House (TV series)

House (also called House, M.D.) is an American medical drama television series created by David Shore for Fox. It ran for eight seasons from November 16, 2004, to May 21, 2012. It features the life of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional, misanthropic, cynical medical genius who, despite his dependence on pain medication, successfully leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey.

House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. His flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently leads him into conflict with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). His only true friend is Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), head of the Department of Oncology.

During the first three seasons, House's diagnostic 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, 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). Chase and Cameron continue to appear occasionally in different roles at the hospital. Kutner dies late in season five; early in season six, Cameron departs the hospital, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team. Thirteen takes a leave of absence for most of season seven, and her position is filled by medical student Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn). Cuddy and Masters depart before season eight; Foreman becomes the new Dean of Medicine, while Dr. Jessica Adams (Odette Annable) and Dr. Chi Park (Charlyne Yi) join House's team.

The premise of House originated with Paul Attanasio, while Shore was responsible for conceiving the titular character. The series' executive producers included Shore, Attanasio, Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, and film director Bryan Singer. It was filmed largely in a neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles County's Westside called Century City. The series was produced by Attanasio and Jacobs' Heel and Toe Films, Shore's Shore Z Productions, Singer's Bad Hat Harry Productions, and Universal Television.

House was among the top 10 series in the United States from its second through fourth seasons. Distributed to 71 countries, it was the most-watched TV program in the world in 2008. It received numerous awards, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Peabody Award, and nine People's Choice Awards. On February 8, 2012, Fox announced that the eighth season, then in progress, would be its last. The series finale aired on May 21, 2012, following an hour-long retrospective.

In 2004, David Shore and Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, pitched the series (untitled at the time) to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes; the main character would be loosely based on Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes". Attanasio was inspired to develop a medical procedural drama by The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders, who is an attending physician at Yale–New Haven Hospital (YNHH); the fictitious Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH, not to be confused with the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro) is modeled after this teaching institution. Fox bought the series, though the network's then-president, Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don't want to see white coats going down the hallway". Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of the many influences that led to the show's ultimate form.

After Fox picked up the show, it acquired the working title Chasing Zebras, Circling the Drain ("zebra" is medical slang for an unusual or obscure diagnosis, while "circling the drain" refers to terminal cases, patients in an irreversible decline). 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 procedure 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 said 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 titular character to his experience as a patient at a teaching hospital. He recalled: "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. The original idea was for House to use a wheelchair, but Fox rejected this. Jacobs later expressed her gratitude for the network's insistence that the character be reimagined—putting him on his feet added a crucial physical dimension. 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.

References to fictional detective Sherlock Holmes appear throughout the series. Shore explained that he was always a Holmes fan and found the character's indifference to his clients unique. The resemblance is evident in House's reliance on inductive reasoning and psychology, even where it might not seem obviously applicable, and his reluctance to accept cases he finds uninteresting. House's investigatory method is to eliminate diagnoses logically as they are proved impossible; Holmes uses a similar method. Both characters play instruments (House plays the piano, the guitar, and the harmonica; Holmes, the violin) and take drugs (House is dependent on Vicodin; Holmes uses cocaine recreationally). House's relationship with Dr. James Wilson echoes that between Holmes and his confidant, Doctor Watson. Robert Sean Leonard, who portrays Wilson, said that House and his character 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. Shore said that House's name itself is meant as "a subtle homage" to Holmes. House's address is 221B Baker Street, a direct reference to Holmes's street address. Wilson's address is also 221B.

Individual episodes of the series contain additional references to the Sherlock Holmes tales. The main patient in the pilot episode is named Rebecca Adler after Irene Adler, a character in the first Holmes short story, "A Scandal in Bohemia". In the season two 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." Before acknowledging that he gave the book to House, Wilson tells two of the team members that its source was a patient, Irene Adler. Season 7 episode 3 includes a young adult boyhood detective book series written by the patient, whose final unpublished volume ends in an ambiguous end to the main character reminiscent of "The Final Problem". The series finale also pays homage to Holmes's apparent death in "The Final Problem", the 1893 story with which Conan Doyle originally intended to conclude the Holmes chronicles.

House was a co-production of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Network Television for Fox. Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs, the heads of Heel and Toe Films; David Shore, the head of Shore Z Productions; and Bryan Singer, the head of Bad Hat Harry Productions, were executive producers of the series for its entirety. Lawrence Kaplow, Peter Blake, and Thomas L. Moran joined the staff as writers at the beginning of the first season after the making of the pilot episode. Writers Doris Egan, Sara Hess, Russel Friend, and Garrett Lerner joined the team at the start of season two. Friend and Lerner, who are business partners, had been offered positions when the series launched, but turned the opportunity down. After observing the show's success, they accepted when Jacobs offered them jobs again the following year. Writers Eli Attie and Sean Whitesell joined the show at the start of season four; Attie would stay on the show's writing staff through the series finale, which he co-wrote. From the beginning of season four, Moran, Friend, and Lerner were credited as executive producers on the series, joining Attanasio, Jacobs, Shore, and Singer. Hugh Laurie was credited as an executive producer for the second and third episodes of season five.