Cereal Monogamist

Why am I watching this? 2nd edition

Today was Sunday; school is over. I haven't started any of my summer projects or found a job yet. So I had no problem sleeping in until noon today, or wasting the majority of the afternoon (and well on into evening) by watching a House marathon on USA.

First of all, I only watch House in syndicated form; the occasional weekend marathon, the two or three episodes that air on Friday nights--basically any time I'm looking for something to watch, anything, I'll watch House, but I have no interest in watching regularly.

The show is unapologetically formulaic. This is the kind of show where you say—“That’s not really the solution, though, because it’s only 9:25.” For every episode that subverts our expectations (and, to House’s credit, I’ve seen a couple) there’s sixteen that follow a precise template. First five minutes: average person engaging in some kind of average person activity, though occasionally the activity is less average. Next ten minutes, the doctors spar and verbally abuse each other, and declare conclusively that the patient’s problem is Simple Condition That Just Needs Simple Treatment X. About ten minutes later, the patient’s body rejects the treatment in a gross and/or explosive manner, such as expelling blood out the ears.

And so on, and so on, until five of ten, when the doctors discover that, in fact, the patient has some exotic disease brought on by some alarmingly common action, such as eating mildly spoiled food, or using over-the-counter antihistamines. Occasionally it will also be some genetic disorder that lay dormant in the patient’s system for thirty years before dramatically shutting down their kidneys and presenting misleadingly as a headache. This diagnosis may be accompanied with the discovery that the patient is adopted, or that the lawyer isn’t their father, the mailman is.

What really struck me today, though, is how misanthropic the show is--I mean, that's been the hook of the show all along, of course--but this marathon was particularly illuminating about how little the show thinks of women and mothers in particular. It took me a few episodes to understand the day's theme, but I eventually figured out that all episodes which heavily featured a mother character were chosen for the marathon without any consideration of how the mother character came off. This is why I was treated today to the episode where the domineering single mother needs to back off her control freak tendencies and learn that other people know better than she does (actually, there were two of those); the one with the woman whose brain told her to kill her baby (so she did, and then died herself as self-imposed punishment); and finally the one where babies—the need for babies, the desire for babies!—makes a woman completely irrational. I wonder if the network found the idea of a Mother’s Day marathon of a show that hates mothers funny, or if they just didn’t plan well. Anyway, Happy Mother's Day, everybody!

So what do I get out of this show? I like a few of the characters, Robert Sean Leonard's in particular. He's witty sometimes. He's cuter today than he was in Dead Poets Society in 1989, and also I love the classic movie posters in his office (Vertigo! I have that one! Touch of Evil! That's a good movie!). Hugh Laurie is pretty charismatic, although I don't know that's he really doing anything different anymore with the character, just hitting marks at this point and collecting paychecks. (Someone who watches more regularly or more closely can certainly refute me on this point.)

I think probably the show hits me on two fronts. First, there's the horror factor. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, and this show gives me all new diseases, conditions, contagions, carcinogens, etc. to fear. It's like watching the slasher flick where the guy sneaks up slowly with a knife in his hand: awful to consider, but fun to watch. Second, there's the formula factor. As much as I love a twisty narrative (see my How I Met Your Mother post from a few days ago for proof), when I'm kind of tired and disengaged I want to watch something predictable and easy. This show is a surefire way to pass that hour before Ocean's Eleven begins on TNT, or to put on in the background while I do today's Sudoku. And it's better than the other ubiquitous cable TV staple, which is Law and Order.

Which I also sometimes watch.