TV is the New Reading

Chillin’ out with a

‘House’ fan, plus

‘Fringe,’ ‘Daisies,’

‘Glee’ and ‘Primeval’

It does happen occasionally that there are shows on television that I don’t watch but which simply can’t pass without comment, so I try to track down a source with way more insight than me and pass those insights along to you. In that spirit ...

Kim Gifford: I’m Kim Gifford and I’m a huge fan of “House.”

MDN: Really?

KG: I own all of the seasons on DVD.

MDN: That answers that. He’s done some outrageous stuff in the past, but was that public pronouncement (that he's slept with Cuddy) as ridiculous as it’s ever gotten? Or was the entire hospital pretty much aware of it by now?

KG: I think the entire hospital was pretty much aware of it in the sense that they’ve seen it, we’ve seen it on screen, the chemistry. I do believe other people are aware of it -- maybe not the entire hospital, but a very large chunk previously was, and now is completely aware of.

Well, she’s talked in previous episodes about their friendship and has hinted to a form of a relationship in the past.and I believe that this really, truly, on so many different levels proved to Cuddy who House is, not in just a doctor sense but in an addict sense, as a friend as as a “wow, this guy really thinks more of me than what I really truly honestly wanted to believe.

MDN: She’s dealt with “House stuff” in the past, but this seemed to be a breaking point. Is she always just about done with him?

KG: In my opinion, I don’t think so. I think Cuddy is always longing for somebody to look after which is also seen this season in the adoption of her daughter. And House has always been that for her, that person to look after. As much as House drives her up a wall, he’s also that thing she needs to look after. Which is why it was so interesting to see House did imagine all of that. And part of the reason why Cuddy didn’t go to House’s rescue was because she found that other thing in her life to take care of, that baby girl.

MDN: That perception problem that came to a head that came to a realization this finale that really drove him to self-admit and to get some help, how long has that been going on?

KG: We’ve kind of seen it all season long where he’s hinted that he’s having issues, and all of a sudden there was Amber coming back into his memory and I think House has realized longer than a lot of us have that this addiction was worse than what it seemed and the issues from it were worse than what we as viewers wanted to believe. And part of what makes House House is that addiction. He’s a flawed character and that’s one of his major flaws. That’s actually a fear of mine for next season.

MDN: Oh that he might be …

KG: Less “House”-ish, in a sense. … I’m so scared that Season Six will be a prequel. I’m not 100 percent sure, but it brings me back to where I talked about Cuddy being such a caretaker. If he is “cured,” per se, is he going to need someone to take care of him?

So this would be a true test of their true relationship. In some of the earliest episodes, they show House before his leg is injured, when he was actually dating Stacy at the time. And he’s a much calmer, much sweeter character. But after this many years, after the damage, I don’t know if he’s going to go back to that. I cannot foresee that he will go back to being the kind, loving, caring (character), but to me, to go back to who he was in maybe even Season Three or Four, when he wasn’t as harsh, I could definitely see that, and I would thoroughly enjoy that.

MDN: How has the team changed?

KG: The team originally started as Foreman, Chase, Cameron and House, of course, and also Wilson and Cuddy. Through different things in different seasons he’s lost those. In one season he lost Foreman, Chase and Cameron, and then we went through the whole selection process, and to me we lost a lot of the show that season. I was very disappointed with that. But now we’ve gained “13” and Kutner, who of course this season committed suicide. We’ve gained some other different characters, and we’re bringing back in Chase and Cameron it looks like are coming back in a little bit more. I know that ("House" creators) Katie Jacobs and David Shore were talking about the importance of Chase and Cameron’s characters and were very excited about the storyline for them at the end of the season, so those of us who are loyal viewers knew there had to be something major coming there.

I would love to see them go back to the basics. At the same time I thoroughly enjoy “13”s character, and there’s many aspects I do thoroughly enjoy now. But yeah, how many times can we hear “Well, let’s check for lupus”? The biggest selling “House” item on the Internet is a T-shirt that says “IT’S NOT LUPUS.” Which is why the one episode in season four or five where it was lupus was one of my favorite episodes, because it actually was lupus.

MDN: So ... how about that finale?

KG: This finale, to me, there was … so much symbolism in it. It was phenomenal. Even just at the end, the last three minutes or so, Cuddy walks into the wedding carrying her daughter, and she just kind of lets out this deep sigh. They cut immediately to House who is inhaling deeply. Almost like two souls still tied. And this is happening during the wedding of Chase and Cameron. So … Chase and Cameron are making the official tie (and) House and Cuddy will always be tied together in some way, some shape, some form. It was really fun to watch that.

Just like when they pulled up to the mental institution, you couldn’t help but … I had a tear in my eye. I really truly did. Because watching that was phenomenal. Hugh’s performance in this was absolutely amazing. I laughed in this episode. I was mad, I was furious that the whole House/Cuddy thing was not real because I was waiting for this for five seasons -- me and millions of other people out there who call ourselves “Huddy” fans -- and for it to not happen, but I cried at the end. And to watch Wilson and House, where House hands over the watch, and there’s a moment between the two of them, those two are best friends and they will always be connected, the connections they showed in this episode really truly made you realize just how important every one of those characters is.

‘Fringe’

Along with the many finales I took in last week, “Fringe” stood out as being something altogether other. I wanted to spend a little more time with it, but of course now that everything’s going on summer hiatus or indeed into that long goodnight, there are many premieres to talk about. And indeed I do at some point have something to say about “24” as well, but for now, let me just carve out a moment for J.J. Abrams’ mad scientist Walter Bishop and his one-time partner William Bell, and their test subjects/colleagues Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham.

The first season of “Fringe” featured such deranged science as to allow the transfer of objects through solid matter at a distance (leading to one of the most dramatic prison breaks I’ve witnessed on television) -- nuclear-powered cybernauts, gene-spliced monstrosities, spontaneous combustion through viral infection, telekinetics and oh yes, alternate realities and mind-melding with the reanimated.

The mind-meld thing made the appearance of Leonard Nimoy as Bishop’s partner all the more apt. But in his confrontation in the final moments of the first season finale with one-time test subject agent Dunham actually in an alternate reality in which Kennedy was never assassinated and they're inside the still-standing Twin Towers, to me, that was jaw-dropping.

Agent Dunham, played by the icily beautiful Anna Torv, is drawn into these various puzzles in part because she was a test subject as a child, which makes her more aware of alternate realities and more prone to psychic phenomena. And as a covert global operation called ZFT becomes more active, springing ne’er-do-wells from supermax prisons in Germany, concentrating its power and manipulating reality, mad scientist Walter Bishop, together with his son, Peter (who might be from an alternate reality and might be one of many clones) and Dunham -- as well as Bell’s megacorporation Massive Dynamics -- still a going concern in this reality despite his disappearance into the alternate one -- realize these phenomena stem at least in part from work Bell and Bishop Sr. were doing in the 1970s.

So season two should be a doozy, to say the least.

'Pushing Daisies'

“Fringe” has been confirmed to return this fall along with “Dollhouse” and “Medium,” although Medium will pull a “Scrubs” and actually return on a different network. More on that following this week’s finale. Speaking of unlikely returning series, after its fanfare-free cancelation, “Pushing Daisies” bows out with three previously unaired episodes airing May 30, June 6 and June 13. While closing out the adorably macabre star-crossed romance between Ned and Chuck is a bittersweet bump, it’s certainly sweeter than if they weren’t to air them at all.

'Glee'

FOX provided a sneak peek at another fall premiere following “American Idol” this past week (oh, if I know, you for sure already know -- it’s Kris. I only watch the audition rounds of “American Idol,” same as this past week’s premiere of “So You Think You Can Dance” -- purely for the not-always-intentional comedy).

Glee, by its very nature, means opening yourself to joy. And there’s no shortage of joy in this pilot episode of FOX’s fresh-looking dramatic musical comedy “Glee.”

From Ryan Murphy, the creator of “Nip/Tuck” -- and you can tell, because these cardboard cutouts have some depth to them even in the pilot episode -- a group of high school students with a … range of musical talent, self-awareness and stability attempt to form a glee club.

That hand they keep showing in the form of an “L” is the rest of the school making fun of them for being losers, and indeed, in a heartfelt passage, one of them outlines his own loser-hood in a schoolful of losers. The group coalesces around a young idealistic Spanish teacher and one-time show choir performer in a struggling marriage with his newly pregnant and disappointingly materialistic wife. His work and life puts him in close contact with a lovely young teacher who seems perfect for him (too bad about that whole unsatisfying marriage thing) who wants his glee club aspirations to succeed, unlike the rest of the faculty who want them to fail.

In terms of complexity, it has none. But this is a pilot episode. We’re just meeting these people and they’ve absolutely been given room to grow both in terms of storyline and talent. Following this past week’s sneak peek, “Glee” will premiere in desperate earnest this fall on FOX.

'Primeval'

Also premiering on BBC America is what I’m told is actually the third season of “Primeval.” Apparently they organize these things differently across the way. Whatever the lineup, a giant crocodile once worshipped as a god of the underworld in ancient Egypt emerged from an anomaly in a magnetically active structure called a sun cage and …

… let’s back up a bit. “Primeval” is a British sci-fi time-traveling menagerie wherein a corrupt scientist gained some knowledge concerning portals that opened into different time periods and into different environments. Essentially, these portals open and ancient creatures travel back and forth from their own time periods into our own. That would be bad enough, but some dangerously evolved creatures travel to our own time period from a distant future as well.

The corrupt scientist, Helen Cutter, was once married to Dr. Nick Cutter who leads a team of investigators in an attempt to understand the portals, predict their appearance and minimize the damage of whatever creatures come through into our own time -- almost always scary vicious killers. This takes place in an alternate timeline from our own which is how we manage to go entire days without hearing of a T-rex attack on a motorway or the appearance of a woolly mammoth in downtown London. Cutter’s team is much better structured and funded in his own reality, so that’s just as well.

Season Three opened last weekend and featured an Egyptologist who was studying something called a Sun Cage, part of a traveling museum exhibit, which seemed to occasionally house -- or possibly create -- a portal. It became active and something looking like a bipedal crocodile came out and attacked people. The team tracked it down but not before learning that electricity seemed to have some effect on an open portal, and also that some portals can be moved physically in space (which, of course, because if a portal appears to be hanging in the same space throughout the time it’s open, it doesn’t in any way account for the turning of the Earth or the planet’s motion through space -- so … they’ll probably get to that at some point).

For now, it’s an exciting enough jaunt through time periods, paleozoology and reasonably good computer graphics. As science fiction goes it’s reasonably satisfying if you suspend a little disbelief, kick back and enjoy the ride.

“Primeval” airs Saturdays at 8 p.m. on BBC America.

Back Back to Shows Back to Main Page Next