ASSESSMENT PAPER

Table of Contents

Rationale

Brief introduction

Inspiration and concept development

Casting of the lead roles

Series overview

Main characters

Awards

Personal contribution

Bibliography

Rationale

At first, it may seem rather unusual to choose a TV series over other subjects for my paper, but I find it easier to relate to this theme, since it is, in my opinion, more consistent with my tastes and experience.

Let me explain myself.

First of all, when I resolved to become a doctor (about a year ago), most of the people I knew were taken aback by my decision, because they did not consider this profession to be suitable for such a selfish and careless person as they thought me to be. Not long after, a friend of mine introduced me to the show, which I found quite inspiring, due to the fact that it proved my theory that you don't have to be overwhelmingly sympathetic or have exceptional bedside manners in order to make a brilliant doctor.

Moreover, I love the fact that "House" is a realistic TV series, unlike other soppy medical dramas and I find the quality of the dialogue (House's dark, cynical sense of humor always gets to me) amazing. The outstanding performances of the actors, alongside with the brilliantly written storyline and puzzling medical cases presented in each episode and, of course, the charisma of the main character have qualified this show as my favourite and I must confess I have become addicted to it, even though the last two seasons have been a tad disappointing.

In a nutshell, I have chosen to write about this show not only due to its exceptional quality, but also because

Brief introduction

As some of you may already know, "House", or "House, M.D.", is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The program was co-created by David Shore and Paul Attanasio, but Shore is the one officially credited by Fox as the creator of the series.

The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House (portrayed by Hugh Laurie), an unconventional and antisocial medical genius who leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton‑Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. The show's premise originated with Attanasio, while Shore was primarily responsible for the conception of the title character.

Dr. House often clashes with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), and his diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights and sometimes require unorthodox, if not dangerous treatment.

The members of his diagnostic team have changed throughout the seasons of the show : during the first three seasons, the team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps). At the end of the third season, however, this team disbands. Rejoined by Foreman, House gradually selects three new team members: Dr. Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn); the latter was written out of the series toward the end of season five. Chase and Cameron continue to appear in different roles at the hospital until early in season six, when Cameron leaves the show, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team.

"House" is critically acclaimed and has high viewership ratings. It was among the top ten rated shows in the United States from its second through its fourth season; in the 2008-09 season, it fell to nineteenth overall. Distributed to 66 countries, House was the most watched television program in the world in 2008. The show has received several awards, including a People's Choice Award, a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Primetime Emmy Awards. House's sixth season began with a two-hour premiere on September 21, 2009, with the season finale aired on May 17, 2010. Fox has announced that House will return for a 7th season this fall.

Inspiration and concept development

"House" was initially intended to be a CSI-like medical detective program, a sort of medical whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their underlying causes, whereas the inspiration for a medical procedural drama came from the The New York Times column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders.

The original premise of the show was of a team of doctors working together trying to 'diagnose the undiagnosable'. Shore felt it was important to have an interesting central character, one who could examine patients' personal characteristics and diagnose their ailments by figuring out their secrets and lies. As Shore and the rest of the creative team explored the character's possibilities, the program concept became less of a procedural and more focused upon the lead role. The character was named 'House', which was adopted as the show's title as well. Shore developed the characters further and wrote the script for the pilot episode. Bryan Singer, who directed the pilot episode and had a major role in casting the primary roles, has said that the 'title of the pilot was 'Everybody Lies', and that's the premise of the show'.

Shore has also mentioned the fact that the central storylines of several early episodes were based on the work of Berton Roueché, a staff writer for The New Yorker between 1944 and 1994, who specialized in features about unusual medical cases.

Shore traced the concept for the title character to his experience as a patient at a teaching hospital. During an interview, he recalled that, 'I knew, as soon as I left the room, they would be mocking me relentlessly [for my cluelessness] and I thought that it would be interesting to see a character who actually did that before they left the room'. A central part of the show's premise was that the main character would be disabled in some way and the writers ultimately chose to give House a damaged leg arising from an incorrect diagnosis, which requires him to use a cane and causes him pain that leads to a narcotic dependency.

A very interesting aspect concerning the development of Dr. Gregory House's  character are the numerous similarities he shares with Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

both House and Holmes rely on psychology and inductive reasoning when solving their cases and are reluctant to taking up cases which they find uninteresting

House's method is to eliminate diagnoses logically as they are proved impossible; Holmes uses a similar technique

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both characters play instruments (House plays the piano, the guitar, and the harmonica, while Holmes plays the violin) and suffer from a drug addiction (House is addicted to Vicodin; Holmes uses cocaine recreationally)

House's relationship with Dr. James Wilson echoes that between Holmes and his confidant, Dr. John Watson. Robert Sean Leonard, who portrays Wilson, said that House and his character-whose name is very similar to Watson's-were originally intended to work together much as Holmes and Watson do; in his view, House's diagnostic team has assumed that aspect of the Watson role

The number of House's apartment, 221B, is a reference to Holmes's street address

Furthermore, there are additional references to the Sherlock Holmes tales throughout individual episodes of the series:

The main patient in the pilot episode is named Rebecca Adler, after Irene Adler, a character in the first Holmes short story

In the season 2 finale, House is shot by a crazed gunman credited as 'Moriarty', the name of Holmes's nemesis

In the season four episode 'It's a Wonderful Lie', House receives a 'second edition Conan Doyle' as a Christmas gift

In the season five episode 'The Itch', House is seen picking up his keys and Vicodin from the top of a copy of Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

In another season five episode, 'Joy to the World', House, in an attempt to fool his team, uses a book by Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. The volume had been given to him the previous Christmas by Wilson, who included the message 'Greg, made me think of you'.

Casting

The casting of the actors portraying the main characters of the show has an interesting story itself.

When casting for the part started, Shore was afraid that in 'the wrong hands', House would 'just be hateful'.The casting directors were looking for someone who could, as Shore described, 'do these horrible things and be somehow likable without just, you know, petting a kitten'.

For this, the producers were looking for a 'quintessentially American person' to play the role of House. Bryan Singer in particular felt there was no way he was going to hire a non-American actor for the role. At the time of the casting session, actor Hugh Laurie was in Namibia filming the movie Flight of the Phoenix. Laurie had no big expectations for the show, thinking that it would only 'run for a few weeks'. He planned to audition for the roles of both James Wilson and Gregory House. However, when he read that Wilson was a character with a 'handsome open face', he decided to audition solely for the role of House. Laurie chose not to change his clothing, but to remain in the costume he wore for the film, he also decided not to shave his beard. He put together an audition tape of his own in a Namibian hotel bathroom, the only place with enough light, while his Flight of the Phoenix co-stars Jacob Vargas and Scott Michael Campbell held the camera. He improvised by using an umbrella for a cane. Laurie initially believed that James Wilson would be the protagonist of the show after reading the brief description of the character and did not find out that House was the main character until he read the full script of the pilot episode. Although Singer compared Laurie's audition tape to an 'Osama bin Laden video',  he was very impressed by his performance and commented on how well the 'American actor' was able to grasp the character. Singer was not aware that Laurie was English, due to his convincing American accent. Laurie credits the accent to 'a misspent youth [watching] too much TV and too many movies'.Although locally better- known actors such as Denis Leary, Rob Morrow, and Patrick Dempsey were considered for the part, Shore, Jacobs, and Attanasio were as impressed as Singer and cast Laurie as House.

Laurie later revealed that he initially thought the show's central character was Dr. James Wilson. He assumed that House was a supporting part, due to the nature of the character, until he received the full script of the pilot episode.

As for Robert Sean Leonard, he believed that his "House" audition was not particularly good, but that his lengthy friendship with Singer helped win him the part of Dr. Wilson.

Australian actor Jesse Spencer's agent suggested that he audition for the role of Dr. Robert Chase. Spencer believed the program would be similar in style to General Hospital, but changed his mind after reading the scripts. After he was cast, he persuaded the producers to turn the character into an Australian. Patrick Dempsey also auditioned for the part of Chase (he later became known for his portrayal of Dr. Derek Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy).

Omar Epps, who plays Dr. Eric Foreman, was inspired by his earlier portrayal of a troubled intern on the NBC medical drama ER. Jennifer Morrison felt that her audition for the part of Dr. Allison Cameron was a complete disaster. However, before her audition, Singer had watched some of her performances, including on Dawson's Creek, and already wanted to cast her in the role.

At the end of season three, House dismisses Chase, while Foreman and Cameron resign. House must then recruit a new diagnostic team, for which he identifies seven finalists. The producers originally planned to recruit two new full-time actors, with Foreman, who returns in season four's fifth episode, bringing the team back up to three members; ultimately, the decision was made to add three new regular cast members. (Along with Epps, actors Morrison and Spencer remained in the cast, as their characters moved on to new assignments.) During production, the show's writers dismissed a single candidate per episode; as a result, said Jacobs, neither the producers nor the cast knew who was going to be hired until the last minute. In the season's ninth episode, House's new team is revealed: Foreman is joined by doctors Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley (Olivia Wilde).

Series overview

Gregory House, M.D. (which stands for Doctor of Medicine) , is a misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Most episodes follow an already established pattern : they revolve around the diagnosis of a primary patient and start with a pre-credit sequence set outside the hospital, showing events leading up to the onset of the patient's symptoms. The typical episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose and treat the patient's illness, attempts that often fail until the patient's condition is critical. House's department usually only treats patients that have already been to other doctors but have failed to receive an accurate diagnosis yet. House habitually rejects cases that he does not find interesting. The storylines tend to focus on House's unconventional medical theories and practices, and the other characters' reactions to them, rather than on the intricate details of the treatments.

The team employs the differential diagnosis method, with House guiding the deliberations. Using a whiteboard, House writes down and eliminates possible etiologies with a marker. The patient is typically misdiagnosed during the episode and treated with medications accordingly. This usually causes further complications, but eventually helps House and his team diagnose the patient correctly, as the nature of the complications often provides valuable new evidence. House tends to arrive at the correct diagnosis seemingly out of the blue, often inspired by a passing remark made by another character. Diagnoses range from relatively common to very rare diseases.

Many ailments House and his team encounter cannot be easily diagnosed because patients have lied about their symptoms, circumstances, or personal histories. House frequently mutters, 'Everybody lies', or proclaims during the team's deliberations, 'The patient is lying'; this assumption guides House's decisions and diagnoses. Because many of his hypotheses are based on epiphanies or controversial insights, he often has trouble obtaining permission from his superior, hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy, to perform medical procedures he considers necessary. This is especially the case when the proposed procedures involve a high degree of risk or are ethically questionable. There are frequent disagreements between House and his team, especially Dr. Allison Cameron, whose standards of medical ethics are more conservative than those of the other characters.

House, like all of the hospital's doctors, is required to treat patients in the facility's walk-in clinic. His grudging fulfillment of this duty, or his creative methods of avoiding it, constitute a recurring subplot. During clinic duty, House confounds patients with unwelcome observations into their personal lives, eccentric prescriptions, and unorthodox treatments. However, after seeming to be inattentive to their complaints, he regularly impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses. The insights that occur as he deals with some of the simple cases in the clinic often inspire him to solve the main case.

A significant plot element is House's use of Vicodin to manage pain, caused by an infarction in his quadriceps muscle five years before the show's first season, which also forces him to use a cane. In the first season; eleventh episode 'Detox', House admits he is addicted to Vicodin, but says he does not have a problem because the pills 'let me do my job, and they take away my pain'. His addiction has led his colleagues, Cuddy and Dr. James Wilson, to encourage him to go to drug rehabilitation several times. When he has no access to Vicodin or experiences unusually intense pain, he occasionally self-medicates with other narcotic analgesics such as morphine, oxycodone, and methadone. House also frequently drinks liquor when he is not on medical duty, and classifies himself as a 'big drinker'.Toward the end of season five, House begins to hallucinate; after eliminating other possible diagnoses, he and Wilson determine that his Vicodin addiction is the most likely cause. House goes into denial about this for a brief time, but at the close of the season finale, he commits himself to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.

Main characters

Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) - Department Head of Diagnostic Medicine

As the show's protagonist, Dr. Gregory House is a maverick diagnostician with a double specialty in infectious disease and nephrology. Dr. House utterly lacks bedside manner and prefers to avoid direct contact with his patients whenever possible. Due to an infarction in his right thigh, House lost a substantial portion of the muscle in his upper leg and must use a cane to assist with walking. As a result, House is also forced to deal with constant physical pain, which he manages through a dependency on the prescription pain medication Vicodin. Although his behavior can border on antisocial or misanthropic, House is viewed as a genius physician whose unconventional thinking and excellent instincts have afforded him a great deal of respect and an unusual level of tolerance from his colleagues and the medical world.

House's character frequently shows his cunning and biting wit, enjoys picking people apart, and often mocks their weaknesses. House accurately deciphers people's motives and histories from aspects of their personality and appearance. His friend and colleague Wilson says although some doctors have the 'Messiah complex'-they need to 'save the world', House has the 'Rubik's complex'-he needs to 'solve the puzzle.' House typically waits as long as possible before meeting his patients. When he does, he shows an unorthodox bedside manner and uses unconventional treatments. However, he impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses after seemingly not paying attention. This skill is demonstrated in a scene where House diagnoses an entire waiting room full of patients in little over one minute on his way out of the hospital clinic. Critics have described the character as 'moody', 'bitter', 'antagonistic','misanthropic', 'cynical', 'grumpy' or "maverick".

Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) - Dean of Medicine, endocrinologist

Dr. Cuddy attended the University of Michigan for graduate studies, where she first met Gregory House. She has the distinction of being one of the few characters on the show (Dr. Wilson being the other) who can match wits with the fast-talking Dr. House in conversation (and arguments) and be considered one of his 'friends'. She often is left to pick up the pieces of House's questionable medical practices. She is also one of the few people who can stand House's rude manner, strange requests, and his many obnoxious (sometimes nosy) habits. Although she frequently criticises House's methods, she does trust his decisions to be in the best interest of his patients. Over the course of the show, it is seen that she is one of the few, if not only, people who would hire House at all, due to widespread disapproval of House's results-oriented methods and constant insubordination. A developing arc in season five indicates that she has (and may have always had) very strong feelings for House; in season five's 'Saviors' she refuses to answer when asked if she is in love with House, dismissing it as 'a ridiculous question.' House has described her as a Second Rate doctor.

Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) - oncologist

Dr. Wilson is Dr. House's best friend and is very well-respected and well-liked by both his colleagues and his patients, making his close friendship with the antisocial House especially puzzling to the other hospital employees. Wilson claims that his job and his 'stupid, screwed up friendship' with House are the two most important things to him. He, along with Dr. Cuddy, usually finds himself aiding and abetting House's Vicodin addiction and his very unorthodox methods.

House describes Wilson as 'a buddy of mine people say 'Thank you' to, when he tells them they are dying" and also as an "emotional vampire". Wilson attempts to change House's drug habits, with little success. After Cuddy makes a bet to prove House's addiction to Vicodin, House concedes to Wilson that he has an addiction, but says that the addiction is not a problem because it does not interfere with his work. It is, in fact, Wilson who usually writes House's Vicodin prescriptions (with Dr. Cuddy writing a few merely for leverage in her dealings with House).

Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps) - Diagnostic Medicine, neurologist

Of all the members of House's staff, it is strongly implied that Foreman performed better than the other fellows academically throughout college and medical school. However, during the pilot, Dr. House tells Foreman that a major factor in his hiring was the fact that he was a former juvenile delinquent who once stole cars and had 'street smarts'. As a result, he frequently voices his disapproval of House's maverick methods and daring decisions. Foreman resigned at the end of Season 3, feeling that the more time he spent with House, the more he became like him. Foreman then took a position as Head of Diagnostic Medicine at New York Mercy Hospital. During that time, he saved a patient's life by going against their protocols, something that House frequently does. Foreman is then told that while he may have saved the patient's life, he cannot be there if he cannot be trusted to obey his senior medical officers. Foreman is then fired. Although he applied at other medical facilities, no one would hire him because of the incident, attributing it to his past association with House. He later returned to Princeton Plainsboro because Cuddy was the only person willing to hire him after his actions. At the beginning of season 6 he was made Department Head of Diagnostic Medicine after House quit.

Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) - Diagnostic Medicine, immunologist

Cameron was written as an earnest and sincere character and the most empathetic of the team. Her character history reveals an early marriage to a victim of thyroid cancer, whose subsequent death had a lasting impact on her. She is an atheist, but expresses a feeling of respect for people with religious beliefs, unlike House, who openly and mercilessly taunts religious people. In the first season, she has a flirtatious relationship with House, but eventually embarks upon a tenuous affair with Robert Chase. Cameron resigned at the end of Season 3, but returned in Season 4 as a member of the Princeton Plainsboro Emergency Room staff.

Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) - Diagnostic Medicine, intensive care specialist

Dr. Chase's demeanor appears to have been either influenced or amplified by House, as he has previously displayed a penchant for insulting patients behind their backs, takes clear and vicarious joy in watching House tear into others, finds House's antics more amusing than others do, and repeats House's mantra of 'everybody lies' whenever a patient's full disclosure of any required medical history is called into question. Moreover, when suggesting treatments to diagnoses, Chase is arguably the most creative member of House's staff, often proposing unconventional treatments that had not previously been considered, but whose perceived effectiveness is generally agreed upon. Chase was fired by House at the end of Season 3, but he returned in Season 4 as the head of Princeton Plainsboro's surgical staff.

Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde) - Diagnostic Medicine

The show depicts Thirteen as a secretive character who does not divulge personal information; her surname was not used on the show until the fourth season finale 'House's Head', nor her given name until the fifth season episode 'Emancipation'. Instead, several of the character's traits are implied before they are depicted as true. In the season four episode 'You Don't Want to Know', Thirteen tells House that her mother died from Huntington's disease; a test she performs several episodes later confirms she carries the gene.

Dr. Christopher Taub (Peter Jacobson) - Diagnostic Medicine, plastic surgeon

Taub is a plastic surgeon and was #39 during the 'games' used by House to select his new team. House almost fired Taub (and the row he was sitting in) on the first day of the games but is saved when House changes his mind after noticing an attractive woman in the group. While initially criticized by the other candidates for his specialty, Taub proves himself to be quite clever, using his specialty to help House's many attempts to work around the 'rules'. For example, when in 'The Right Stuff' House cannot figure out how to do a biopsy without alerting NASA officials or the hospital, Taub proposes the solution of covering the necessary surgery with an elective breast augmentation, which allows Robert Chase, watching from observation, to notice the true cause of the condition. He also reveals himself as the most willing of the applicants to challenge House's authority, even telling a patient's father that he thinks House is wrong and can have him removed from the case ('Ugly'). Cuddy later favors Taub as one of her two choices for the team, arguing that his knowledge and combative nature would keep House focused. In the sixth season Taub quit PPTH and returned to his plastic surgery practice during the brief period Foreman led the diagnostics team after House's departure in the episode 'Epic Fail', saying he had only joined the team 'to work with House.' When House returned to PPTH in the episode 'Teamwork', House brought Taub back into the team along with Thirteen, Chase and Foreman.

Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn) - Diagnostic Medicine, sports medicine specialist

Kutner is shown to be open-minded about any new experience which is the reason why he wants to join House's new team. He was originally #6 during the games, but was fired in his first appearance for reporting Amber Volakis's recording of patient information. He continued to work even after being 'fired' by House by flipping his #6 into a #9 and refusing to leave, and then coming up with a clever stress test for a patient's liver, using alcohol to intoxicate the patient, which impresses House to keep him, much to Amber's dismay.

Of all the new fellows, he is the most enthusiastic and the one most likely to go along with House in taking risks, including illegal activities. When House was finally forced to pick his new team, Dr. Cuddy suggested he hire Kutner because Kutner 'shares [House's] philosophy of medicine.' He first got approval from House after successfully reviving a patient with a defibrillator while in a hyperbaric chamber, despite also setting her clothing on fire due to the high-oxygen atmosphere. Similarly, in 'Mirror Mirror', he resuscitated a patient using a defibrillator while the patient's skin was wet, inadvertently shocking himself into unconsciousness at the same time. Defibrillators and Kutner have become a running joke for House now, who, in 'Ugly', appoints him the 'professional defibrillist', a title of which Kutner seems rather proud.

Kutner is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his apartment by Thirteen and Foreman in 'Simple Explanation'. He was written of the show because actor Kal Penn, who portrayed Kutner, had accepted a job at the White House as 'a liaison connecting the Obama administration with arts and entertainment groups, as well as with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.'

Awards and nominations

"House" has received since its debut in 2004 a great deal of awards and honors, making up to a total of 34 wins and 105 nominations by January 2010.

Hugh Laurie, who portrays the title character, is the most-nominated actor, with a total of 26 nominations. Omar Epps is second, with six nominations. Besides the show's cast members, the writers and producers of the show have also been nominated for various awards; writer, showrunner, executive producer and director David Shore, has received 10 nominations for his work on the show.

Some of the most important awards received by the show are, chronologically :

a 2005 Peabody Award for what the Peabody board called an 'unorthodox lead character-a misanthropic diagnostician' and for 'cases fit for a medical Sherlock Holmes', which helped make House 'the most distinctive new doctor drama in a decade'.

The American Film Institute (AFI), included House in its 2005 list of 10 Television Programs of the Year

The show has been nominated for six Golden Globe Awards and received two. Hugh Laurie has been nominated four times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama; he won in 2006 and again in 2007. In 2008 the series received its first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama. House was nominated for best dramatic series again the following year, but has yet to win in the category.

Laurie won the Screen Actors Guild's award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in both 2007 and 2009

In 2005, 2007, and 2008, Laurie was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. The Emmy board also nominated House for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, but the show has yet to win the award

For the season one episode 'Three Stories', David Shore won a writing Emmy in 2005 and the Humanitas Prize in 2006

Writer Lawrence Kaplow won a Writers Guild of America Award in 2006 for the season two episode 'Autopsy'.

Director Greg Yaitanes received the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing - Drama Series, for directing 'House's Head', the first part of season four's two-episode finale

Personal contribution: A brief comparison between House and Grey's Anatomy

Perhaps this comparison may seem a bit biased and predictable, coming from a House fan, but I've actually come to dislike Grey's Anatomy before watching House, after I had viewed several episodes out of sheer boredom during a holiday and I must confess they did little to alleviate it.

Now, that I have a term of comparison, I don't believe there can be two shows so different from each other in respect to concept, storyline and characters, even though both of them could be classified as medical dramas.

To begin with, Grey's Anatomy, unlike House, is an overly dramatic, soap opera-like show which focuses primarily on the oh-so-important personal issues of the interns at Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital. Now, I wouldn't mind that if they were presented in a more realistic manner, but many episodes find the characters discussing and debating these issues during important medical procedures, which is, to say the least, far-fetched.

Furthermore, these so-called dilemmas are not even remotely related to the actual medical cases presented in each episode, so the show could might as well have been about butchers, whereas in House the characters' problems, even when brought out, are subtly and cleverly intertwined with the case itself and sometimes even offer the key to solving it (e.g. many of House's epiphanies occur during conversations he has with either Dr. Wilson or a member of his team about certain aspects of these issues).

Another significant difference between the two shows is the fact that the characters from Grey's Anatomy lack any kind of real depth and are sometimes quite inconsistent in their actions and decisions, while those from House evolve and develop in a realistic, plausible manner.

Moreover, the plot in Grey's Anatomy has "twists" which are quite foreseeable, the characters are irritatingly self-absorbed and the relationships between them are uselessly complicated (I think the writers expect viewers to find all this nonsense deep and profound), and I personally see this as a desperate struggle for high viewership ratings.