"House" Season Premiere

The new season of "House" premiered last night. My dad watched it with me. He hates the show because the entire premise of it -- a diagnostics department that usually has four doctors working exclusively  on a single case for days at a time -- jumps the shark in a major way. Each individual episode usually affronts reality at least ten times, but I don't care; I watch the show religiously.

My dad was particularly bothered that Dr. Wilson, an oncologist, was the primary physician for a patient who had suffered cancer in the past but whose manifesting illness was emphysema. A pulmonologist, my dad said, would have been the physician making the calls. I'm not sure exactly what my dad thinks gives him the right to criticize "House" for not having a pulmonologist treat an emphysema patient. My dad is an oncologist and hematologist   When my pseudoaunt was critically ill with multiple bleeding duodenal perforations on top of cystic fibrosis, my dad acted as  her primary care physician. I witness hypocrisy personified on a daily basis.

The doctors in "House" hit each other far more than people with similar educational levels in real life actually do.  House punches Chase. Chase floors House with a nasty right hook. Wilson decks House. Even the new Asian fellow decked her previous attending physician off-camera. No one ever presses charges when these guys (or girls) cold-cock each other. It's the rough equivalent of a women's softball game in terms of the level of violence present.

Dr. Chases didn't appear in this episode, which greatly interfered with my enjoyment. I've read that he does show up in subsequent episodes, so I don't have to officially go into mourning. I would watch "House," though, even if Jesse Spencer never appeared again, just for the fun of torturing my father.