TV Review: HOUSE 8.8, “Perils of Paranoia”
A middle-of-the-road rating for a very middle-of-the-road episode.
rating: 2.5
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This weeks episode of House begins with our guest victim, a lawyer, in court doing what he does (trapping a witness whos lying). All seems well for him until he suffers massive chest pains and believes hes having a heart attack. Good a reason as any to call a recess. The lawyer ends up under Houses (Hugh Laurie), tender mercies, sent there by Foreman (Omar Epps), who lied to the patient about his condition. House begins investigating and soon comes to the conclusion that the man has been poisoned. A prosecuting attorney should have no shortage of would-be poisoners, but how to figure out which one it is? Soon Park (Charlyne Yi), and Adams (Odette Annable), are on the way to the mans house looking for clues. They drive there in a Ford, which very noticeably takes a smooth, even turn while the Ford logo displays and Adams talks about its special handling abilities. Yeah, the product placement is just that blatant. Guess who the major sponsor of tonights episode is? Anyhow, inside the mans home, they find, at first, nothing, and nothing at all to indicate poison. But then Park notices something odd about his bookcase. When they search further, they find that it conceals a secret room full of supplies and a small arsenal of guns. Indeed. Back at the hospital, the search for a possible poison agent continues while the lawyer insists hes not paranoid; hes just got a reasonable level of concern that all of civilization might crumble down around his ears sometime soon. Then we find out that he has an ulcer developing in the skin on his right leg. As all this is going on, House and Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), get into discussions about guns which ends with Wilson convinced House owns one (which as a convicted felon, hes not allowed to). The two then begin an elaborate series of pranks involving net launchers as they try to provewell, the usual sorts of things they try to prove. Meantime, Foreman is single and seems uninterested in dating. Taub (Peter Jacobson), might have been trying to hook him up with a nurse or two, but hes not interested. He does meet a lovely woman at a gym, however, and things are looking up. Well, until her husband turns up. As for the patient, he continues his downward spiral, going nuts at one point and breaking a window with a stool. Then later he stops breathing, and the team has no idea at all why. This is one of those middle-ground episodes where its hard to praise and its hard to hate. There wasnt anything particularly notable about this story. The guest stars were ok. The pranks were ok. The soap opera stuff was ok. Nothing was really bad and nothing was really good. I did somewhat enjoy a subplot involving Parks insecurity about the way the rest of the team views her, but thats about the best I can say for the story. I will say that I found the Ford product placement to be really obnoxious. Yes, I know that product placement is common in American TV, and I dont have a huge problem with it when its done right. Theres nothing wrong with characters having a Coke at McDonalds because thats what real people do. Having someone drink a Wonder Soda at McTavishs would take you out of the story. But the way it was handled here was just bad and baffling. I still enjoy the show overall, but almost halfway through the season, it seems like they kind of lost their way. The whole House as felon thing pops up when the plot requires it, but otherwise these stories could take place pretty much anywhere in the series, and thats sad, because theyre missing a real opportunity. A middle-of-the-road rating for a very middle-of-the-road episode.