern a bias on the part of the show runners, but there was enough balance to leave everybody fairly happy, I think.
And that’s my big takeaway from the House, M.D. series. This is worth knowing, for all writers.
How do you write about matters of truth, without being preachy?
You do it by going deep into the characters.
The wonderful thing about the House series was the character of Gregory House. Not a good man. Not a role model for anyone. But a man in full, with whom we could sympathize, on whom we could have pity, even if he didn’t want it. The complications and contradictions of a well-realized character allowed all sorts of ideas—even ideas he himself rejected with disgust—to play out in his story, and in the stories around him.
If you want to tell the truth, tell the truth about people. Your message will come through in a thoughtful way, as long as you don’t lie about the people.
Even if they say, “Everybody lies.”
Might I politely add the second half of your sentence, “and going deep with another character of an opposite perspective”? The believers who sometimes get the last word against House *also* had depths, and didn’t just feel like a sympathetic straw man included to please the religious crowd.
In fact, I think the more-than-one-perspective principle works even with less skilled writers. I’m currently reading a SF book featuring a casually atheist protagonist who had a religious, abusive father. At some point he meets a (requisitely busty and attractive) devout Catholic woman who also has experience with the bad side of those who claim religious belief. I think that was included explicitly to counter any belief that the author saw religion as poisonous, and to show that he wasn’t trying to make a point one way or another. Even though neither character is particularly intelligent, deep, or complex, it works. It shifts focus to the adventure story, the worldbuilding, and the interesting insider’s perspective on millitary breaucracy–all the things that the author obviously cares about and wants the reader to focus on.
Yes, that’s a good point.
My wife and I have started watching this series on Netflix. It’s great stuff. We’re still in season one, and I wanted to find something on the show’s medical accuracy so I looked up this site. It’s written by Scott, a family practitioner who has served as an Air Force physician. We watched the episode with an obese 10 year old who has a heart attack, and Scott says the show was good, but the medicine was terrible.