Over the course ofHouse, M.D.’s first five seasons, the series developed into one of television’s greatest medical dramas. The show’s delightfully acerbic and self-absorbed central character, and its unfiltered approach to the lives of staff at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, set it apart from pretty much anything else in the genre.
But by the time the series hit season 6,House’s characterswere testing our capacity for sympathy. Beginning a protracted decline that resulted in season 8’s bittersweet ending, the show started to lose all sense of what made its characters appealing. In their efforts to create new storylines, creator David Shore and his team of writers pushed things too far.
Not only did Gregory House no longer have an excuse for his behavior following rehab, buthis complicated relationship with Lisa Cuddy began to hurt both characters more than we could tolerateas viewers.Housewas no longer much fun, and was becoming quite painful to watch. The seeds for season 7’s agonizing conclusion were already being sown.
House Season 6 Is When The Show Started To Go Downhill
It Set The Foundation For A Disappointing 7th Season
As with any acclaimed and long-running TV show, it was only natural thatHousechanged considerably across its eight seasons. However, the way the series reinvented itself for season 6 set in motion the downward slide towards a disappointing seventh season and a generally disheartening season 8.
Several ofHouse’s worst storylinesfeature prominently in the show’s sixth season, from Chase and Cameron’s abrupt separation to Lisa Cuddy’s relationship with Lucas, as well as her treatment of Gregory House. What’s more,House’s apparent recovery from his Vicodin addiction somehow manages to make him less appealingas a character.
Season ofHouse
86%
100%
93%
60%
Season 8
It’s no surprise thatHouseseason 6 was the first not to receive a perfect 100% score from critics on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes since the show’s debut year. Although the season’s 93% score was still impressive, it signaled the end of the show’s golden age.
Season 6 also set the foundation for a follow-up season, which became the first inHouse’s run to receive negative reviews from a large proportion of TV critics. While season 8 then fared better with critics,it presented an entirely different show from theHousewe knew and lovedin its first five seasons.
There Was No Point In Continuing House After His Rehab
The devastatinghallucination twist at the end ofHouseseason 5brought about the storyline we’d been waiting for since the show started. Gregory House was finally going to rehab for his addiction to Vicodin painkillers, and seemed ready to turn over a new leaf.
But it’s important to remember that House’s battle with addiction was the driving factor behind his inimitable characterization as a brilliant but deeply flawed medical professional. Seeing him getting the treatment he so desperately needed to conquer his demons wasthe ending we always wanted for the show’s titular protagonist.
It made little sense for House to experience yet more pain and suffering once he’d successfully completed his stint in rehab.The redemptive arc of the show’s central anti-hero had seemingly run its course, and watching him behave even worse without Vicodin to fill some apparent void in his life made us lose much of our sympathy with him.
House And Cuddy’s Relationship In Season 6 Only Made Things More Complicated
We Lost Sympathy With One Of House’s Most Likable Characters
To sully the waters of our favorite medical drama further, one ofHouse’s most likable characters turned downright nasty in season 6. Lisa Cuddy was the love of Gregory House’s life, and his feelings for her actually brought out the best in him at multiple points in the season.
Cuddy deliberately sending House to the wrong address for Thanksgiving was one of the worst moments in the whole series.
Yet, thebest House and Cuddy momentsof season 6 were completely undermined by her treatment of him. As House struggled to handle Cuddy’s new romantic relationship with Lucas during the season, she, in turn, handled his inevitable lovesickness with cruelty and emotional manipulation.
Cuddy deliberately sending House to the wrong address for Thanksgiving, after she’d invited him to a dinner with her and Lucas, was one of the worst moments in the whole series. Whatever Gregory House had done in the past, he didn’t deserve that. This mean-spirited storyline unfortunatelyset the tone forHouse’s diminishing emotional returns thereafter.
The Biggest Problems With House’s Ending Trace Back To Season 6
Gregory House’s Worst Crime & The Show’s Shift In Characterization Are Rooted In This Season
The Thanksgiving storyline was effectively the root cause of theworst thing Gregory House ever did. Cuddy’s treatment of House in season 6 was the backdrop to him eventually driving a car into her front room at the end of season 7. In fact, without Cuddy’s cruelty to House, the last two seasons of the show would have been entirely different.
Gregory House was more in the wrong, both for his behavior across the first five seasons, and his grave crime in the penultimate season finale of the series. But the storylines involving Cuddy in season 6 undermined one ofHouse’s most important episodes, the season’s premiere, in which Gregory finally appeared to have turned a corner as a person.
We came away from the final three seasons ofHousefeeling that its title character’s redemption was ultimately in vain. Even worse, it was the actions of the person he loved that reversed the trajectory of his characterization. Season 6 laid the foundations for this disappointing turn of events, making us wish thatHousehad ended long before it did.
