How To Watch Television

2. House: Narrative Complexity

22 2 House Narrative Complexity Amanda D. Lotz Abstract: In her analysis of the medical/procedural program House, Amanda Lotz shows how a procedural program can exhibit narrative complexity and innovative techniques of character development. Lotz examines how a single episode draws upon a variety of atypical storytelling strategies to convey meaning and dramatize a central theme of the series: “everybody lies.” In the 2000s, some U.S. dramatic television entertained its audiences with increasingly complicated characters. Series such as FX’s The Shield (2002–2008), Rescue Me (2004–2011), and Sons of Anarchy (2008–present) and AMC’s Mad Men (2007–present) and Breaking Bad (2008–2013) explored the complicated personal and professional lives of male characters and maximized the possibilities of television’s storytelling attributes for character development. While several of these series can be properly described as character studies, other narrative forms also provided compelling examples for thinking about characterization, narrative strategies, and television storytelling. Series such as CSI, Law & Order, and the subject of this essay, House, M.D., are organized episodically, so that they can be understood in individual installments, in stark contrast to the serialized character dramas on cable.1 Yet even series that use limited serial components and instead structure their stories around solving some sort of legal or medical case within each episode can provide lead characters with the texture of depth and sophistication. Episodically structured storytelling dominates the history of television, and this format has typically offered little narrative or character complexity; instead, characters are stuck in what Jeffrey Sconce describes as “a world of static exposition , repetitive second-act ‘complications,’ and artificial closure.”2 Such an assessment in some ways aptly characterizes the FOX medical drama House, M.D. (2004–2012, hereafter House). The basic features of an episode of House vary House 23 little: an opening scene involving characters and settings outside those common to the show begins each episode. These scenes introduce viewers to the case of the week and often feature some sort of misdirection—for instance, it is not the overweight, middle-aged man complaining of chest pains who will become this week’s case, but his apparently healthy wife who will inexplicably collapse. The series’ opening credit sequence rolls, and we return from commercials to find Dr. Gregory House’s diagnostic team beginning their evaluation of the opening’s patient . The remaining minutes of the episode focus on the team’s efforts to identify the patient’s ailment in time to save him or her, embarking upon a series of misdiagnoses along the way. Various interpersonal complications are introduced and addressed throughout the case; typically, they are related to evolving romantic entanglements among the primary cast, although few of these complications are likely to be resolved in one episode. At some point near the end of the episode, House has a conversation—typically with his friend Wilson—about some other matter and becomes suddenly quiet, having just stumbled upon the possible diagnosis evading the team. The condition is caught in time and alleviated (although in some rare cases the team fails to find the diagnosis in time), and the “artificial closure” Sconce notes is achieved. As a series that chronicles the efforts of a master team of diagnostic doctors to identify and treat the rarest of illnesses, House emphasizes the plot goal of diagnosis in each weekly episode. Where many other series attempt to balance serial and episodic plotlines through a serialized, overarching mystery (Murder One, Burn Notice, Monk), House solves its mystery each week; the exploits of its misanthropic, drug-addicted lead character are what propel serial action instead. The implicit central enigma of its cumulative narrative—or the eight-season total story of House—is whether the series’ eponymous lead can ever be properly civilized . Can House exist without painkillers? Can he cultivate meaningful relationships ? Can he be brilliant and happy? Most series that are dominated by this logic of episodic storytelling emphasize plot action and consequently leave characters fairly static over time. Yet in recent decades, even some episodically structured series have indicated the possibility for complex character development, and as Roberta Pearson outlines, mundane plot action can serve this end. In her case study of CSI’s Gil Grissom, Pearson presents a six-part taxonomy of elements that construct the character: psychological traits/habitual behaviors; physical traits/appearance; speech patterns ; interactions with other characters; environment (the places the character inhabits); and biography (character’s backstory).3 She uses this taxonomy to create...