DVR Break-Up: The Event, House
I had high hopes for The Event — a lot of actors I enjoy (Jason Ritter, Laura Innes), a tantalizing concept, and the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of Flash Forward.
But the actors can’t do much with the material, in part because it’s so humorless about itself. Overly portentous sci-fi doesn’t work for me, particularly in the aliens-among-us genre; I stuck with Fringe until it figured out how to put its back into the myth-arc episodes because it has a humor, a lightness at times, which gives the darker bits dimension.
The Event is so interested in teasing the central conflict with contrived time jumps and coyly ambiguous phrasings, and in stinging every scene change with The Cello Of Chilling Doom, that it has no time for a chuckle, or for creating characters for whom I might tolerate the unrelenting self-seriousness. The aliens have slightly more depth than the human characters, which is mildly unfortunate (the fact that I don’t know whether the writing intends me to perceive them as villains: ditto), but even those characters don’t work. What is their motivation for refusing to discuss their…um, motivation? No reason I could even fan-wank would feel satisfying after close to 70 years of dissembling.
Blair Underwood seems oddly overmatched in the role; Sarah Roemer’s Leila, and her relationship with Ritter’s Sean, is utterly uncompelling, like watching eight-year-olds play Barbies with a Kate Hudson doll; I hate hate hate “why won’t ANY-one be-LIEVE ME?!” “plots.” It could get better, but I don’t see how, and I…won’t see how. Done.
I didn’t exactly dump House; I just forgot to put it back in the season-pass queue after switching out my DVR last spring. I hear that the fan base is either thrilled or outraged by the “Huddy” pairing, but that isn’t why I stopped watching and it isn’t why I won’t resume. I’m neutral on the relationship, although I have to say that, as much as I’ve enjoyed those two actors and their chemistry over the years, I don’t see that type of chemistry between them.
I just…lost interest. House is unrelentingly mean. Wait, he’s nice now. Okay, now he’s mean again. Wait, sorry, insert inciting incident here…give it a minute…yeah, nice again. Yankety-yank-yank whiplash, for years now, with every relationship House has, no progress, no credible or permanent change. Everything always gets undone. The writers used to exploit that, make it nearly tragic — or the actors did; Hugh Laurie is still fantastic, and Robert Sean Leonard is too, especially in the Amber arc — but the very talent the show had for variations on a theme of contentment’s too-fleeting nature wound up ruining it, in a way, because they could never let anything happen and not reverse it.
Drama comes from conflict, blah blah, but the way it’s done here, at this point in the life of my investment in the characters (or the actors, as I said), every time there’s yet another reversion to mean, I feel deceived — and bored. The premiere last year knocked me out, but I should have quit immediately afterward. Better late than never, though. Sorry, Wilson.
Tags: Blair Underwood DVR Break-Up Fringe House Hugh Laurie hurrr durrr Jason Ritter Laura Innes Robert Sean Leonard Sarah Roemer The Event TV unearned self-importance
I still watch “House,” but my main problem with it is that hardly anyone on his team is actually likable. I don’t actively hate Chase, but I feel like even after all these seasons, I barely know anything about him. Taub is fun sometimes, but so flawed that it’s hard to keep rooting for him. I don’t know why Foreman is still around. Thirteen is just…eh. Even Cameron coming back wouldn’t help things.
They really never should have killed off Amber.
God, THIRTEEN. I don’t mind the actress as much as some, but that storyline’s prominence didn’t make sense to me.
I still watch House, as well, but yeah… his team isn’t nearly as interesting as it once was. Foreman annoys me with everything that comes out of his mouth, Taub is a Paper Doll cutout from “The Big Book of Flawed Men”, and 13 is… nothing but a pair of eyes. Chase was interesting when he was married to Cameron, but now he’s just… an accent and floppy hair.
I’m not sure about the Cuddy relationship, but I am glad she’s no longer with the PI guy… that story line bored me. Though… I love the fact that her daughter seems to have gone missing… she spends several days with House, and not of mention of the poor thing is made… and when her phone rings and House won’t let her answer, again, not a mention is made that the call might concern her daughter… ah, Television’s fickle relationship with Parenthood.
Heh. You’re describing “House” as the twisted mirror-image of those sitcoms where, no matter what happens, at the end of the episode everything automatically resets to the default state.
“The Event”: For a property whose entire ad-campaign was based around cock-teasing, they damn sure didn’t wait too long to lay everything out.
And I think that the chief lesson learned from “Flash Forward” is “when you write Season One, don’t sprinkle it with a bunch of plot points that you intend to resolve during the big finish of Season Three, because you don’t even know if you’re going to get a Season Two“.
Didn’t start watching The Event and don’t really plan on it.
House is a funny show for me. I’ll watch it religiously for a while and then I’ll go 3 or 4 weeks without watching it on my TiVo and then won’t watch it for the rest of the season. That’s what happened last season and whatever season that the strike occured. I just don’t really miss it when I don’t watch it and don’t get excited about watching 3 or 4 episodes in a row.
That being said, I did watch last week and I plan to watch last nights as well. We’ll see.
Haven’t seen The Event and probably won’t (too many commercials telling me I. Must. Watch. I snub you because your commercials annoy me!
I’m sad I no longer enjoy House because I thought “Three Stories” is hands down the best written television episode of anything ever.
I still watch House, but only for Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard. If they cut the show to a half hour and focused on those to it would be so much more interesting. I do find Taub amusing but other than that, I cannot stand any of the other team members. Killing off Amber and Kutner were both huge mistakes. I have no opinion about the House/Cuddy (I hate name portmanteaus with a fiery passion) relationship.
I don’t give up on shows very easily once I’m so far into it’s run, I stuck with ER until the bitter end. The only show I can think of that I had my own DVR break up with was the last season of Heroes. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I only watch House on Hulu these days, and even then I have a hard time sticking with it. Like Jenn, I just find all these people so unpleasant, and I keep asking myself, “Why is anyone friends with any of you people? Why am I watching this?” Although I still find Thirteen interesting, for some reason I can’t articulate. The “Huddy” (ugh) thing doesn’t thrill me at all, and I find myself thinking, “Yeah, well, this isn’t going to last, any more than any other relationship development on this show ever lasts, so, whatever. And it’s going to take forever to go nowhere.” Meh.
My husband is obsessed with House — and I do agree that “Three Stories” is a damn fine piece of writing, though the weekend where he watched that episode twenty times in a row disturbed me a little — and I just… can’t. On the one hand, you’re right that they can’t ever let anything good happen without changing it next episode, but on the other hand, people are still stuck in the same awful patterns. House says something offensive. Someone who’s known him for five years is shocked! Foreman rolls his eyes. Cuddy and House argue about something horrible he did. POTW starts bleeding out the eyes. Ad break.
I like Lisa Edelstein, but I think the only way I would get interested in the show again is if House just up and murdered Cuddy. Can we just decide that he’s a horrible person and stop trying to redeem him? Because he is.
Am I the only person who absolutely despised Amber?! I NEVER got what Wilson saw in her — and I even loathe her now on “Covert Affairs” as the Big Sis who is stupid enough to believe that Li’l Sis works for the Smithsonian at all hours of the day and night …
I also don’t get how Cuddy can sleep with House until and unless he bathes and shaves about 7 times. The man looks like he constantly reeks.
I don’t watch House and never have, but I’ve got to high five forgprof for the Covert Affairs comments-MY GOD is that the stupidest spy cover story ever. Stupider than the Buy More even.
Regarding the Event, can it really be a break up if you only went out once?
I’m definitely considering a House break up. The only people I liked were Chase and Cameron and now Cameron’s gone, Chase is reduced to pathetic-ness, and House is still an ass.
Trying The Event again tonight (DVRed from last night) but don’t have high hopes.
Meh…House’s assiness still manages to make me laugh regularly throughout a given episode, so I continue to watch. Plus, I’m interested in seeing just what random and crazy combination of ailments the team will run into THIS week, and next thing I know, the hour has flown by.
I like the House/Cuddy relationship, too. It’s sweet. :)
Never had an interest in The Event. It involves aliens? Good thing I didn’t watch it. I’m sure it would incite all kinds of new nightmares for me. Blech.
Okay, this is so totally geeky; but did anybody elese see Jesse Spencer and immediately squeal “That’s Raphael Arbuthnot!!!” Stupid PBS….
I watched House for quite a while, then it moved to another night and I couldn’t get home in time, and I don’t have a DVR, so I just–quit. And I didn’t mind, because in the back of my mind I knew Hugh Laurie and RSL were doing the majority of heavy lifting acting-wise and the plots were so insane as to make the Friday cliff-hanger of a daytime soap seem reasonable and well thought out. I mainly enjoyed calling my dad, a doctor, and asking what he thought, so I could listen to the rants about how no doctor in the history of modern litigation would be able to get away with a tenth of what House does, and any hospital with those procedurals would be shut down, and on and on. Hee!
Also, it amazed me, the number of people with “one in a billion” diseases/conditions that just happened to show up at this particular hospital. It’s practically a science fiction show just for that.
I’ve watched both episodes of The Event and am mildly interested, since I love all things science-fictioney, but mostly annoyed at the constant “8 years ago”, “13 weeks ago”, “60 years ago” thing. This show is trying way too damn hard. It wants to establish itself as a cult classic, a new Lost, right off the bat. And sorry, NBC, but that’s not how it works.
I’ll probably watch one more week of it just to make sure, but I think I’m done. Oh and for what its worth- not convinced it is aliens, but perhaps super-evolved time traveling humans? Eh, who cares, really.
I don’t know if you’ll think this too off-topic, or if you even want to get into this — but can you explain what you mean by “coyly ambiguous phrasing”? (Here’s your full sentence: “The Event is so interested in teasing the central conflict with contrived time jumps and coyly ambiguous phrasings.”)
And it’s primarily the “phrasing” part. “Coyly ambiguous” I’m good with; it’s your adjective that I can’t figure out. What would a phrase be like in a television series? (I’m probably being too literal. I know what a phrase would mean in music; I know what a phrase is in writing; are all these things analogous?)
“phrasing” = the way something is stated, put, or framed.
“I’ve watched both episodes of The Event and am mildly interested, since I love all things science-fictioney, but mostly annoyed at the constant “8 years ago”, “13 weeks ago”, “60 years ago” thing.”
I broke up with The Event last night, half-way through the second episode, basically because of that conceit. I wasn’t engaged enough to even follow what the hell was going on. I wasn’t going to bother watching the second one on my DVR, but…it was there. I like sci-fi well enough, I like Jason Ritter well enough, but my inability to see Lost through to the bitter end indicates I am not made for series-long mysteries, even when they’re well-made, and this one was not. DELETE.
I broke up with House eons ago. I don’t even know what I watch anymore, since I’m tired of doctor shows, conspiracy shows, and lawyer shows. Oh, wait! Do you think maybe someone’s got a cop show on?
Am I the only person who absolutely despised Amber?!
@frogprof: No; no, you are not. I barely understand why Wilson had one evil-tempered, self-enthralled sorehead in his life, but two? Good grief, man! (“Unrelentingly mean” is a perfect description of both House and Amber the Built Like A Brick She-House.) That show just wore me out.
I haven’t QUITE given up on The Event yet; if it doesn’t quit with the hopscotching flashbacks, and allow Jason Ritter to be … not dumb, it’s heading for DVR Dumpsville.