Dr. House is back for another season of insulting the patients, other doctors, and pretty much anyone else he runs across.

This season sees his world shaken up as he is forced to find a new team, deal with his best friend having a girlfriend, and those pesky medical emergencies that seem to always interrupt his television soaps.

The show’s creators really turn the show over this season by literally flooding it with new characters. With the departure of Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) at the end of Season Three, House (Hugh Laurie) finds himself all alone in his department – which suits him just fine.

Unfortunately, his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), demands he find a new team and get back to work actually helping patients. House puts the process off for as long as he can, but then stumbles onto the idea of having his own reality show.

He then hires about 35 doctors to work as his team and throughout the season slowly starts firing people. His way of firing often is a satire of one of the many reality series that flood television.

House spends the closing of each episode handing out roses, or extinguishing the voted out doctor’s torch. Of course, he also fires just about anyone he deems has failed one of his competitions – such as washing his car.

This revolving cast keeps the season fresh and gives House chances to interact with more doctors than the just the standard three member team of the past three seasons. Naturally, Foreman, Cameron, and Chase all end up back at the hospital. Cameron works in the emergency room and Chase in surgery.

This gives the two characters a chance to interact with House and his new team. Foreman discovers his time with House has made it impossible to get hired by any other hospital, and rejoins House’s team – reluctantly.

Slowly but surely, the group of 35 is whittled down to 3 (I won’t say who they are because that was half of the fun of the season), and they have to learn to survive in House’s weird world.Also thrown into the mix, House has to deal with his friend, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) getting a new girlfriend.

To make matters worse, she is just like House which leads to all kinds of clashes. This adds some more humor to the show, but the story plays out towards the end of the season.

For the most part, Season Four is extremely good, and reminds you why you liked House, M.D. to begin with. The series’ new team of doctors works well with the established cast members and gives the show a fresh face lift. The way the writers worked the new characters into the show is extremely original and bares all of House’s biting wit.

While I liked the season, I HATED the way it ended, and thought the show “jumped the shark” a bit towards the end. It wasn’t enough to keep me from watching Season Five, but it was a big letdown to the good episodes of earlier in the season.

The House, M.D. – Season Four DVD set comes loaded with special features. They include a look at House’s favorite television soap; several behind the scenes featurettes, and commentary.

The behind the scenes are interesting because the cast talk about how the writers made the season like a reality show with the new actors not knowing when they were going to get the axe, and the final three not knowing they would be added to the show until the end. The actors talk about how the not knowing was stressful, but kept them sharp throughout the season.

If you are a fan of House, this season will not let you down, and really revels in what has made the show great. Hugh Laurie once again perfects House’s characteristics and makes him the reason to watch – even though he would probably just insult you for doing it.

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Reviewer’s Bias*
Loves: Hugh Laurie, “House,” mysteries, dark comedy
Likes: Companies that learn from their mistakes
Dislikes: Doctors, hospitals
Hates: Needles, Non-anamorphic widescreen

The Story So Far…
Executive Produced by Bryan Singer, “House, M.D.“ follows the medical misadventures of Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a genius diagnostician with a bum leg and addiction to painkillers, who hates people and loves puzzles. Working with his team of doctors and annoying the hospital administrators, House tackles the toughest cases, where no one can figure out what’s wrong with the patient. Focusing more on solving the mystery than the action in the operating room, the show tempers the drama of a medical show with House’s sarcastic humor, and mixes in some intriguing relationships among the doctors. August is the month for House, with the first season released on DVD in 2005, with annual releases to follow.

The Show
At the end of the third season, House’s somewhat trusted team of fellows was no more, having escaped his clutches, leaving for greener pastures. Without a group of doctors to balance his stubbornness, and serve as his whipping boys, the show’s dynamic just doesn’t work, a point illustrated by the first episode of the year, so you knew he wouldn’t be without a group for long, and this season spends more than half the episodes selecting a new gang of doctors for House to torture.

Taking a cue from House’s love of TV and his love of manipulating people’s emotions, the search for a new team became a “real life” reality show, as he hires 40 fellows in order to whittle them down via a number of challenges. The wide variety of new characters, which include Kal Penn as a laid-back young doctor, Olivia Wilde’s conflicted and emotional No. 13, and master manipulator Amber (Anne Dudek), is developed quite well, making it difficult to figure out who would be sticking around when House finally makes his picks. Playing out over nine episodes, the process is a bit too drawn out, though it makes sense that House would take his time picking a team he doesn’t really want.

Complicating matters is the presence of the original team of Chase, Cameron and Foreman, though not in the way many may have expected, as it’s not a return to the status quo. Smartly, the old crew is used selectively, in a way that makes sense for the characters and which doesn’t overshadow the new group of doctors, as they need time to establish themselves, after three seasons with the original group. As one could expect, there’s obvious comparisons to be made between the two groups, but the new group stands on its own as well, opening up the chance to explore some different storylines that couldn’t be done with Cameron and company. That the new hires are played by some very talented actors (many will see Penn with some new respect) helps make the transition pretty painless.

As usual, the many cases that House and his team help solve are wildly inventive, from a man (the ever excellent Frank Whaley) who builds his personality by mirroring the people he interacts with, to an astronaut who can see sounds. Similarly, the way he breaks the cases are unique, like his attempts to help a scientist stuck at the South Pole (Mira Sorvino) via webcam, or his kidnapping of an actor on his favorite soap opera, feeling that he’s sick and doesn’t know it. It’s rare that you run into a situation on this show that makes you feel you’ve seen it before, and if you ever did, it’s not going to end the way you expect.

The subplots that tie together the individual episodes are intriguing as well, focusing on questions of faith and honesty, constant themes in House’s world. Episode three, “97 Seconds” is one of the best this season, with a subplot about a man who wants to die because a near-death experience was the best thing that ever happened to him, while the Christmas episode, “It’s a Wonderful Lie,” is an excellent examination of what the truth can mean to people. The relationship between House and his best friend Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) also gets deeper exploration, as Wilson begins dating a girl who’s just like House, creating a great deal of friction between them.

The situation leads up to the massive two-part season finale, which is probably the finest arc the show ever delivered. From the first moment, when House finds himself at a strip club, with no idea how he got there, to the heartbreaking final montage, it’s just about perfect television. The inventive way everythingunfolds , as we enter the questionable memories that House attempts to uncover following a traumatic accident, is the kind of art that is usually limited to the big-budget films of visionaries. Yes, the musical montages are a bit overdone, manipulating the viewer beyond the honest emotion of the scene, but in the midst of the greatness that surrounds them, thisindulgence can be forgiven. These episodes are just that good.

The DVDs
Thanks to the writers strike, the fourth season of “House” was shortened to just 16 episodes, so the set shrunk from five discs down to four, which are held, overlapped, in a slipcovered two-tray, three-panel digipak, with episode descriptions. The discs have static anamorphic-widescreen main menus offering a choice to play all the episodes, select individual shows, view special features, and adjust languages. There are no audio options or closed captioning, but there are subtitles in English SDH and Spanish.

The Quality
Continuing to raise the bar in terms of broadcast television aesthetics, “House” reached new heights this season, especially in the final two episodes, which are simply beautiful. The anamorphic widescreen transfers on these discs are outstanding, with bright, appropriate color, an extremely high level of detail and no noticeable dirt, damage or compression artifacts to be found.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes present the show in optimal quality, pushing crisp, clear dialogue through the center channel, while using the surround speakers to deliver atmospheric effects and enhancements to the music soundtrack. There are a few memorable musical montages that are bumped up by the mix.

The Extras
The extras are contained entirely on the fourth DVD (with the exception of some previews on the first disc) and start with an episode-length audio commentary on “House’s Head,” by creator David Shore and executive producer Katie Jacobs. The duo share a good deal of info on how the episode was made, and thoughts on the innovative and emotional story. There are a few dead spots, but they have good chemistry when they are talking, making for a solid track.

There’s a sweet selection of featurettes included here, led by “New Beginnings,” a hefty 26-minute look back at the season, with interviews with the cast and crew. Hearing from just about everyone involved is a welcome supplement, considering the lack of commentaries, and the inclusion of some of the new recruits gives a different perspective. You also get to know the people behind the show in the 14:46 “Meet the Writers,” which has interviews with the writing staff and discussion about how the show is created.

“The Visual Effects of ‘House’” spends over 15 minutes on the various computer animations and special effects used on the show, with the effects crew demonstrating some of the techniques used. It’s complemented by “Anatomy of a Scene: The Bus Crash,” which focuses on the massive effect at the center of the two-part season finale. At just under six minutes, it’s the shortest extra, but it’s interesting to see how the shot was done.

The remaining two featurettes are slightly throw-aways, with “Prescription Passion” being an amusing novelty, as it presents just over six minutes of scenes from House’s favorite soap opera. It’s stereotypical bad acting, but still cute nonetheless. The final extra is “My Favorite Episode So Far…” which spends a little under seven minutes with the cast and crew, as they reminisce about, surprisingly, their favorite episodes.

The Bottom Line
After resisting the urge to make big changes in season three, season four changed everything, especially the team that works with House, which took a bit longer than it really needed, but which led to a two-part ending that’s among the best episodes the show ever produced. The DVDs look and sound excellent, and the extras are a step up from the previous release, though they are missing a few of the more popular elements from previous sets. Unlike last season, this is a fine opportunity for new fans to jump on board, with a season that’s practically self-contained, yet a wonderful continuation on the show’s storylines.

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Back in May — remember that far back — Isabelle wrote about the fact that David Shore, creator of House, was contemplating a new show. It was a spinoff of House, but not a medical show. It was going to be in the private eye genre.

Newark Star-Ledger columnist Alan Sepinwall (with Dan Feinberg) did an interview with David recently and found out some more information about the spinoff.

“We brought in a character, partway through the year, [actor] Michael Weston as this private investigator House goes to. The spinoff would be less of a spinoff, it would be more us using House to launch it. It would be an independent world. A character out of the House mold, but definitely different.”



Shore said that we can expect Michael Weston — which is funny that that’s the same name as Jeffrey Donovan’s character on Burn Notice, only that character’s name is spelled Westen — to appear early in the new season.

According to Shore, “House is constantly sending people to break into people’s homes, and he does it the right way in one episode. It’s a character that only House could love.”

Finally, Shore revealed that he wants to do this kind of story because… “I’ve always loved The Rockford Files.” Hmm, Rockford. Interesting. Who could Shore cast in a role that has the charm of James Garner’s Jim Rockford and the irascibility of Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House?

I would have no trouble tuning in to watch a detective series in The Rockford Files tradition — which is what Magnum, P.I. was inspired by — and with David Shore behind the creation, I have faith the show would be something worth watching. There really aren’t many detective shows on TV right now, what with all the procedurals and forensics. I could get psyched about this. (Speaking of which, I love the Psych detectives.)

After last week’s cliff hanger ending on House M.D., I didn’t know what to expect from tonight. In the wake of giving himself a heart attack on top of pushing his cracked skull into working overtime, how much further would House go to save Amber? And how far had he already gone with her? I didn’t think House could betray his best friend, but things were looking shady.

The episode used a minimum of time going through previously seen footage. I’m going to spend even less and skip it entirely, since this recap will already be a lengthy one. We begin with House and Wilson at the community hospital that is currently treating Jane Doe #2 - AKA Amber. Kidney failure has progressed into an ever increasing heart rate. That hospital can get her into surgery in a couple of hours. Their own is a mere 15 minute ride away. Wilson poses as her husband and they move her.

In the ambulance ride, Wilson still cannot wrap his head around everything that is going on and so he focuses on the one answer he thinks he might get by asking House why she was on the bus and why they were together. Unfortunately, Amber is crashing in the meantime. House is about to use the defibrillator when Wilson asks to ice her instead. He reasons that if they bring her core temperature down low enough they can induce a protective state of hypothermia, whereas if they jump start her heart it can release all sorts of free radicals that may kill her brain. The go for the non-brain-killing option, icing her and putting her on a by-pass machine to take over the job of her heart.

The team gets together for the differential, but the best they come up with outside of blood tests is to have House take the Alzheimer’s medication again. As he points out, he already had a heart attack that morning and can’t do anymore drugs until after lunch. The team dejectedly files out, except Taub, who hangs back to ask House if there was anything medically relevant that he was unable to disclose publicly. Which is a very politically correct way of asking what kinds of naughty he may have been doing with Amber that precipitated the event. House comments that he didn’t sign up for a philanderers anonymous meeting, but when he can’t answer Taub on the matter of what substances might have been ingested, Taub decides to run a tox-screen.

Meanwhile, 13 and Kutner are visiting Amber and Wilson’s apartment. They are poking around, though 13 clearly doesn’t want to be there. Kutner is more emotionally distanced from it all, but as we learn it is not because he is emotionally cold. His parents were killed when he was 6 years old and he learned that death was the way of the world. Which is very zen, but I am not sure I would want my doctor to have that same attitude.

House still hasn’t slept and when he does attempt to shut his eyes, he finds he is not alone. He asks Amber what they did last night while she pours him a glass of sherry and straddles him, asking him if she feels familiar before whispering the word “electricity” in his ear. The dream gives him an idea - to attempt deep brain stimulation. But Cuddy immediately shoots it down on the basis that drilling holes into already cracked skull is probably not a structurally sound idea. On more than one level. On the other hand, all the tests the team have run have revealed a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

However, Kutner and 13 turned up a few interesting finds when they uncover diet pills, SSRIs and amphetamines. While I am sure there are several houses in which you will find Dexatrim, Zoloft and Adderall, those houses are not likely to contain two doctors with one doctor hiding the pills from the other in a Vitamin E bottle. House decides to take the easy test by cracking Amber’s chest and poking a finger on her pulmonary artery. Whether or not they feel calcification will decide if they warm her back up for treatment. When that is the safe route, I think you are in it deep.

The team is more disturbed that House is basing tests on the notion that their assumptions may be wrong. And while I understand that seeing your bosses confidence shaken like that might be disturbing, I am still surprised at the vigor with which the team argues that he is compromising his treatment plan based on his relationship with the patient. Even more surprising is Foreman arguing that they treat first, because it’s faster. How often has he argued against that? Even run tests behind House’s back? Has he finally given in to becoming more like House after all? Lastly, 13 accomplishes nothing, other then desperately attempting to blend in with the carpeting. So House calls her out and tells her that she needs to get over whatever is bothering her and do her job. With no niceties or coy games to get under her skin, it’s like a splash of cold water on an already tense episode.

They team suits up and is about the crack her chest when Chase notices that Amber’s eyes are yellow, indicating that her liver is failing. Which means no opening her up and she stays on ice. But House is on to the more subtle mystery of his dream. He doesn’t drink sherry (and really, who does?) so he’s trying to figure out what it could mean. Which is when he remembers the name of the bar is Sharries. He and Wilson take a trip and the bartender (played by Fred Durst. Yup.) gives him back his motorcycle keys. House asks him if Amber seemed sick and he mentions that she sneezed before letting them know that he was too busy to analyze his girlfriend’s snot. Which is particularly awkward since Wilson is there. House tries to say that she isn’t his girlfriend and the ever helpful bartender shoots back that she was hot, he seemed into her and she bought him drinks, so last night she was his girlfriend. Yeah, time to go.

Wilson tries to question it but House redirects his focus and they decide to fill Amber’s lungs with slurry to buy more time. I am unsure what that means exactly, but ’slurry’ doesn’t sound too bad. Sort of like a dessert drink. Which made the graphic overlay of dark blue sludge sliding through her esophagus and filling her brachia all the more horrifying. Meanwhile, the team suspect she may have HepB and they are about to treat her for it when House drops off to sleep to another visit, where Amber tells him it’s a lame diagnosis. But it triggers more memory and House rushes the room to stop them, pointing out a rash on her lower back. They settle on Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (what?), but Wilson wants to keep the treatment safe (because apparently he has seen the show), leading to more strife with the team.

It’s only remarkable because it leads House to confront 13 with what’s really bothering her. That the idea of a young, female doctor is dying - an idea that strikes a chord with her but which she has avoided by not testing herself for Huntington’s. In no mood to coddle her, he tells her to deal with it or pack up her stuff and go. While this is going on, Foreman is going behind House’s back to Cuddy, to tell her that he thinks House is using bad judgment and will kill Amber. Next thing we know, Cuddy and Foreman are pulling a House…on House, by treating his patient against his wishes. Only, they are not House and soon Amber’s EEG is slowing, indicating the infection has spread to her brain thanks to their attempt to bring her temperature back up.

However, despite Wilson’s clear fury over the matter, it has made House realize he has played it safe and it’s doing her no good. Which is when Wilson brings up House’s earlier idea of deep brain stimulation. Yes, he really does ask his best friend to risk his life for his girlfriend. And, though I cannot quite believe it, they all move forward with it. Chase performs the surgery, delivering volts of electricity directly into House’s ventral hypothalamus. And it does release his memory.

What we learn is that House did have too much to drink. But he was alone when he did it. And when his keys were taken away, he called Wilson. Only Wilson was on call and Amber was home. Which is why she was with him. But all the pieces don’t fall into place until House hears her say she’s getting the flu and take some pills.

It doesn’t have the same “eureka!” power as last week’s necklace revelation, but it’s more emotionally charged as the situation is explained, in slow and agonizing detail. Amber took amantadine for her flu, but was poisoned by it, and since it binds to proteins, dialysis won’t clear it out of her system. There is nothing they can do and Amber has been killed by the cure for the common cold. It’s ridiculously simple and devastatingly complex, made all the worse because she’s a doctor taking it herself. This in and of itself makes the scene crushing. It gets worse when a tearful House experiences a full on seizure, which leads to cracking his skull and a brain bleed.

The team gets the news that there is nothing they can do to help Amber. That there never was anything they could do. Cuddy talks Wilson into weaning her off the anesthesia so she can wake up and they can say good-bye. A decision that is hard enough, much less having to get around to the actually saying good bye part. Because before they can get to that, Wilson will have to tell her that she was in an accident, that all her organs are failing and that she’s going to die in just a few hours.The team each file in and don’t even have to say a word to Amber before it’s just she and Wilson laying in her hospital bed. Until she tells him she’s tired and it’s time to sleep. It’s wrenching and marvelously well played by everyone.

House has a final dream. He and Amber sit on an all white bus and discuss the options of dying, being pain free, no longer being miserable and the unfairness that a bitter misogynist gets to live while love struck hopefuls are a lost cause. And how he doesn’t want Wilson to hate him for not being able to save her. For being the reason she was on the bus. But Amber grins and tells him that he can’t always get what he wants (nice call back), before we get to the final montage. House opens his eyes to a tearful Cuddy and Wilson, who walks away. 13’s Huntington’s test comes back positive, Foreman, Chase and Cameron meet for a beer, Kutner watches TV alone, Taub hugs his wife and Wilson? Wilson goes home to a relatively new but empty bed. Until he finds a note, hastily scrawled on the back of a bill:

“Sorry I’m not here. Went to pick up House. (love) A”

Ouch?

So, yeah. Not much funny tonight. But there were these:

13: It could be anything .
House: Let’s go with that. Quick! Get her on panacea!

Wilson: This is exactly what I was afraid of! You went behind my behind my back! You went behind House’s back!
House: Inside voices.

I am still stunned myself. I never figured they would kill off Amber, ripping Wilson down that much further, weakening one more of House’s already tremulous sources of support. And how incredible were the performances tonight?  I can’t quite wrap my head around it all enough to have many questions about what we might see next season, but here’s what I got so far: How will this affect House and Wilson’s friendship? Did Cuddy seem a little too relieved with House’s awakening? What will be the long term effects of a cracked skull and brain bleed? How will 13’s positive status change her character? Discuss, while I go get a fresh box of tissues.