Hugh Laurie in US sleeper hit House. Photograph: Capture/Five
Must be going soft in my middle-age: last night's return of House - the US sleeper hit that roared and a brilliant acquisition for Five - had me all moist of eye when the quadriplegic got out of his wheelchair and hugged his wife and son. Admittedly there's something particularly satisfying about the idea of a person reclaiming their life in such an obviously emotive way, and it's not a trick that can be played week after week, but for the series opener it more than did the job.
When you consider how much is crammed into just over 40 minutes of TV every week, you can't fault this show's story arc. Particularly stern critics might say that characterisation is sacrificed to plot development, but I wouldn't be among them. Last night we got two intriguing medical cases as well as the sense that, finally, we might be getting to know House as something other than an emotional automaton with a Sherlock-style gift for diagnoses. It was effectively a master-class in story structure.
I can't think of a single British drama that could maintain this level of dialogue ("Of course he had brain cancer. Even oncologists can't be wrong for eight years...") while continuing to shed light on the relationship between House and the rest of his team - particularly, last night, Lisa Cuddy and James Wilson - and then finding time to make you not only care about the outcome of the medical cases, but also about House's interior life. I repeat: 40 minutes of television and not as much as a second of it squandered. We really have so much to learn over here.
Hugh Laurie is phenomenally good, of course. Like a lot of British viewers who have Fry and Laurie-baggage (most American viewers didn't really have a clue who he was), I'm still slightly, albeit very pleasantly, surprised by his ability to carry an entire show, scene-after-scene, for 20-something weeks, having always thought of him as a likeable lightweight. And perhaps he's even slightly surprised himself.
But to counteract the love-in, one tiny criticism... I've never been entirely convinced by the accent, perhaps because we all know how Laurie really sounds. The Americans buy it, though. According to this week's Radio Times, when director Bryan Singer saw Laurie's audition tape, he said: "Now this is the sort of strong American actor I'm looking for!" Go figure, as they say.
