Having intimately explored Dr. Gregory House’s personal pathology and plundered many of the more rare illness barley known to medical science for several years already, House creator and exec producer David Shore said he entered the show’s fifth season a year ago “expecting this to be the season in which we start suffering creatively.” As it turned out, addition by subtraction worked in favor of the producers. The sudden departure of series regular Kal Penn to work in the Obama Administration gave them a hook – Dr. Lawrence Kutner’s suicide in a spring episode became the one mystery House cannot solve, driving him into the loony bin by season’s end and breathing an entirely fresh story arc into the show. “When we found out Kal was leaving, we had a writers retreat in September, then mapped out the entire rest of the season,” Shore says.
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Shore called Hugh Laurie “the best actor on television.” And if he’s ever going to win a lead-actor Emmy after three previous nominations, Shore said this is the year. “It felt like House has had this coming for a long time,” noted Shore, describing the lead character’s descent into addiction and madness in Season 5. “He’s always been on the edge, and this year he stepped over it. He’s turned out to be such a rich character.” With House set to begin Season 6in a mental hospital, Shore quipped that he and his writers might be “past the point where we thought we could keep this all up.” However, while–half-jokingly–he concedes that the show might have peaked, Shore has no plans to end the series anytime soon. “I’m still interested in this character and what he has to say,” he said.
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Having walked away from four previous Emmy Award ceremonies with only two trophies (one for writing, one for directing) for House, Shore can probably be forgiven for a lack of entertainment awards-show enthusiasm. “I try desperately not to take these things too seriously, even though it’s hard not to,” he said. “The idea of choosing anything subjective as a TV show is kind of ludicrous. But the nomination is exciting and a thrill, even if the event itself tends not to be. You have to get all dolled up and be there hours in advance and stand on a hot carpet… And you’re very nervous!”
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While the departure of actor Kal Penn forced House producers to significantly alter Season 5 story arcs, Shore says the news wasn’t a total shock. “He tipped us off that this might happen months before it did happen,” he explains. “We had some loose discussions during which he told me he was interested in going off to Washington and becoming a man of the people.”
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Laurie auditioned for the role that would yield him four Emmy lead drama actor nominations back in 2005, while on a movie set in Namibia. He had a couple of crew members quickly help him shoot an audition tape. “They did one take,” the actor recalled, speaking at a recent panel event featuring numerous House cast members. “Everyone was anxious to get to the bar. I sent it off, and I didn’t expect to hear about it again.” For his part, executive producer Shore was fondly familiar with Laurie based on his Blackadder work in the U.K., but he also had low expectations when he received the audition tape. “I didn’t think for a moment he’d get the part,” he said.
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Early on, before Laurie was put in the title role, Shore says he and fellow exec producer Katie Jacobs had envisioned House as a more stripped-down, less character-driven procedural drama, with the mysteries being of the medical sort instead of the criminal/homicidal. In fact, according to Shore, the name “House” is a domicile-themed play on the name of a great fictional mystery solver, Sherlock Holmes.
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For his part, Laurie is effusive in his confidence in Shore and the rest of the House writers. “I’m often asked what I think should happen to House or what I hope will happen,” he said. “I don’t really mind what it is, I only care about the how. That’s my job, to worry about the how, not the what. To my mind, good stories are 10 a penny. If House becomes a transvestite or a nun, I really don’t mind what it is, as long as it’s done well. I know that lots of people could write good stories, and I’d rather do a bad idea written by David Shore.” Responded Shore: “Which, by the way, he has.”
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Shore said ending Season 6 with Laurie’s House shuffled off to a mental hospital will allow the producers to get Season 6off to a fresher start, putting the title character in a new environment with an entirely new ensemble cast of characters, at least for the time being. “This is going to be a challenge for House,” Shore said. “This is a character who doesn’t believe people can change, and who fights his own change by self-sabotaging and doing everything he can.” Season 6will kick off Sept. 21 with a two-hour special.
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