Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Women of the House
by David Hochman
When Hugh Laurie first met with the producers of
House four seasons ago, he wore a pin his daughter had given him that read, "Sexy." Obviously, it was worn with irony. If you spend 10 seconds with Laurie, you realize the last thing he considers himself is a sex symbol. As Laurie puts it, "If my daughter had given me a pin that said, 'Idiot,' I would have worn that one." But David Shore, who created
House, now realizes the true irony of that moment. "Hugh told us that day, 'You can't wear a sexy pin if you actually are sexy,''' Shore says. "But guess what? After years of playing House, Hugh can no longer wear that pin." Maybe it's his noble limp or the gentle rattle of his Vicodin bottle, but there's something about Dr. House, crankiness and all, that brings out the hots in people. Just listen to the women on the show: "House speaks his mind in a way that's really attractive, even if you don't agree with half of what he's saying," says Lisa Edelstein, who plays Dr. Lisa Cuddy. "He's damaged and hurting, and that just makes you want to take care of him," gushes Jennifer Morrison, who plays Dr. Allison Cameron. And here's Olivia Wilde, who plays House's new resident, Thirteen: "House just looks at you with those beautiful blue eyes and" — here Wilde sighs — "you get kind of quivery."
Not that the sirens of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital are falling at House's feet. Season 4 has been all about strong women who don't take his crap. His superior, Cuddy, remains in constant competition with him. Cameron, having resigned last season from House's team, now has the distance to see through his games. And Thirteen, with her hazy background and ability to stand up to her new boss, is driving him bonkers. ("Daughter of an alcoholic?" House hypothesizes about her.
Bzzz. "Wrong again.")
"On the surface, you look at House's female relationships and you wonder why these women put up with him," Shore says. "But then you realize the women are winning. By constantly sparring with House, they learn they're stronger and tougher than they realize."
On Feb. 3, House encounters a woman who doesn't need much help in the toughness department. In a special episode airing after the Super Bowl, House meets a sexy research scientist (played by Oscar winner Mira Sorvino) who sucks the doctor into a very long-distance relationship. Trapped at the South Pole with cancer symptoms, she calls on House to save her life.
He must walk her through a series of improvised and painful diagnostic tests, which she performs under his watchful eye. Although it's all done via webcam, the chemistry that develops between them is hot enough to melt a hole in the ice cap. "Hugh and I joked that the webcam scenes are the medical equivalent of a striptease," Sorvino says. "Because House is really into her, there's a high degree of sexual tension — or as much as there can be when two people are looking for cancer."
But as usual with House, it's a relationship fraught with miserable complications, starting with the fact that they'll probably never see each other again. Then, in another new episode on Feb. 5, House tangles with two more women: a former music producer who has converted to Hasidic Judaism and collapses at her wedding, and a new girlfriend of Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), a woman whose personality is weirdly similar to House's.
Laurie says, "House's relationships with women require a complex Venn diagram, and there aren't enough -colored pens in the world to make sense of it." Consider his connection with Cuddy, his most deep-rooted and perhaps closest female relationship. Even after Cuddy's dating escapades with Wilson last season and her attempts to get pregnant via in vitro fertilization, it's her quietly smoldering affection for House that really defines her on the show.
"We know House and Cuddy had an affair ages ago and that it didn't work, and that it could never work between them," Edelstein says. "Yet that struggle and chemistry is a huge part of what keeps the show interesting." Laurie adds, "I think they both look back on the amour that happened as a mistake but one nonetheless they cherish…. "
tvguide.com