When you think of the best medical TV drama series, there are a few that may come to mind: ER, The Good Doctor, Scrubs, or even ABC’s longest-running series Grey’s Anatomy. While those are all great medical dramas, the best one is arguably House. Running from 2004 to 2012, the Fox hit show followed the pill-popping, narcissistic Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie, who is the head of the Diagnostics department at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Over the eight seasons that the show aired, we watched House and his team solve medical mysteries. The cases ranged from the extraordinary, such as a little boy who inherited leprosy from his father, to the more common, though no less enthralling, ones like Crohn’s disease. Regardless of the case, Dr. House handpicks his patients based on whether their medical ailment is interesting to him or not.
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Most medical shows these days focus more on personal relationships, drama, and graphic surgeries as opposed to the actual act of being a doctor and healing a person. While the show House also uses these techniques, they take it a step further by focusing on the latter. With more interesting medical cases, real-life debates, and believable characters, here’s what makes House one of the best medical series in TV history.
Hugh Laurie’s Acting is Phenomenal
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You might recognize Hugh Laurie from his role as the henchman in the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians or from his most recent role as Ryan Clark in the HBO Max show Avenue 5. Regardless of the role Laurie plays, he knows how to give a memorable performance. From comedic roles to serious ones, all eyes are on Laurie when he is on the screen. His role as Dr. Gregory House is no exception to that rule. In the show, Dr. Gregory House is described as an anti-social, pill-popping, sarcastic, but genius diagnostician. For those that don’t know, a diagnostician is a doctor who specializes in diagnosing medical conditions of a sick patient. In House, being a diagnostician amounts to high importance at the hospital, a status that he exploits quite often.
Despite being born and raised in England, Laurie plays an American doctor. It was said that when one of the producers, Bryan Singer, cast Laurie for the role, he did not realize that Laurie was British as he spoke solely in an American accent. As part of transforming himself for the role, in addition to perfecting an American accent, Laurie also had to learn to walk with a constant limp. In the show, House suffers muscle loss in his leg that leaves him with a limp throughout the whole series.
The Sherlock and Watson Team of Dr. House and Dr. Wilson
Hugh Laurie was only one of the characters who made House such a memorable show. To contrast House’s cynicism, Dr. James Wilson was introduced. Dr. Wilson, played by Robert Sean Leonard, is House’s best friend and the Head of Oncology at the same hospital. Together, the two share an interesting friendship filled with pranks and laughs. Despite the pranks and schemes, House values Wilson’s friendship more than anyone else’s.
Similar to Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Wilson and House provide many comedic scenes together. Between letting off roosters in the hospital to taking a temporarily-awake coma patient to have his last meal, the pair’s antics often get them in trouble by the head of the hospital Dr. Cuddy (played by Lisa Edelstein), but they also often team together to solve some of House’s medical mysteries. More often than not, during a discussion with Wilson about an unrelated subject, House has one of his epiphanies that allows him to solve the case — after many failed attempts, of course.
Unique Medical Diagnoses and Storylines
Where most medical shows spend most of their hour-long runtime focusing on personal relationships, House is the opposite. Yes, there are a few relationships throughout the show, but they are not the main focus as the medical cases take precedence — as they should. In a medical show, it’s certainly nice when you can walk away from the show remembering the unique disease instead of the drama of a lover’s quarrel. What’s even nicer is that the medical cases covered throughout the show cast a net over a wide variety of diseases, all of which are hard to solve.
Together with his team, and occasionally Dr. Wilson, House must solve these medical mysteries and save the life of the patient. Part of what makes the cases so interesting is that there is often a good deal of different diagnoses that could fit with the patient’s symptoms. Throughout each episode, you get to watch the team try to solve the mystery by trial and error. The solution is never easy and takes the entire episode to solve which keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat until they find out if the patient will live or not.
Real-Life Debate of Science vs Faith
This debate is a huge part of life outside of TV. Science is based on observation and reasoning, while religion assumes that human beings can access a deeper level of information that is not based on observation or reason. In the show, House brings up this debate multiple times — mostly when he tries to debunk a religious patient. He is a man of science, but by the end of the series, he may sway to accepting faith more than he lets on.
Oftentimes, when a hard subject such as this is debated, the way it is portrayed comes across like a political argument. In the show, House uses quips which allow a more lighthearted discussion. He mocks the patient, and sometimes his colleagues, but at the same time, he is very knowledgeable about many religions. He can quote their books and practices in a way that suggests he has also studied the religion to gain its knowledge. This adds to House’s character. As a self-described atheist, the fact that he has also taken the time to understand the different religions, suggests he’s not as arrogant as he seems.
