Some quick thoughts on tonight's "House" coming up just as soon as you get rid of my crow's feet... Wow, that one angered me.
I will say upfront that I don't give a toss about Cameron. Didn't care about her attraction to House in the early years, nor her relationship with Chase. Wasn't trouble by her two years wandering in the Sinai while House assembled his new team. Wasn't ecstatic when Cuddy reassembled the original team early this season. Nor am I that bothered that Jennifer Morrison is leaving the show for a while, possibly forever.
My issues with "Teamwork" are entirely about how awkwardly the show strained to achieve the outcome, and how many characters had to act out of character in the process.
The House of this episode bares zero resemblance to the guy we've been watching this season. It was like "Broken" never happened. He had something he wanted - in this case, keeping as many past/present team members close to the vest as possible - and even if you can ascribe that to his newfound need to make emotional connections, what we've seen this season is a House who's (slightly) less ruthless, (a little) less obnoxious, and (a whole lot) more compassionate as he's tried to do that. This was just House being a jackass, all so the writers could punt Cameron and bring back 13 and Taub.
For that matter, I don't buy Chase choosing the team over his marriage, no matter what kind of psych-ops House ran on him. I don't buy 13 going back to work for House, and/or with Foreman, under any circumstances. Nor do I buy that House would let Cameron rip into him about him having "ruined" Chase when Chase was a spoiled brown-nosing rich kid when the series began, and whatever growth he had as a man came as a result of working for House.
Couple that with Lucas mostly being a pod person since he returned last week, and what you have are a whole lot of creaky machinations by the "House" writing staff. n the best drama writing, the plot should be dictated by what the characters might d; here, the characters were doing things in order to support the plot.
And while I don't really care that Cameron is gone, there's a certain chemistry to the original recipe team that she's taken with her, and in her place are 13, who's still boring, and Taub, whose relationship with House overlaps too much with Chase's.
One bad episode isn't enough to overturn the goodwill created earlier this season, but I'm not feeling very kindly disposed towards the show right at this moment.
What did everybody else think?