As most of you know, I love House and rarely miss an episode. That being said, I had no idea what was going on in last night’s installment. I’ll attribute part of my confusion to the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, my DVR started recording well into the show. As a result, I had a really hard time following the story. From what I could gather, it involved some sort of medical emergency that took place at a baseball stadium but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who was sick, the source of the conflict and, more importantly, where the hell Dr. House had gotten to.
While I do enjoy the occasionally atypical episode, this one had none of the characteristic House charm I’ve grown to know and love. It focused way too much on the actual baseball backdrop for my liking, going to ridiculous lengths to convey that major league atmosphere. Okay, I get that we’re at a baseball game, but do we have to see EVERY at bat? It really tried my patience, especially with all the stats babble on the part of the faux announcers that sounded like it had been improvised on the spot. While they were tossing out silly acronyms like ERA, RBI, and ALCS, I was sitting there screaming: “Who cares?!! Where’s Wilson?! And what’s happening with Chase and the medical investigation?!” It’s like they just dropped that particular storyline completely in favor of the biggest cliché in television: the extra-inning game. An extra-inning game won, no less, by…you guessed it…the home team with two outs in the bottom of the 11th! Sigh. And the names they came up with for the imaginary baseball players were so uninspired. Johnny Damon? Seriously? I can just imagine the writer spinning: “Hey, he’s a cross between Johnny Depp and Matt Damon. I know! We’ll call him Johnny Damon!”.
Anyway, even though I saw the twist coming a mile away, I nevertheless did enjoy the part where the catcher hit the double to win the game (but thought the guy who played the losing pitcher was a little over the top. I liked him better on How I Met Your Mother.), and was looking forward to see how it would all tie together but, instead of cutting back to the hospital or going to House and Cuddy sitting in the bleachers, it just ended. WTF?!
A very uneven episode. Although it was very dramatic and the CG crowds were impressive (for the most part), it was too much of a departure from the show’s established premise and there was not enough focus on our main characters with the exception of Taub who just happened to be the Los Angeles Angels third base coach for reasons that were never quite made clear.
All in all, I give it 2 out of 5 stars.
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