Thursday, November 25, 2010

Pardon the Interruption: House 7:8 - Small Sacrifices

Overall: 4.7

That sucked -- just as I suspected when I saw the preview.



Plot Synopsis:

FOX has the blow-by-blow here.

The Skinny:

I will give House one thing: his premises may be wrong, but at least he's relatively consistent. There are only three ways you can go when it comes to Jesus: he's either a psychotic, a liar, or the Son of God. House believes there is no God, so, logically, he should diagnose Jesus as a schizophrenic.

It doesn't bother me that House is so insulting whenever he encounters a person of faith. That fits with his established character. It does bother me that the writers never ever let anyone of comparable intelligence call him on it no matter how many times they bring up the issue. In other words, it does bother me that the writers never do anything new with this basic plot. In the real world, very intelligent people have defended faith. If the writers weren't anti-religious bigots, they might've bothered to look up some of those arguments. But instead, they annually pull out straw men that House can easily dismiss - and quite frankly, it is boring when you never let your main character lose the debate.

I would've liked this episode more if the writers had allowed Masters to be at least somewhat religious, truth be told. That would've been fair. Alas, the writers decided to stick to their assumption that faith is impossible for the super smart. Do they realize just how illogical that makes Masters sound in the end? Without God, there is nothing substantial upon which you can rest any kind of universal moral code. "Nature" is not sufficient. "Evolution" is not sufficient. Without God, you must take House's radical position that the ends justify the means. Without God, Masters has no reason to demand perfect honesty -- at least, no reason she can adequately defend.

In other news, what the hell just happened between Wilson and Sam? That had no build-up whatsoever. As far as I could tell, everything was going perfectly fine between those two before this week. Shoddy work, writers. Shoddy work.

Writing: 4.0

Random break-ups that don't seem to come from anywhere don't sit well with me. It would also be fabulous if the writers could - just once - have a chat with a serious person of faith before they write another episode in which the Patient of the Week is religious. Either that, or they need to drop it, because seeing the same thing over and over is seriously getting old.

Acting: 8.0

SABR Matt believes the Patient of the Week and Sam both put in poor performances this week, but I didn't really notice that. Personally, I think the acting is fine here.

Message: 2.0

See above.

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