The Razor Decision On Repetitive Medical Theatre, Season Two Of House, M.D.

The Good: Excellent character development and acting
The Bad: Very repetitive plots, DVD bonuses are good, but not stellar
The Basics: In a close call, the second season of House, M.D. fails to impress on the story front, though the characters and dialogue are still fun to experience once.


Some years ago, a friend of mine was obsessed with a comedy show that was supposed to be cutting edge, clever and funnier than anything on television. She had me sit down and watch marathons of the show and as they plodded on, she seemed to get personally annoyed that I was not enjoying them as much as she was. The series was Strangers With Candy (reviewed here!) and my main gripe with the series was that the show was a one-trick pony. The protagonist basically went through her day at school, picked up an issue that might be focused on in an afterschool special and then satirized it. There was no real growth and by the time I sat through the third season of the show, I wasn't even amused; I was calling jokes before they were told. Sitting through the second season of House, M.D. brings that experience vividly to my mind.

Picking up where House, M.D. - The Complete First Season (reviewed here!) ended, "The Complete Second Season" offers mostly just more of the same. With twenty-four new episodes, the series progresses as a strange combination of episodic medical mysteries and serialized character arcs where virtually everyone but the protagonist grows and changes.

In the second season, the sarcastic and angry Dr. Gregory House continues to limp around as chief diagnostic doctor of a New Jersey hospital., doing his best to cure those who arrive in pain, even though he believes all of them are lying for the most part. Accompanied by his team of diagnostic doctors - Foreman, Chase and Cameron - House finds himself wrestling with feelings for his ex-wife, Stacy. While Dr. Wilson's marriage falls apart, hospital administrator Dr. Cuddy begins to explore her own future.

The problem with season two is that all of the weaknesses of season one are present and because they persist, the problems are getting worse. In short, House, M.D. is a very predictable set of medical mysteries that forms a rather solid patterns. Dr. House angrily snipes at everyone he works with and maintains an affect of indifference while becoming engaged in a medical mystery. The medical mysteries force him to engage with patients, a practice he hates, and his colleagues seem shocked every week when he meets with a new patient, despite the fact that he continues to do that.

On the character front, then, one of the primary weaknesses of House, M.D. - The Complete Second Season is that the characters react to the first season characterization of Dr. House as opposed to the reality of who he has become. In season one, there were several episodes early on where House did not interact with patients (other than to confront them, call them liars and move on), but that eroded as the season progressed and his colleagues and subordinates were legitimately shocked. In season two, that's no longer a big stretch, but every episodes, the characters act like it is.

In this season, House and his team take to treating patients who have various medical problems that are either compelling for the medical mystery or interesting for who the person is. So, for example, the season opens with House treating a death row inmate who killed four people. The team treats a cancer patient who is hallucinating, Dr. Cuddy's roof worker who falls and shatters his spine, a doctor who has been working in Africa to eliminate tuberculosis, drug using teen-agers and athletes, an AIDS patient, an aphasic journalist, a mentally ill hypochondriac, a burn victim, a transplant patient, a 15 year-old supermodel, and a corrupt cop who infects Dr. Foreman with something lethal.

As interesting as any of the cases might be, the series is much stronger as any individual episode as opposed to the actual season. Why? The plots are almost all told the same way (there are two notable exceptions). Usually, the episode goes exactly like this: there are two people in the teaser, one begins to appear weak, the other collapses completely, usually bleeding or convulsing (there are only so many times this bait and switch works with us, producers!!!), House and his team get the case, form an initial diagnosis which makes the problem worse. House, juggling between the clinic duties he is trying to avoid and the actual main case, figures out a solution to the main case from an offhanded remark or coincidental circumstance in the clinic case, the patient lives.

The narrative technique is especially repetitive and the whole medical aspect of this becomes rather dull rather quickly. There are two notable exceptions to this formula. In "The Mistake," the episode it told via flashbacks that reconstruct a failure the team had and the legal consequences of it. The season finale, wherein Dr. House is shot by a former patient's husband, is also told in a very different way. House begins to hallucinate while working on the case, even as he diagnosis it from his bed and he soon realizes that he is losing his mind. "No Reason" ends the season on a note that is very curious; many shows would do a reality-bending episode as a season premiere to open the season in a new way, ending the season with the shooting instead. The solely unique plot aspect in the otherwise formulaic House, M.D. up until this point is to defy television conventions and create something that might not be surprising, but is certainly more about creating good art (good television) as opposed to good business (hooking viewers with a last minute shooting to get them to come back the next season).

The problem is, with all of the formulaic plot concepts utilized in House, M.D. - The Complete Second Season, the character aspects begin to suffer in very serious ways. So, for example, in "Euphoria - Parts 1 and 2," Dr. Foreman contracts a condition from a corrupt cop that forces him to share an isolated hospital room with the other party. The resolution to this problem leaves an intriguing mess that deeply affects Dr. Foreman's ability to perform as a diagnostician. The problem here is that by the end of the next episode after that, the complications are all gone and by the finale, his ordeal is almost completely forgotten. That is to say that the end of "Euphoria - Part 2" creates a new, compelling problem for Foreman, but that problem is so quickly resolved by and within the next episode that the viewer feels a bit cheated. In short, there are so few consequences that the series seems rather stagnant.

The character aspects are where there is any potential for growth or change, but here things are largely stagnant as well. As a result of the events in "The Mistake," Foreman takes over the department and he becomes House's boss. While Cuddy delights in the effect this has on such things as getting paperwork in, the dynamic between the team members does not significantly shift. Instead, House is equally annoying and dismissive of Foreman and Cuddy, while still being as right as he usually is. The result is, effectively, no change.

In short, Foreman is given the opportunity to grow and change and he fails utterly, merely taking abuse from House from a slightly different position. In order to fully understand who the characters are and how little they grow in the season, it's important to see how they enter the season. The essential characters of House, M.D. - The Complete Second Season are:

Dr. Gregory House - A brilliant doctor, low on the social skills. Years ago, part of his thigh muscle was removed, so he limps around now with a cane, sarcastic, hating everyone and addicted to Vicodin. He is now agitated and tempted by the presence of his ex-wife, Stacy, who is the hospital's new legal counsel. House leads the diagnostic team and he is smart, but acerbic. His big growth this season is buying a motorcycle (I don't count Wilson moving in with him as growth as he continues to manipulate and torment his one friend in the world from the benefit of his own home),

Dr. Lisa Cuddy - Chief administrator of the hospital, she is responsible for keeping House employed. She is responsible for hiring Stacy, promoting Foreman and basically quips at House most of the season. Her big growth comes late in the season when she decides she might want to be a mother,

Dr. Eric Foreman - One of three fellows working under House, Foreman is a neurologist who is put in charge of the team when Chase and House accidentally kill a patient. He runs the department with efficiency, writes a paper - that Cameron argues he stole from her - and contracts a nearly lethal condition,

Dr. Robert Chase - An Australian fellow working under Dr. House, he finds himself overwhelmed this season and seldom in the right. He escapes to another department for a brief time, finds himself attracted to Dr. Cameron and otherwise continues on as House's whipping boy,

Dr. Allison Cameron - The final fellow under Dr. House, she claims that she is over House, but she still goes out on any number of limbs for the mean, crazy doctor at virtually every opportunity. When it appears she may be infected with HIV, she finds herself throwing herself at Chase. Deeply human, she is still crippled by the inability to tell patient's bad news, a fact that becomes complicated when she becomes Foreman's medical proxy,

Stacy - House's ex-wife and lawyer for the hospital. She finds herself working more and more in proximity with House and thus finds herself more and more tempted by him,

and Dr. James Wilson - House's one true friend in the world and an oncologist. When his affair with his wife is pre-empted by her cheating on him, he moves in with House, but finds that's not ideal for either of them. Wilson becomes deeply concerned with his friend as he exhibits a growing attraction for Stacy, remembering what happened the last time she broke his heart.

As with the first season, the acting is good in that the actors play their character quite well. There is very little in the way of acting in this season that is genuinely different or challenging to the actors. Hugh Laurie continues to play House with a flawless American accent, Lisa Edelstein plays Cuddy with dignity and distinction and recurring guest star Sela Ward presents Stacy as someone very different from her character of Lily from Once And Again (season one is reviewed here!).

The only two to show real acting depth this season, stretching from where they were in season one or from other points in season two are Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Cameron and Omar Epps as Foreman. Morrison is given the chance to play Cameron as out of control in a few scenes in two episodes and she rises to the challenge of playing the character as very different, but with the same feeling that the person on screen is the character we've seen before.

Epps is the real winner on the acting front in this boxed set. Epps plays Foreman as authoritative, dying, recovering with serious problems and as a medical professional who is establishing personal and professional barriers for himself. It is Epps who makes the series anything to shout at on the development of acting front as he radically alters his body language, vocal tones and even the way he looks at characters to express the character in new and different ways.

Perhaps the saddest commentary on the lack of acting challenges is illustrated in the bonus materials. Lisa Edelstein and Jennifer Morrison provide two alternate takes on scenes where they present their lines with Valley Girl accents and affects. Far from funny more than once, this is a sad commentary on the way their characters are treated. More than anything, Cuddy and Cameron are condemned on screen to complaining about other characters, setting a poor standard for women to emulate.

The Museum of Television and Radio footage of "An Evening With House, M.D." is as short and uninsightful as the similar outings on other DVD sets I've seen, with lame, obvious questions asked of cast and production staff that could be answered by checking out the commentary tracks.

Ultimately, that's why I let the razor fall on the side of "not recommend" for this boxed set. Despite the character threads which are interesting, there's not enough value in this boxed set to buy it and make it a part of your collection. If you've seen the episodes on television in first run or in syndication, you'll get the point. Sitting and watching this set on DVD rapidly becomes a tired, predictable experience that is less satisfying than it ought to be. To wit, almost every episode on discs three through six, I would find myself looking up at the counter on my DVD player, realizing that there was still fifteen minutes left in the episode and anticipating the next crash, that would come seconds later. That type of repetitive, formulaic television is - at best - the definition of average.

For other works with Jennifer Morrison, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Once Upon A Time - Season 1
Star Trek
Mr. And Mrs. Smith

5/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Partnerships In Transition: Once And Again Season Two

The Good: Excellent acting, nice character development, good balance, Good writing
The Bad: Awkward soap-opera moments, Dramas outside the family
The Basics: While Rick and Lily evolve their relationship, they run into many problems with their children, ex-spouses, and occupations in this realistic drama.


The original concept for Once And Again was a good one; two divorced parents meet, fall in love, and navigate the struggles of blending their families. In the first season of the television drama, Once And Again (first season DVD set is reviewed here!) fell out of balance, in the mid-season shifting abruptly from the new partnership of Lily Manning and Rick Sammler to the end of the partnership between Lily and her husband Jake. Rick falls out of play for much of the latter-half of the first season.

The producers of Once And Again apparently realized this and the second season of the show returns with the partnership of Lily and Rick front and center, evolving naturally through the second season. In fact, the show's best moments focus on Rick and Lily, though Rick's daughter Jessie gets some awesome developments and scenes. Conversely, the season's disappointing aspects come in the form of the larger than life issues that the show suddenly takes on. Allow me to explain.

The second season of Once And Again begins a few months after season one's finale, with Rick and Lily reconnecting following a summer mostly-apart. They take hesitant steps to move as a couple into the lives of their various children and those efforts are balanced with them taking time to be together. As Rick and Lily get closer, Eli becomes more rebellious and he starts a band, Grace finds herself hanging out with social misfits and outcasts, Jessie develops an eating disorder (cleverly alluded to in the first season), and Zoe goes through the usual struggles of a preteen. Lily finds new strength in her new job, though she must deal with sexual harassment and her sister Judy who revamps the bookstore she previously owned.

On the other end, Rick and Miles Drintell begin work on a mammoth development known as Atlantor. Atlantor makes Rick a public figure and the scope of the development puts him under attack by Karen, his ex-wife, who represents many community organizations that object to the Atlantor project.

Unfortunately, as much of the plot becomes consumed with Rick duking it out with Karen and Grace over the Atlantor project, the show gets away from the meat of the concept. Not the Lily/Rick relationship, which becomes deeply intertwined with the Atlantor issues, but rather the concept of a family drama that focuses on the realism of attempting to blend two families. The show takes on an overly dramatic quality at times with Rick and Karen ending up in court a few times, adding something of a fantastic quality to the show.

In stark contrast, the Jessie storyline, wherein her anorexia is exposed and treated, is brilliant for its realism. Once Jessie gets into counseling, the show has numerous scenes that are unlike anything else on television. Jessie talks, the therapist listens, we see a young woman working through problems. Nothing huge or earth-moving, but certainly leaps and bounds for the character.

And this is, ultimately, a show about characters, individuals who do things and grow in different directions. Here is how the second season finds them:

Lily Manning - Reconciled to divorcing Jake and getting on her life with Rick, Lily juggles her love for Rick, her children and her job. Her story is one of standing by her new man through troubles while she confronts difficulties of her own at work,

Rick Sammler - Unwittingly finds himself in the crosshairs of public debate when his project with Miles Drintell becomes a huge development that outrages local advocacy groups. He must deal with reaching out for his potential success and taking it, while dealing with his rebellious son, his adversarial ex-wife and his anorexic daughter. All this while maintaining and growing a relationship with Lily,

Jake Manning - Devoted to the restaurant, he works to be a better father to Grace and Zoe while moving on with his life. That is, until a Giant Plot Moment, which will shatter his life forever,

Karen Sammler - Now befriended to Judy, Karen must wrestle with issues of letting go of both Eli and Jessie. She develops the strength to make decisions completely independent of Rick, with results that radically change the family,

Eli - Suddenly starts a band, falls in with a troubled girl named Carla and rebels against everything as his academic and sports life suffers,

Grace - Befriends a social misfit named Carla, learns to drive, and starts to date a social outcast named Spence. As she spends time with Carla and Eli, she finds herself troubled to realize that her feelings are a lot more confused than she originally suspected,

Jessie - In denial about her parents' never reconciling, she develops an eating disorder. Her story is one of finding herself and growing up,

Zoe - Provides comic relief,

and Judy - No longer with Sam Blue, she befriends Karen and puts her struggle to find love into her bookstore, with brilliant results.

This is, at its best, a family drama with character at its center. The advantage of Once And Again is that its characters are brought to life by an immensely talented cast. One of the ironies of the casting for Once And Again is that it is an adult show that gave rise to Shane West, a teenage heartthrob. Those who moon over West are far too young to "get" this show. Shane West is, however, remarkably talented as Eli and he plays off Billy Campbell brilliantly.

The real winners in the second season of Once And Again are the women. Susanna Thompson evolves her character of Karen from a somewhat monolithic antagonist to Rick in season one into a fully developed, complex, emotive character. Thompson's brilliance is that she manages to make the transformation through her body language, her expressions a softening of her tone, a movement of her eyes. She is brilliant and it is clear the actress is contributing a lot to the character's intricacies.

Julia Whelan, who plays Grace Manning is similarly brilliant. Clearly classically trained, Whelan is a rising star whose talent will take her very far. She plays the average and disaffected young woman perfectly, portraying Grace with something more than what is in the lines and words she delivers. Whelan is brilliant at exploding the potential of Grace with her soulful eyes and passionate deliveries.

The hands-down best performances in the second season of Once And Again are delivered by young actress Evan Rachel Wood. She is brilliant in her character struggles as she - in the course of the season - transforms Jessie from a girl into a young woman. Wood is charismatic, never pushing Jessie from angsty realism into melodrama. She is a pro and her scenes, especially the counseling scenes which have the potential to be gruesomely awkward, radiate with intrigue and nuance that is far beyond anything any other young actor or actress is doing on screen today. She is, frankly, awesome and her performances are worth the price of the boxed set DVD alone!

As for the DVD set, it's nice (a lot thinner than the originally-released Season 1 boxed set). Unfortunately, fans of the series are likely to remain disappointed with the way Buena Vista fails to support this title. One episode has commentary. That's it. No deleted scenes, no behind-the-scenes, nothing. One episode with commentary. Is the commentary good? Yes. Could fans of the show hope for more? Yes.

On the plus side, there is still one more season that could be packed with extras. This is a show that deserves them. A wonderful show for anyone who has been divorced, struggles with relationship issues or anyone who wants to watch talented people act like individuals going through (mostly) realistic struggles in life, love, parenting and/or growing up.

For other dramas focused on families, please check out my reviews of:
Veronica Mars
Freaks And Geeks
Parenthood Season One

10/10

For other television program reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Family Drama At Its Best: Once And Again Season One Succeeds!

The Good: Amazing character work, Great acting, Nice plots
The Bad: Imbalance in the use of cast and characters, No DVD bonus features!
The Basics: Once And Again tells the story of two families that are coming together when their single parents fall in love, and all of the repercussions of that!


Every now and again, a television show comes along that is just plain fabulous and it deserves the acclaim it receives. They are few and far between and at the end of the 1990s, the only one that actually achieved its acclaim and deserved it was arguably NYPD Blue. My favorite, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, never received the praise it deserved and so until Once And Again came along, there was not a show that was both purely great and recognized by the critics that lasted long enough to find its audience (Sports Night, for example dying a horrible death right around the same time Once And Again was on). Once And Again deserved the praise it received and it never deserved the lack of audience it suffered.

Once And Again tells the story of the Sammlers and the Mannings, two families that are marred by divorce and have resulted in two children a piece being raised by two parents separately. Rick Sammler is father to Jessie and Eli, ex-husband to Karen. Lily is in the process of divorcing her cheating husband Jake and takes pride in being the mother of Grace and Zoe. In the pilot episode, Rick and Lily meet and fall in love.

Their love, it seems, is continually complicated by the various factors in their lives. Rick's son Eli has a learning disability and his ex-wife Karen is almost as demanding with Rick as she is with Eli. Jessie faces self-confidence issues and the youthful fantasy of having the whole family she was born into together. But the bulk of the complications come on Lily's side. Lily and Jake are not yet divorced and as the season goes on, Lily has to face that and she does, with an indiscretion with Jake. Their one night fling sickens Lily and taints her relationship with Rick. As the two slowly work back to one another, the divorce with Jake gets ugly over the restaurant Jake and Lily are part owners in. To complicate things more, family crisis after family crisis arises to strain their relationship.

But through it all, there is this love.

At the end of the day, this is a drama about love, how people love and how it works in complicated, modern-day family situations. The coming together of two different families is something that has not been explored well in the film media and Once And Again is pretty much the best exploration of it out there. Why? Such blended families, those where there are children from prior marriages in both adults' life, are complicated and therefore need more than simply ninety minutes to tell the story with all of the variables well. Therefore, to do a story about a blended family, one needs a television series, not just a film.

Once And Again is an adult television show. The adults are dealing with adult problems like love, children, divorce, infidelity, and death. There's nothing childish about the series, though some of the episodes do focus on the problems and perils encountered by the children in their schools and life outside. The episodes are written with a keen insight for the way people interact and live their lives. The dialog in Once And Again is tight and realistic. The people speak more as real people we might know or as people in the situations they find themselves in than individuals in a drama series. And Once And Again is serialized, requiring an adult commitment to the show week after week to build the characters up and progress them forward.

That is not to say that the series is not entertaining. The realism only makes it more entertaining. It fills a void in television that existed before the series came on and has existed since it was canceled. The characters are interesting and they find themselves in difficult situations and how they get themselves out of them are worthy of attention. Part of this is entertainment is created by what I call the "honesty rooms." The characters speak directly to the viewer at different points, articulating their deepest, most honest thoughts. Some of them are desperately painful, like admissions of deep wounds, some are hilarious, such as when Grace notes that "boys are so dumb. It's amazing they survive."

The only real problem with the first season of Once And Again is the imbalance in the show toward Lily's character. As the season goes on, she dominates in a way that almost buries the Rick character. Still, all of the characters are intriguing. The main stories involve:

Lily, who opens the series with an inner strength that causes her to separate from her cheating husband, Jake. Lily falls in love and experiences a rebirth, which empowers her to take charge of her own life, live without fear and strike out against Jake and pursue a new profession all while exploring a relationship with Rick.

Rick Sammler is a somewhat depressed divorcee who comes alive when he meets Lily. He is plagued by his ex-wife Karen and as his personal life gets better and better, he falls into a destructive work relationship with a crazy advertising mogul named Miles Drentell to the detriment of his partnership with fellow architect David, who is perpetually single.

Karen Sammler is a perpetual worrier who wants what's best for Jessie and Eli, but finds her position in their lives threatened by Lily. As a result, she opens up to love again, first to a kind, but dull man, then to a much younger man who challenges her in every way.

Jake Manning is the owner of Phil's, the restaurant founded by Lily's father and now managed by Jake. Stressed by his extramarital affairs and complications with the restaurant, Jake works hard to be a decent father, but usually comes across as a jerk.

Eli Sammler, a basically good young man who comes to sexual maturity in the first season and is forced to prioritize his life when his learning disability makes him choose between doing what he wants and being knocked off the basketball team where he thrives.

Grace Manning, a young woman mired deeply in fear of everything that surrounds her. In the first season, she faces the dissolving of her family and in the process opens up to the consequences of truth and her first love. She's perhaps the most realistic and intriguing character in the series and her process of coming out of her isolation is compelling and wonderful to watch.

While Jessie, Zoe and Lily's sister Judy all have character arcs and growth throughout the season, they are primarily supporting players in the first season of Once And Again. They tend to live in the orbits of the primary characters listed above. At least in the first season.

The acting in Once And Again is magnificent. While Sela Ward won awards for playing Lily, Billy Campbell, who plays Rick is just as good. Both have subtle, emotive performances that traverse the whole range of human emotion. As the series progresses, we see them loving, whimsical, angry, hurt, and impassioned. Add to that, Ward and Campbell have wonderful screen chemistry that makes their relationship believable.

But the real acting winners come in the supporting performances of Susanna Thompson and Julia Whelan. Thompson plays Karen with so much longing and hurt that it is sometimes difficult to watch her. Yet, she is compelling and strong as an actress consistently delivering empathetic performances that are worthy of awards. As her character must face the loss of the potential with her ex-husband, Thompson continues to deepen her performance with subtlety and nuance.

Julia Whelan plays Grace and the actress has a presence to her that is impressive for such a young person. She dominates her scenes as a character that begins as a scared brat and quickly deepens into an individual that has layers of fear that are being pulled back to reveal a confused, vulnerable, intelligent and loving young woman. Whelan is an expert at using her face and body language to portray the changes in confidence Grace undergoes in the first season.

Over three DVDs, the 22 stories of the first year of the Sammlers and Mannings is told wonderfully with realism and compassion and a clear understanding of how humans work. The only real disappointment in the DVD collection is that there are no extras. And this is certainly a show that deserves as much commentary as it has critical acclaim and loyal fans.

While not a perfect show, this is possibly the strongest first season of any television show I've ever seen (right up there with Sports Night), making it a great value in DVD form.

For other family dramas, please check out my reviews of:
Parenthood - Season 1
Gilmore Girls
Six Feet Under

9.5/10

For other television or film reviews, please check out my index pages on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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