House may have been one of the most popular series on television during its eight-year run, but the medical drama has come under fire from some viewers over a decade after it originally aired.
For the uninitiated, the series sees Hugh Laurie portray Gregory House, a cynical yet brilliant doctor who leads a team of diagnosticians. Despite clashing with his colleagues and patients, he often gets the job done.
Though the medical drama concluded in 2012 after eight seasons and 177 episodes, some viewers are catching up on the action now, though one wasn't particularly impressed by the show's storytelling.
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"Late to the party, but I've started watching Season 1 of House. Same narrative every episode," wrote journalist Janet Murray on X, before outlining the structure. "Patient has mysterious illness. Hugh Laurie (House) gets diagnosis wrong. Patient nearly dies."
"Hugh Laurie gets diagnosis wrong again. Gets threatened with being fired. Patient nearly dies again. Hugh Laurie has last minute leftfield idea. Gets diagnosis right. Doesn't get fired. Eight seasons of this?" they continued.
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Laurie, however, bristled at the criticism, and responded with a post of his own. After "thanking" the poster for their "critique", he urged them to "put the brackets in the right place", while subsequently explaining the creative process for the series.
"We actually tried a couple of episodes where House gets it right first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren't happy," he said. "Then we tried some where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn't happy."
"One could apply your trenchant analysis to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the same chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself; Henry Moore, what??" he added.
"The point is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you," he continued, before concluding that he was looking "forward" to the poster's first novel.
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Several people responded to Laurie's tweet, with one user writing: "The series stopped 14 years ago. Is it really worth going to such an effort to put someone who thinks it might be a bit 'samey' in their place?"
"It was a popular, long-running series and consensus is that you were great in it. Isn’t that enough?" they continued, with Laurie replying by saying that it had taken little "effort" to respond given it was a "matter closer to my heart".
One other user called Laurie's barb "classless", to which the actor responded: "OK". A few other commenters echoed this sentiment, with one user calling the actor "thin-skinned" following his response.
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Other users, however, thought Laurie's original response was worthy of the iconic character that he played, with one noting: "It's the exact response House would give. And deliberately done."
"If House (Hugh Laurie) was part of the burns unit, he would likely be attending to [the poster] right now," remarked one user, while another suggested: "I want a new season of House dissecting Tweets."
Following the drama, Murray took to X to respond, writing: "While it’s all been rather fun, I do hope @hughlaurie takes the time to read my @unherd article (I’m sure he can stretch to a subscription).
"Because while his witty riposte was genuinely amusing, one point I make in the piece is that it was shared with his 1.2 million followers on X. I have around 38,000.
"That creates something of an imbalance - particularly given that the responses to my original post were overwhelmingly warm-hearted and affectionate towards the show."
In her response, Murray said she had experienced "some fairly horrific trolling", describing some House fans as "abusive".
She concluded: "I have enough experience of the media to take it on the chin, as the saying goes. But someone without my background might have found the experience far more distressing."
Laurie himself replied, writing: "I’m sorry if people have been having a go at you because of my tweet. Not at all the plan. I was very slightly drunk and already upset about something that had nothing to do with you.
"If it’s any comfort, I got it in the neck too. I’m a thin-skinned twat, apparently, even though it wasn’t my skin. I was sticking up for the writers who I adored.
"Obviously I shouldn’t have cited Bach/Kahlo/Moore - asking for trouble - and would have done better to go for the 10,000 blues songs written around the same 12 bar chord structure. I’ve listened to most of them and will keep doing so. Because we love what we love."
It seems as though the pair have made peace, with Murray writing: "Thank you. ‘Having a go’ is probably an understatement 🫣 but I appreciate the apology and recognise you may have been sticking up for colleagues.
"For what it’s worth, I like the show - despite the repetition - and I like you in it. The response to my initial post was so warm-hearted and affectionate towards House, which perhaps made what followed all the more surprising.
"Anyway, no hard feelings. I’m hoping you’ll be back for another series of Tehran."
House is currently streaming on Prime Video.
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Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media. His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and John Wick to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
