House

House is back! Channel 5 is normally uncharted territory for me, but I've made an exception for House, and for Tim Marlow's arts documentaries which manage to be accessible and engaging yet sufficiently erudite, and manage without the irritatingly unnecessary dramatised scenes and flashy camerawork which mar so many documentaries these days. Andrew Graham-Dixon's recent series on BBC-4, The Art of Eternity was a notable exception.
Anyway, I enjoy House for a variety of reasons. First, Hugh Laurie. His American accent has improved, but he still retains his English manner of speech. It helps mark him out as exceptional, giving him a quasi-mythical quality helping create an acute and distinctively un-American character who is quite clearly meant to be a Sherlock Holmes pour nos jours.
I also like his sharp and snappy coterie of Watsons, a group of intelliegent young medics who are nice to look at and have well-defined personalities. They've settled into their roles now and the characters are now fully-formed.
As usual with formula TV, the unpredictable keeps happening, to keep audience interest. This begins as a virtue, and then it becomes a formula in itself which one comes to enjoy and appreciate. This is what being a fan of a series is all about.
I don't watch much formula TVnowadays, just this and Lost, but I do have a sneaking fondness for it and like to indulge every now and then, particularly when it's as good as this. One of life's guilty pleasures