"House, you just giving up on this kid? You don't stop. You never stop. You just keep on going until you come up with something so insane it's usually right." - Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy
House: Season Three DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
What kind of doctor would you rather have-one that is friendly and caring, or one that is gruff and dismissive, while also a genius at diagnosing medical treatments? Before you answer, you might want to check out House: Season Three. Hugh Laurie is Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant diagnostician at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. He leads a team of young doctors, including Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer). House might be brilliant, but he's also brusque and cold, often treating both his co-workers and patients rudely. At least he's an equal opportunity offender. Also on the receiving end of his scorn are his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), and Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), the Head of the Department of Oncology.
Each week begins with a sequence outside of the hospital showing the onset of symptoms for that week's main patient. The rest of the episode focuses on the doctors attempting to diagnose the illness, usually heading down several blind alleys before they-under the guidance of House-figure out the real problem.
To House, patients are barely human. Instead, each is a puzzle to be solved. Put the jigsaw pieces of symptoms together in the right way and the picture of his or her disease comes into focus. But aside from the mental challenge, he doesn't really have any use for them. His colleagues try their best to keep him sociable, but aren't always successful.
As season three opens, House, a chronic abuser of Vicodin and other pain medications due to crippling leg pain, has thrown aside his cane and is jogging eight miles a day. Shot in the stomach and neck at the end of season two, treatment for his gunshot wounds seem to have given him a new lease on life. His reprieve is short-lived, and he is soon forced to take his cane out of the closet and start scamming his colleagues for prescription painkillers again.
House's prickly behavior also gets him into trouble. He practices his usual rude bedside manner on the wrong patient, ridiculing his sex organs and giving him an unnecessary temperature check in an even more private area. This patient turns out to be Detective Michael Tritter (David Morse, St. Elsewhere), who uses his position with the police department to make House's life miserable. This storyline, which plays out over the first half of the season, follows Tritter as he investigates House's abuse of painkillers. The ending of this storyline is a foregone conclusion-the show is named House, after all-but it's always a pleasure to watch Morse, and he makes a perfect foil for Laurie.
Season three has several powerful episodes, but watching a few episodes in succession serves to point out that the series follows a strict formula. Still, the series was meant to be watched over a number of weeks, not days, and even the greatest of shows pick a winning formula and stick with it.
By the end of the season, House's department is in turmoil. Foreman quits, afraid that he will become as seemingly heartless as his boss. House doesn't want Foreman to go, but he's too stubborn to ask him to stay. Instead, he inexplicably decides to fire Chase. Cameron, who has started dating Chase, decides to give notice. Will House actually have to start doing work himself rather than delegating responsibility? We'll have to wait until season four to find out.
Guest stars in season three include Kathleen Quinlan (Family Law), Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks), Joel Grey (Cabaret), Jurnee Smollett (Cosby), Kadeem Hardison (A Different World), John Larroquette (Night Court), Geoffrey Lewis (Salem's Lot), Kurtwood Smith (That '70s Show), musician Dave Matthews, Jane Adams (Relativity), Charles S. Dutton (Threshold), and Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly).
The twenty-four episodes that make up House: Season Three are divided onto five discs. The discs are housed in a foldout case, the front of which features a photo of Laurie. The five discs attach to three panels-two of the panels hold two discs one on top of the other in a figure eight pattern while the third panel holds only one disc. It is slightly inconvenient to remove one DVD in order to get to another, but on the plus side, the packaging takes up far less shelf space than if each disc was housed on a separate panel. The back of the case features episode titles and brief synopses. The case slides into a cardboard sleeve, the front of which includes another photo of Laurie as well as smaller photos of the rest of the cast.
The static menus are simple but easy to use. Viewers can play all episodes or choose them individually. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes include chapter stops.
