House

Originally airing on the Fox broadcasting network from 2004 to 2012, House is the critically acclaimed medical drama centering around Dr. Gregory House, the Head of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Played by Hugh Laurie, House is a misanthropic medical miracle worker whose personality and methods were inspired by those of the fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.

House seems to despise his patients, and in his view he has good reason. They often cause their own misery and always lie about it, and this makes his job all the more difficult. He'll only take a case if it seems unsolvable and he thrives on conflict and difficulty. In the end, though, he almost always comes through for the patient, though not always in the way viewers might expect.

The titular doctor is backed by a diagnostic team of doctors and med students who play the part of Watson to his Holmes. Most of the time this team is actively arguing with each other and with their ringleader, because while House mostly uses logic and deduction to reason out his diagnoses, he seldom explains himself so to his team it appears as if he's always going by instinct or guesswork. However, he is frequently inspired to the solution by someone's passing comment or a suddenly remembered tidbit of information, so his team might not be so far off after all.

Each episode of the series typically begins with a seemingly normal day in someone's life, leading quickly up to the occurrence of some sort of strange and mysterious symptoms of a potentially fatal illness which isn't easily diagnosed. Most of the time, House and his team's initial guesses are wrong and often the resulting treatments make the situation worse. House is almost always the one to see where they're all going wrong and, through that sudden inspiration, hit on the proper course of treatment.

The Dean of Medicine, and House's boss, is Dr. Lisa Cuddy, played by Lisa Edelstein. Filled with sexual tension and innuendo, their relationship is extremely complex and often stormy, as she has to deal with his often foolish and almost always disastrous escapades as well as her own complex feelings towards House. House's only real friend seems to be Dr. James Wilson, head of the Department of Oncology at the same hospital, played by Robert Sean Leonard. Often at odds, the two have a very complicated friendship. When things get serious, though, one of them is always there to defend the other. Wilson tries mostly unsuccessfully to help House kick his Vicodin habit, which began when House suffered an aneurysm in his thigh which was subsequently misdiagnosed. The eighth and final season of the show primarily revolves around the relationship between House and Wilson after Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Always engrossing, often touching, and never boring, House, M.D. has been consistently popular throughout its run, and for good reason: it's worth watching!