|
The pioneering television journalist Edward R. Murrow famously once said about television:
"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful."
House M.D. is one of the few shows on commercial television today that can actually live up to Murrow's vision of television as more than just distraction or entertainment.
In the modern television desert filled with "reality" TV mirages that waste our time and lower our IQ's, House M.D. actually is about something real.
It intrigues its audience to learn more about medicine in the same way that "The West Wing" hooked millions of people on learning more about politics and government ten years ago.
The "medical" genre like the detective story has been around since the earliest days of television beginning with Marcus Welby and has included many fine and worthy shows including Emergency, E.R., and others - but House has taken it to new places.
It does its best not to fake the science, cheat on the medicine or gloss over the details as happens on almost every episode of Bones, CSI, Burn Notice , 24, or NCIS.
More true to reality than these shows however: On House there aren't always easy answers or happy endings.
Yes, House has people Googling terms like "sarcoidosis", "lupus" and "differential diagnosis".
More importantly, in these days of rote teaching to the standardized test, it has people learning how to analyze complex problems, eliminate bad answers and think critically.
More than this: It is a show that teaches humanity - human compassion, friendship, and personal sacrifice for a greater good - values which are antithetical to those being taught to us by the so called "reality" genre which has more in common with the "panem et circenses" of gladiatorial Rome than with what Murrow wanted for television.
The sixth season of House has had two breakthrough shows that moved the point of view away from Dr. Gregory House to other characters.
It let us see the world of House from Dr. Lisa Cuddy's point of view as a beleaguered hospital administrator trying to hold the ends together on a difficult day ("5 to 9") and shows that running a hospital isn't simply about doctors and patients but also about lawyers, employees, paying the bills, keeping your sanity, and exerting leadership.
The other point of view offered to the viewers this season was that of oncologist Dr. James Wilson as he strives desperately to save a close friend dying of cancer ("Wilson") - a show that ended up teaching this viewer that your liver can actually regenerate itself in a very short time; apparently the only body organ that can do so in the human body - and that sometimes you have to make difficult sacrifices and take significant risks in life.
House is one of the few dramas currently on television worthy of watching - The only worthy competitor would be TNT's "The Closer".
We could use more Houses and less 24's on Fox TV.
Doug De Clue,
Orlando, FL
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
