House Season 3: The Best Yet

Good television is hard to come by. Most of what is aired consists of reality shows. American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, and Flavor of Love are examples of what’s popular now. However, there are gems out there, one of them being House. House, for those of you who don’t know, is a medical show on Fox that stars Hugh Laurie as a very mean, but very brilliant diagnostician. He has a team of three doctors, each member with their own expertise, which handles the patients directly while House stays as far away as possible. House is a good show, as proven by two Golden Globes and a myriad of other awards, and has just finished up its fourth season. Each season was good in its own way; however, season three stands out from the others as the best season.

The first reason why the third season of House is the best is because it starts off with House having his bum leg fixed. House’s leg was the reason he used Vicodin so much. His leg pain was merely intolerable on good days. On bad days he could hardly leave his bed. To manage the pain he popped a pill about once every five minutes. House’s drug use became a major characteristic, and with his leg being fixed, he no longer needed the drugs. The pain didn’t just go away, his leg made a major recovery in muscle growth, too. After a couple of months of rehab House was running to work. He was feeling better than he had felt in years.

However, like every good TV show, you can’t have the main character remain happy too long. The experimental procedure House went through after he had been shot and the end of season two started to wear off. The pain was coming back. It wasn't too long until House started ingesting his favorite pain meds again. By the middle of the season House was hobbling around with his cane again and was as ornery as ever.

Creating this drama was great for the show. It allowed the viewers to see what House would be like with two functioning legs. He was just as mean as ever, but we saw him running places and how happy it made him to be normal again. And then to see House fall back into pain and Vicodin, see him degenerate, was almost painful to watch. This was a great move on behalf of the writers.

Secondly, the third season was the season to introduce us to Detective Tritter. Tritter started off as just another patient House was rude to. But once House was rude with him, Tritter stood up to him, something most other patients wouldn’t dare do. House, not to be out done, embarrassed and insulted Tritter. However, one night shortly after that incident, House got pulled over by Tritter while driving home. Tritter noticed House popping pills and wanted to get after him for drug abuse and drug dealing.

Tritter’s harassment started off relatively small, but became more aggressive. Soon Tritter interrogated Cuddy, Wilson, and even House’s team about House’s actions. Then, to step it up a notch, Tritter began freezing the bank accounts of Wilson and House’s team. Things escalated until it came for House to go to court and defend himself. House, of course, got off thanks to Cuddy lying for him.

Tritter is one of the most important characters of the third season, and possibly the entire show. House is a terrifying figure to some. He is tall, mean looking, and bad-tempered. He intimidates people on a regular basis. However, Tritter is the first character to really challenge House. Tritter was bigger, cutthroat, and clever. He was the perfect nemesis for House. Tritter got Wilson to betray House, the police to raid House’s apartment and confiscate hundreds of pills, and, most shockingly, Tritter got House to go to rehab. Sure, the rehab was rigged, but nobody else has pushed House that far. For that, Tritter will be one of House’s greatest opponents.

And what is House without bizarre cases? The third season had some of the weirdest and most interesting cases to date. Early in the season was the kid who was admitted and claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Tests ran on him were inconclusive, and the kid dug out a piece of titanium from the back of his neck, allegedly put there by aliens. House’s team was confused by this, and when they found DNA in the boy that wasn’t his, the case gets that much trickier.

Another notable case is the one with the CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis) patient who was in a car accident with her mom. They ran tests on her, and even though everything seemed fine, her condition kept getting worse. The fact she couldn’t feel pain made it much harder to diagnose her problems, which made the team resort to more intense exams. One of these tests included having the girl stick her hand in scalding hot water. By the end of the episode, the answer to her problems was one you’d never expect.

And lastly, the third season is the best because it marks the last season House’s original team was together. House, in a fit of anger, fired Chase. Foreman resigned after deciding he doesn’t want to end up like House. And Cameron resigns to be with Chase. This first team carried the show for three years and left a lot for the new team to live up to. So, maybe the best of four seasons isn’t too amazing of an accomplishment, but any new season will have to try hard to beat it.