8 Best House, MD tropes that I never got tired of

House Has 177 episodes of 45 minutes each, meaning the show has to use some tropes and stick to a certain formula most of the time. While the idea of ​​a formulaic show can be unappealing at a time when so many shows are pushing the boundaries of the television format, using tropes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A long-running TV show with more than 16 episodes per season can still do so many original things every week.

House Knew how to play around the tropes of the medical drama genreAlthough it used most of them. Even some of the best House Episodes of All Time are full of recurring story beats and tropes that we might find in other medical shows, but they’re used in interesting ways. There is a long list of things that happen in every episode of HouseBut I never got tired of certain troops.

8

Every single differential diagnosis is wrong until the last one

If the episode does not end, the house is most likely wrong

One of the most common House Tropes can also be found in almost every other medical drama. No matter how smart House and his students are, They will never get the diagnosis right the first time. Any other guesses made before the last 10 minutes of the episode are also most likely wrong. Even if House was not a fan of trial and error – unless he specifically had to see how a patient would react to certain scenarios – so most cases were solved anyway. “It explains everything,” Until it doesn’t.

This is also where the biggest mistake with HouseThe medical accuracy comes from how fast each condition progresses. No matter the case or the treatment, the patient will show all possible symptoms in a couple of days maximum, allowing House to have a clear picture of what is happening. Although there are obviously many conditions that evolve rapidly, each House Case would escalate from relatively simple symptoms to “The patient will die if we don’t do something” In a few hours.

7

A simple he patient evolves into a complex case for the house

House usually dismisses a case until he catches something strange

Although not as common as some of the show’s other tropes, House running into a seemingly simple case that later evolves into a complex puzzle was one of my favorite parts of the show. The ER cases were mostly “filler” and had nothing to do with whatever House’s team was dealing with on the other floor. But, sometimes, House would find a fascinating case while doing his clinic hours. There were also many episodes where, even though it wasn’t an ER patient, House was quick to dismiss a case only to realize it was something else.

House comes up with a diagnosis incredibly quickly, sometimes just by looking at the patient. Therefore, his natural instincts were to dismiss anything that was too mundane so that he could focus on the big, most challenging cases. That’s why It’s always fun to see House slowly admit that something he deemed too easy is actually quite complicated. Season 3’s “One Day, One Place” was self-aware of this trope, with most of the episode revolving around two ER patients whose stories are more complicated than House and Cameron expected.

6

House does not want to do clinic hours but has to

House will do whatever it takes to skip clinic duty

I don’t think there is a single one House Episode where Gregory can’t complain about doing clinic hours. The result was always the same too. Regardless of how much House protested, he ended up having to spend a couple of hours in the clinic. House Including some meta jokes about Greg House only curing one patient per weekBut Kadi did not allow him to pay only for the care of four patients a month. From asking the foreman to say his name is House to paying 50 bucks for patients to leave, House really doesn’t know how to run a clinic.

As overused as this trope was, I never tired of it. Seeing House complain that his talents are wasted doing something that any other doctor could do is always fun, even more so because he usually fails to escape clinic hours. This is also allowed Houses episode to stop to breathe for a few minutes and let’s have fun when House deals with a weird or embarrassing emergency case. Hugh Laurie’s portrayal of Greg House was funny by default, however Houses clinic hours were even more hilarious.

5

Wilson “diagnoses” House and tells what’s wrong with him

Wilson always knew what to say to House

House was the one in charge of the diagnosis department, however Wilson was the one who usually diagnosed House On a more personal level. Almost every conversation between Wilson and House, especially in the earlier ones House Seasons, has Wilson analyzing Greg and giving a full explanation of what is wrong with his friend. Wilson could always see through House’s actions and lies, which is why their friendship was so fascinating. House can sometimes be a puzzle even to his teammates, but never to James Wilson.

In a lesser show with poor writing or misguided performances, having one person tell the other all their faults and insecurities, each episode could come across as cheap and melodramatic. in HouseHowever, this trope never got tired. There was a noticeable sense of sincerity in everything Wilson would say to HouseNo matter how harsh it was. Even when Wilson almost made a deal with the police to turn House in, the show never managed to make me think that Wilson was ever being selfish or positioning himself as morally superior.

4

Caddy won’t let House do anything (but he eventually does)

“Is it still illegal to do an autopsy on a living patient?”

As chief hospital administrator and dean of medicine, Caddy was responsible for anything House and his team would say or do to a patient. The interactions between Cuddy and House were the perfect example of “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unstoppable option.” Although this happened in almost every episode of House From seasons 1 to 7, it’s never repetitive. Kady knew what House had to do to achieve his usual results, but she also had lines she could not cross because of her position.

In season 1, when there is a chance that Cady will be removed from her position, Greg argues that he cannot let that happen because it would take too long for him to learn how to manipulate the new boss. Despite being a joke, this encapsulates why House and Cady arguing about tests and treatments, each episode is never boring. They knew each other too well and could always predict what the other was going to do when faced with a problem. It was a dance that usually ended with House finding a way to do what he needed to do.

3

“Everybody lies” to House and his team

The patient or their family are usually lying down

House’s original thesis, the one he spends most of the show proving right, is that “Everybody’s lying.” House assumes that every patient and their family will default to lying to doctorsWhich is one of the reasons why he doesn’t interact with them too often. For House, a well-researched medical history holds much more value than a conversation with a patient. Although this cynical approach was criticized by Wilson and House’s team, the show would often prove him right. More often than not, either the patient or their loved ones are lying.

Countless House These episodes have the team working on certain assumptions, only to find out that the patient or whoever was in charge of them has been told a lie. From kids lying to their parents to husbands and wives lying to their partners, figuring out what the actual medical history of the patient was part of the puzzle in House. I like this trope because it helps explain why House and his elite team of doctors can’t always crack a case right away – Sometimes, they simply do not have all the right information.

2

A rare combination of symptoms that no one has ever heard of

House was a magnet for rare cases

While some medical shows focus on emergency cases, House was about rare diagnoses that only the titular character could deduce. There were a lot of House Cases in which the patient has already gone to other hospitalsOnly for the other doctors to recommend Gregory House. Even with that explanation, it was strange how often House ran in one-in-a-million conditions. From combinations of rare diseases to symptoms no one would associate with a certain condition, House was a magnet for rare cases.

From this another was born House emphasis – “It’s never lupus.” A running joke on the show, House ruling out lupus was so common because the “simplest” answer is never the right one. Autoimmune, sarcoidosis and cancer are some of the common early diagnoses that are quickly proven wrong as the cases progress. naturally, House Had medical consultants as part of the production that ensured each case would be as accurate as possible. Liberties were always taken, but the show succeeded in creating engaging cases that were as fun for us as in the house.

1

House plays mind games with his team

House has an unusual approach to his “lackies”

House knew how to get the most out of his team, regardless if that involved finding some mind games to play with them. House with a team of three or more rising doctors who are smart enough to work with him, but not smart enough to solve most cases on their own, was a troupe in itself and an essential part of the structure of the show. At the end of season 3, to shake things up and maintain a sense of realism, House’s pupils went to work on their own.

A new team was brought in House Season 4 followed Greg’s version of a reality competition show, and although they were very different characters from the previous doctors, their role in the story was the same. House was too big of a protagonist to not have a set of compelling supporting characters orbiting him. I am happy House Never ditched the team dynamic despite all the cast changes, though some versions of the team worked much better than others.