I'm very disappointed to have to acknowledge it, but it really is feeling like House jumped the shark. Oddly, he may have jumped the shark in mid-hiatus, because everything was fine when we last saw him in the spring, and when he was back on duty in the fall things had changed completely. He bears all the marks of a writing staff that's become terrifically freaked out by the success of the show, and is now trying to write the character the way they think people want him, rather than write him the way they did before and let people get from it what they may. The result? A quippy (almost chipper), over-sentamentalized "troubled hero" Dr. House. Which stands in such direct contradiction to the way the character was used in Season One (I'm watching the DVDs right now) that it's almost painful. There are ten-second non-dialogue scenes between House and tasty little Dr. Cameron in Season One that say more about that character than 40 pages of dialogue could say this year. I can only hope that this is all building to some great personal tragedy and disappointment that will turn him into even more of an asshole than he was last year, or ol' limpy might be making his last rounds.

Thank goodness we've got Lost coming back tonight to kill characters and take names, or TV might have become boring. Given that I can't even remember the last time I saw Charlie or Sayid, it is definitely time to start thinning the massive, 15-person principal cast by at least a third. Perhaps another plane crash? Right on top of a group of people? That would be good.