FOX Is there a doctor in the 'House'?

Patients' suffering could be an endurance test for the viewer.
By HAL BOEDEKER
ORLANDO SENTINEL
Television doctors from Marcus Welby to Mark Greene have been famous for their bedside manner. Dr. Gregory House has none. He belittles, tricks or shuns patients.
The physician is a pill, and that makes Fox's "House" hard to swallow.
The drama, which debuts at 9 tonight, challenges viewers in several peculiar ways. It has a cocky attitude better suited to Fox sitcoms. The show saddles Hugh Laurie with the abrasive title role and smothers his ingratiating style.
House snaps at underlings, delivers unsettling comments and weasels out of work at Princeton's teaching hospital. He approaches medicine with the cold precision of Sherlock Holmes and observes that humanity is overrated.
Given the widespread concern over medical care, House seems the wrong doctor at the wrong time.
Too gory
To its detriment, the drama copies the gory style of "CSI" too closely. It resorts to graphic illustrations of what's happening inside a patient's body.
The premiere travels up a woman's nose to her brain. The technique is bound to send the squeamish channel-surfing.
If that doesn't, the medical cases will. The opener follows a kindergarten teacher who suffers a seizure. The second episode focuses on a college student who collapses after sex.
House and his team scramble to unravel the medical mysteries as the patients hover near death.
Unfortunately, the scripts put the stricken through such horrendous suffering that the show becomes an endurance test for the viewer.
Secondary characters
Despite the overbearing title figure, the likable secondary characters generate good will. Dr. Lisa Cuddy (delightful Lisa Edelstein) pushes House to pitch in, a perfectly reasonable stance for a boss. A show built around her might have a better prognosis.
Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) lies so the brilliant House will take cases and offer lifesaving diagnoses. Wilson earns points for calling House on his smugness.
Three medical experts assist House when he does work. Omar Epps plays a neurologist hired for his street smarts. That means House will send the doctor on a politically incorrect mission.
The show exploits the other specialists (Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer) for their attractiveness and gives them typical sexual banter.
For a series trying to travel a more cerebral path in medical drama, House takes some conventional turns.
When House finally meets his put-upon patient in the premiere, she psychoanalyzes him. The series should be called "Physician, Heal Thyself."
Classier goal
At least with "House," Fox is striving for something classier than the tacky reality fare of "The Swan," with its real surgeries. But when this doctor is in the house, feeling uneasy is perfectly understandable.