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readingrat) wrote2011-03-12 04:00 pm
The Liz Friedman Interview: A Few Thoughts
Character Continuity
House MD is a show that prides itself on showing how people interact with their surroundings. It sets on character exposition and development, one of their main creeds being, according to Liz Friedman, that characters don't change in a major way. As such, it must be the aim of the show to achieve character continuity, and if a character does change, there has to be a valid explanation for it. There can't be inexplicable jumps in behaviour or actions that violate what we know of the characters.
This is, however, an aspect that is being violated by the writing process as described by Ms Friedman. Writers are apparently given an aim for an episode and left to their own devices on how to achieve it. If they work as a team, there are at least two of them discussing what a character is like, but all too often a single writer is responsible. Now I don't doubt that the writers discuss a lot of things in bigger meetings, but there doesn't seem to be anyone who has an overview over what has been decided for certain characters. There seems to be no basic standard to which everyone sticks, a sort of blueprint of each character that may not be violated.
Take for instance the episode 'Two Stories'. We are shown a House who has to 'try tremendously hard to do simple things like taking out the trash or not using [Cuddy's] toothbrush', according to Ms Friedman. Ah, so House is a bit of a slob. It's possible. In theory. There's a lot of fanfic that works with that premise. Unfortunately, there has been no evidence so far to support this character trait, but quite a bit to refute it. Whenever we have seen House's apartment from the inside, it has not been in a huge mess. His bathroom has always been pristine. His coffee table is cluttered, but it is not a rubbish dump. There are no left-overs lying around, the trash is not piling up. (Anyone who is a 'messy' themselves or has a teen in their household will appreciate that House doesn't come anywhere near qualifying for the epithet.) When he was living with Wilson, Wilson started a fight with Sam because he thinks she put cups on the coffee table without coasters, put the milk in the wrong place and loaded the dishwasher inefficiently. Would Wilson even have noticed if House had been causing the kind of mess that he was making at Cuddy's place? Would he not have attributed these things to House straight away? Would he be bothered at all after being subjected to House's mess for over half a year?
Now if House MD were a sitcom the question of character continuity wouldn't matter. Sitcom characters don't have to make sense, they have to be funny. If the sloppiness were a trait that is irrelevant to the plot (as it was till now) it wouldn't matter either. Unfortunately, the question of whether he can clean up his own mess or not has become a central issue with the aforementioned episode. Before I watched the episode I had decided in my mind that House was no Mr Messy based on the evidence I cited. So when I watched 'Two Stories' I came to the conclusion that House is no overtaxed stereotype male, but a compulsive teen who needs to see just how far he can bend Cuddy before she breaks. Teens are like that - they do (or don't do) a lot of stuff because they need to see whether they can get away with it. Now teens can be made to see sense - it's hard work and a challenge, but it can be done. Slobs are a different issue and it probably isn't worth the bother. If House is a troublesome teen who overdoes the provocation bit, both Cuddy's reaction ('I need time off from you') and House's attempts to right matters make sense to me (teens can be wonderfully contrite once they realise they've broken you). If not, if he's just a slob, then the thing to do is to figure out how to work around it - tell him that if he can't get rid of his own mess he'll have to pay someone to do it or whatever - but slamming phones on his fingers doesn't get anyone anywhere.
I'm sure that whoever wrote the episode was thinking along the lines that Ms Friedman depicts - after all, they will have been discussing episodes that close together with each other. Hence my interpretation was erroneous. But - my erroneous interpretation was based on solid facts as seen in previous episodes; the writer's assumption that House is a slob is based on nothing. And this is where I lose patience with the show. I'm not asking for much: a basic knowledge of previous episodes; that he writers sit down together to discuss each other's scripts and to figure out whether the new script fits into canon or not; someone who keeps track of canon. As I see matters, either the writers are paid so much that one can reasonably expect them to have an overview of what has taken place so far, both in terms of timeline and character development, as part of their job description, or they are paid so little that one can carve another job out of the huge budget that House MD commands for some poor would-be writer whose only job it would be to ensure continuity. I don't care whether Wilson's time line defies the theory of relativity or whether Cuddy's sister has an everyday name and another one for special occasions, but if there is something that becomes an issue for a character, such as House's pain or now his homemaking skills, then if the show wants to keep its claim to being a character-based show, it sorely needs to buckle up.
Character Credibility
If the lack of character continuity is carelessness, then a lack of character credibility is a sign of thoughtlessness. I frequently have the feeling that the writers make characters do things that advance the plot without fully anticipating the impact on the viewers. The action causes the viewers to attribute some intention to the character that the writers perhaps never intended. At that moment the writers may not care much, because creating tension, drama, and angst has priority. But many viewers take these actions very seriously and incorporate them indelibly in their view of that character.
Take for instance Wilson leaving House in a pool of vomit in 'A Merry Little Christmas'. In all probability we were meant to see a man at the end of his rope, despairing of his friend ever making the right decision and deciding that his friend would have to deal with the consequences of his own actions. Unfortunately (again), there are a lot of viewers who happen to know that from a medical point of view, leaving someone who has OD'd lying in his own vomit is somewhere between 'failure to render assistance' and 'homicide'. In most countries either is a criminal offence, and a doctor who leaves someone in that state can't plea ignorance, as you and I perhaps could. As I said, I doubt that was the intention. From the writers' pov Wilson had to leave so that House would make his way to Tritter of his own volition - an important point, because we're supposed to see that House has come to his senses and is not acting solely because Wilson is bullying him. However, by not considering the moral and legal consequences of their story arc for Wilson, they sabotaged Wilson's character.
It's the same with Cuddy at the end of 'Bombshells'. Her decision to dump House can be admired or despised, depending on where one is coming from. (I happen to accept it as a rationally good decision, but I reject it on moral grounds. I'm sure there are as many opinions as there are viewers.) What no viewer, regardless of where he or she comes from, has condoned so far is Cuddy leaving House alone after dumping him, although she knows that he's got vicodin and that he is likely to be devastated enough to take it. It's marginally better than what Wilson did - House hasn't taken anything yet and there's no sign that he'll OD -but that's about it. Now this is something that neither Ms Friedman nor Ms Barnett consider worth mentioning when they discuss Cuddy's behaviour. Maybe they simply didn't see it. But others did. Ms Friedman, who wrote the episode, should have seen it, but if she did, she decided to ignore it because if she hadn't, she would have had to forgo that wonderful final scene where House sits in the bathroom like at the end of 'Help Me' hoping that Cuddy will come back and 'save' him. Having Cuddy call Wilson or Nolan and one of them arriving would have been a tad too shallow and undramatic, so the writer duo basically sacrificed the credibility of a supporting character (once again) just to keep their plot angsty and dramatic. Whether they intended it or not, Cuddy abandoning House to relapse is now an indelible part of canon that cannot be rescinded.
A third instance, is House intending to use his CIPA patient as an illegal organ donor. What he does - suggesting a dangerous procedure that could impair her health severely - simply to benefit himself is no better than what people who buy illegal organs from third world countries do. Actually, it's worse. People who buy livers or kidneys are usually dying; House isn't. House finally allows Wilson to dissuade him from his course of action, but so what? He intended to do it and he would have done it, had his team and Wilson not run massive interference. How does this fit with the man who puts patient well-being first, who decides to abort a working pain management regime (methadone) because its mellowing side-effects endangered a patient of his? Few viewers seem to have noticed the moral implications of House's deeds in that episode - it is rarely cited as an instance of House's lack of values - but whenever I think of that episode I quail inwardly: a doctor taking advantage of a patient's helpless situation, and the patient a minor at that, for his own gain. Morally it puts him in the same league as Ezra Powell, the cancer researcher who experimented on children without informing the parents of the risks. Had the writers intended that? I don't know. Perhaps they really did, but somehow I have the feeling that the person who wrote the episode (a) didn't have a particularly well-tuned moral antenna and (b) was not supervised sufficiently.
House MD portrays a man's search for truth. If that search is meant to be credible to the audience, then writers and producers need to sit down together and define a few core truths on which they base the series.
no subject
A few thoughts on parts of your post and a few added thoughts of my own:
leaving someone who has OD'd lying in his own vomit is somewhere between 'failure to render assistance' and 'homicide'.
The bluntness of this made me laugh. Of course you are correct, but this actually is the type of thing that bothers me least. The entire world of House is totally exaggerated. Outside of Houseland that level or sexism and racism would get you sued, the medical ethics violations would cost your license, the break ins and soap star kidnapping would get you jailed, and the pranks that involve cane sawing, trip wires and exploding toilets would leave you friendless. So I give Wilson and Cuddy a pass for homicide. What I think gets me the most is that what both did - besides being homicidal - was cruel. Wilson sometimes is cruel to be fair, but I hadn't ever seen that before with Cuddy, and it felt wrong.
I don't care whether Wilson's time line defies the theory of relativity or whether Cuddy's sister has an everyday name and another one for special occasions,
See, this drive me bonkers. It is laziness at best, and at worst it is telling fans, "Hey, you know those characters YOU love? Well, we don't really care if our timeline suggests that Wilson attended med school alongside preschool." A sleepy, drive by fan can point out that sort of error, so why can't anyone on staff? Anyone? Maybe the actors, the writers, the directors, or producers, or the lighting guy? Come on people - hire a fan and pay them in autographs for goodness sake. And then one of the producers has the audacity to make a DVD extra piece to talk about how they are so careful about setting each camera angle perfectly and every chess piece reflects the window glare correctly and then this is the SAME show that has House going to possibly three med schools, Wilson married to two women simultaneously, Cuddy's sister having two names, and a main character who in one episode can't lean weight on his leg and in another steps off a chair directly onto the leg. Sheesh!
(to be continued - sorry for the length of this!)
no subject
Yeah, the first one is annoying and the second though is what makes some episodes so aggravating to the dedicated fan.
I think they play havoc with the characters all the time, and reading this interview allowed me to sees why - different writers view the characters differently. That really, really can't work. Once someone on the show bragged they there was no "House bible", but they really need one. Something or someone who has insight into this character (and the others). With supporting characters it is easier to get away with because we can all just say "well I guess we didn't know them that well" which is why fanfiction stories that have Wilson as either Angel!Wilson or Dark!Wilson can both possibly work, though I have to say Wilson is second in line for vacillating between personalities. But with House it is serious character integrity issues. And it goes way beyond clean or messy (though I liked that example, I think they do that with him with his attitude towards food too). You used the example of the episode 'The Softer Side' and how patients are worth the pain. But when he was detoxing in the Tritter arc he abandoned his patient in a blackmail attempt to get Cuddy to give him more pills. So which is it, does House care more about patients or pain? The viewers have no way to know. Liz Friedman says House is not a romantic, but then he sends Stacy a "prescription for my heart" note, and lets the woman he likes in 'Frozen' go because there is a man who is in love with her in the South Pole, and he buys a corsage for Cameron and puts on his nicest blue shirt. To me that all says he is a romantic. He does this back and forth bit between 'honesty at all costs vs lying because it is easier', 'thrill seeking versus change avoidance', 'caring for his patients vs, only caring about the puzzle' and so on with a host of other things. It is probably why there are so many arguments in fandom on House's nature - because he can have so many different natures. I have suggested that he might be bipolar or have a personality disorder or something else that causes this, but now I just think it is too many different writers and no coordination. Great fun for fanfiction writers but a little disconcerting for TV viewers who care about the characters, not just the procedural element.
Sorry once again for the length of this, and thank you once again for adding to the places in this fandom to have an in depth, thoughtful, conversation.
Edited to use my annoyed Wilson icon. :)
no subject
(Using my 'I do not whine' Wilson icon to show that my three months and ten days of whining are now officially over and that I'll get back into my act.)
no subject
The 'Wilson walking out on OD'ing House' didn't affect me much either until another fan pointed out to me just how criminal, callous and potentially dangerous to House that was. Now there are things that the show can do because the fan base that is likely to notice how unlikely or outrageous it is happens to be very small. That's the case with most of the medical stuff. Few people know and even less care whether a certain genetic test can be done within a given time span. But people OD'ing, while being outside my experience, happens to be something a lot of people are familiar with; addicts relapsing even more so. Hence there are a lot of viewers who can judge the moral implications of those deeds. And there are also a lot of viewers who have a personal stake in this because either they or a loved one are (former) addicts. They react very sensitively to this sort of bs, and quite rightly so. A show dealing with the journey of an addict, no matter how much faux outrage they bring into it, needs to get the process of addiction and recovery right. The writers are free to sacrifice Wilson's or Cuddy's character (they are the intellectual property of House MD, not of the fandom) to the imperatives of the show, but they should be aware that they are doing so, and I'm not sure they are. Liz Friedman needs to be aware that compared to the callousness of leaving House to his own devices, the question of whether she was justified in dumping him or not becomes obsolete.