House M.D.: Nov. 25th

For a while, I thought House M.D. was starting to slip. The episodes had become formulaic (a patient comes in, they can't figure out what's wrong, they argue about it, but then eventually figure out what it is by the end of the episode.), the subplots were uninteresting and poorly developed, and the new group of doctors still hasn't meshed together as a unit the way the original group did.

The trailer for last night's episode didn't give me much confidence that that would be a particularly good episode either. In fact, I thought it was simply going to be a John Q ripoff. The basic premise largely was: unsatisfied with the treatment at the hospital, a crazed patient takes people at the hospital hostage until he gets his way. In both cases, the victim is saved and the hostage taker goes to jail. Of course, the comparison falls apart if one looks at the particulars of the plot, but it's still the same basic idea. The main difference, however, is the fact that John Q sucked and this episode was actually pretty good.

The guest star in this episode, Željko Ivanek, was fantastic. I've been a big fan of his since his days on OZ and I always manage to be impressed by his performances. Hugh Laurie was also vintage, old school House and exactly how you could imagine him acting when faced with that sort of situation.

But the best part of this episode was the fact that it confirmed something that I always suspected to be true: Thirteen is hot even when dying of kidney failure, thankfully, she pulls through.