Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: House M.D.: Season 6

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from season 5, but no major season six giveaways+++

The sixth season of House picks up with House going through withdrawal in the mental hospital that he checked himself into at the end of Season 5 after hallucinating Amber, Kutner, and sleeping with Cuddy. The season premiere was actually a two-part episode that spanned the three-month period of time that the show normally time jumps. The only two regular cast members that appear in the season premiere are Hugh Laurie (of course) and Robert Sean Leonard. House does get clean and is discharged being able to provisionally go back to practicing medicine, but until his license is restored, Foreman is "the boss" of the team, which starts out as the original team of Foreman, Cameron, and Chase. This season has more cast turnover with one of the series regulars leaving partway through the season, and the fate of another character in limbo at the end of the season. After the first episode(s), the show goes back to the regular case-of-the-week format with the serial arcs mixed in. There are also a couple of episodes in which House and the team are not the focus. One follows Wilson around through a day and the other follows Cuddy around. In each of the episodes House pops in and out as he does, the only difference is that we stay with Wilson and Cuddy so we do not get the full context of what House is doing, which makes the interactions even funnier than normal.

For those who get the blu-ray set, the show looks and sounds good in the HD format. This is, at least in the US, the first season that was available on blu-ray, with the prior seasons only being available on DVD. This season does have one episode with a lot of CGI special effects in which the team takes on the case of a video game creator. The CGI shots of the game (that was made especially for the episode) look great in HD. There are a lot of extras, including commentary tracks on the episode Wilson in which Robert Sean Leonard provides commentary along with David Foster, a commentary track on the Cuddy-centric episode 9-to-5, in which Lisa Edelstein provides commentary with the writer of the episode, a commentary track on the season premiere with the director/writer Katie Jacobs and two of the three co-writers. Then, there is a featurette on the episode Hugh Laurie directed, a featurette on the video-game episode, a featurette on the footage Katic Jacobs shot on location at the hospital in NJ at the end of Season 5, some of which was used in the series premiere, and then a behind-the-scenes featurette that focused on the first episode. So, a lot there if you like going through the bonus content.

The show continues to be very strong in season seven. The writers keep coming up with good storylines and balance the ensemble cast well. This season also has a strong slate of guest and recurring cast members including Michael Weston, Andre Braugher, Cynthia Watros, Lin-Manuel Miranda, James Earl Jones, David Marciano, Jon Seda, Joshua Molina, Ethan Embry, Orlando Jones, Laura Prepon, and Sarah Wayne Callies. The season has a couple of cliffhanger-ish elements that will likely take the show in a bit of a new direction in season seven. So, if you have liked the prior seasons of the show, this it is still worth watching.