House (2004 — 2012)

House (2004–2012) is an American medical drama television series that aired on the Fox network for eight seasons. It follows the story of Gregory House, M.D., a cynical and brilliant doctor who leads a team of diagnosticians at Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. The show’s structure includes a main plot with additional subplots that span multiple seasons. Each episode centers around a primary patient whose symptoms are first seen in a cold open outside the hospital. From there, the team works to diagnose and treat the patient’s illness, often facing challenges and roadblocks until the patient’s condition becomes dire. They specifically focus on patients who have been misdiagnosed by other doctors, as House only takes on cases that he finds fascinating. While their initial diagnoses may be incorrect, complications arising from treatment often provide crucial clues for eventually reaching an accurate diagnosis.

House has a tendency to come up with the right diagnosis unexpectedly, often sparked by a casual comment from one of his colleagues. The cases vary in difficulty, ranging from common ailments to extremely rare diseases. The team frequently encounters difficulties in diagnosing patients due to them withholding information about their symptoms, situations, or personal backgrounds. This leads House to regularly declare, during their discussions, ‘The patient is not telling the truth’, or quietly utter ‘Everybody lies’; this mindset influences his decisions and diagnoses and makes breaking into houses a usual protocol for him. However, because many of his theories are based on sudden realizations or controversial insights, he often struggles to get approval for necessary medical procedures from his boss, hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy (except for the last season).