 "House" creator reveals his Season 5 plans
More with 'House' creator David Shore
by Alan Sepinwall/The Star-Ledger
Tuesday August 05, 2008, 5:31 AM
Here's a largely complete transcript of my conversation with "House"
creator David Shore, which took place at Fox's press tour party last
month at the Santa Monica Pier. As happens often at these things, it
wasn't a one-on-one, but primarily a tag-team between me and Dan
Fienberg.
AS: Can you talk in broad strokes about what's coming up next season?
I forget (where we left off). I've been working on it for so long now.
It's not like a usual year.
AS: You killed off Amber, and Wilson blamed House for it.
In broad strokes, we're obviously following up on that. We had a lot
of fun following up on that in a funny but realistic way. It does not
go unnoticed. It has an effect on Wilson and it has an effect on their
friendship.
DF: Realistically, how long can that play out for?
Not long, but the journey's really cool. We learn something about
Wilson, we learn something about House, and we learn something about
their relationship. (But) I don't think anybody expects Wilson to be
off the show.
AS: And you don't want to separate those two for very long.
You don't. Their relationship is so great. But it's nice to mess it up
and screw with it for a little while.
DF: Looking back, how do you feel the whole selecting the new team
process went?
It was weird. Learning as you're going along. It was interesting. Had
we done it in season one, it would have been very different. Season
four, when you're an established hit -- I don't think we made huge
blunders, but people went along for the ride a little bit. They
enjoyed it, and we enjoyed it.
DF: Would you have paced it out differently if you had known when the
strike would shut down the show? Would the team have come together
much more quickly.
I hope not. And I don't think I would have, because I was naive enough
to believe the strike wouldn't happen almost to the last minute.
AS: Did you get any hate mail from Scooter or Big Love fans?
Who?
AS: Scooter and Big Love? The old guy and the black Mormon? From that
show you write?
Oh. Sorry. That was quite a while ago. They don't forward that stuff
on to me. I try not to go online too much, but I can't resist every
now and again, and I'll see someone write, "You shouldn't have gotten
rid of him, he's the greatest thing in the world!" and I go, "My god,
they're right!" That was great. The fact is, when you start something
like that, you expect to bring in a dozen actors and have nine of them
not be that good and the choice becomes easy. But these people were
really good, and people had their favorites. People liked Scooter and
they liked Big Love. And, by the way, Edi (Gathegi) was fantastic. It
was funny, we thought we'd establish the older guy for an episode or
two, get rid of him and it's nothing, and we found ourselves liking
him -- which doesn't normally happen.
DF: How much of Amber's returning arc was based on how well she played
off of everyone else?
Most of it. We had talked about this type of storyline, but the fact
is, we were only originally going to keep two, we wound up keeping
three, and in a way we kept four. This wasn't because we had this
wonderful story. Which is ass-backwards. You're supposed to come up
with a story and then find the people to serve it.
AS: In some ways, she wound up as the winner, because Anne Dudek got
the meatiest stuff to play for the rest of that season.
Yeah. She got to be Wilson's girlfriend, and she got the big dying
scene.
DF: Looking back, what do you think of how Chase and Cameron were used
last year?
We under-utilized them. It seemed like a natural place to go that
after three years people are just not going to stay with this man
forever. We like them, we want to use them, and that's why we didn't
just cut them loose. To have them just being the same three people in
this team with this character seemed unnatural. So we figured we
couldn't bring them all back or it would be a giant wank. So we put
them in the hospital, and to be honest, we're still trying to find
ways to use them. We've found better ways as season five has gone
along, but it's a work in progress.
DF: What are some of those better ways?
Cameron, we've touched on their relationship a little more. Foreman's
going to bring them a case to work on independent of House, she's
going to bring a case to House.
DF: What were the conversations with Jennifer Morrison and Jesse
Spencer like?
There was never a big issue. I think this is true -- I hope it's true,
I didn't mean it to be a lie at the time -- the notion was that they
would be coming back in different capcities in the hospital, and
therefore come back with a greater gravitas, and have a different
relationship with House, and that would be refreshing. As little as we
used them -- again, we would have liked to use them more -- I really
did like the use we made of them. They would come in for only a scene
or two an episode, but those scenes had a greater weight.
AS: In the handful of episodes since the new team was assembled, are
you satisfied with how you used the newbies, and do you feel you have
a handle on them?
I never have a complete handle on anyone. I may be rationalizing, but
I think that's a good thing. I used to feel bad when someone would ask
me if I could describe a cahracter in two sentences and I couldn't do
that. But once I can do that, the characters are dead. They're kind of
real people to me. I get that there are certain things I know they
would do or they wouldn't do, but every now and then they'll surprise
me in a way that makes sense.
DF: How do you feel about the way you actually used the lupus
diagnosis? Because it seemed like that should have been a bigger
moment, when he found someone who actually had lupus.
That was a one-percenter. We call those jokes one-percenters, because
they only play for one percent of the audience. we are proud to put
them in every episode, but if you're not a real regular viewer of the
show, you don't realize how often lupus is the wrong diagnosis. That
was almost for us.
AS: It used to be vasculities in the early days, and then lupus passed
it.
We have been honored by both those soceities, and they're very
grateful. Those are very debilitating, very serious but somewhat
obscure diseases, and while we can make jokes about them, it's cool
that we can bring some attention to them, too.
AS: Unless it was a hallucination, Cuddy shouts out Thirteen's last
name in the next to last episode.
And House says, "She doesn't even know your name."
AS: So...
That's her name. That's her name.
AS: Will you start using it?
No, she's Thirteen. She'll always be Thirteen.
DF: So much of last season was about breaking the formula, do you feel
a responsibility to keep doing that?
We broke the formula a few times right in season one, and we'll
continue doing it. But you can't break the formula unless you have a
formula. It's really important to me that we do the so-called "normal"
episodes really really well.
AS: It seemed like the candidate search was an excuse to, if not break
the formula, then futz with it every week.
I don't think we were breaking the formula. We were doing something
different within the formula, but those episodes, at the core -- maybe
I'm playing word games -- were (and now I'm arguing for my formula,
"Hey, it's a formulaic show!") about people needing to be diagnosed.
It's important. That's the spine of the show. What's interesting to me
about the show is the character stuff, but I don't think the character
stuff works without that spine. It is somebody gets sick, it's a
mystery ailment that comes to House, he makes some wrong steps,
controversial decisions, ethical dilemmas, etc. Even when he was
setting up the team, that allowed us to do some different dynamics --
guys against girls, pretending he didn't care, or having an episode in
which he knew the answer in the beginning, though ultimately it turned
out he was wrong -- it did allow us to play with the formula. The last
two episodes were big departures from the formula, but the rest of the
season was very much of the formula.
DF: What's the state of affairs on the possible spin-off?
That's a good question. If I had more of an answer, I would give you
more of an answer. We brought in a character, partway through the
year, Michael Weston as this private investigator House goes to. The
spin-off would be less of a spin-off, it would be more us using House
to launch it. It would be an independent world. A character out of the
House mold, but definitely different.
DF: When does he appear?
He appears very early in season five. House is constantly sending
people to break into people's homes, and he does it the right way in
one episode. It's a character that only House could love.
DF: And why is that a story you want to tell?
I've always loved "The Rockford Files."
 |
Linear Mode
