Even before I started following House, one of the principle tools in my arsenal was conversations. Many times I talk to people in my office, many of who don’t even know about the system (that’s what we call a collection of software working together to provide a common functionality) I am diagnosing. They may not even be programmers/developers (my mom being a classic example). I don’t usually talk about the problem at hand (or even software for that matter), which becomes mandatory (because of confidentiality) when I talk to people outside work.

And I would say that about 30% of the time, it is very helpful. It does not usually provide with me with the final diagnosis but has certainly provided me with the right direction to go about in the past. I think the primary reason is that it gives me a break from the problem but because my sub-conscious is still riddled with the problem, I tend to map the conversation to it. One of you might even have a medical/psychological term for that.

Just to be pedantic, what about this?
http://www.physorg.com/news166882585.html

(This episode of House has only just been broadcast here in Australia, BTW.)

Back to my point, though. Your reviews of episodes focus (understandably, of course) largely on the medical aspects of a given episode, so obviously you have less room for discussing the ’soap opera’ elements. Personally I found the non-medical aspect of this episode riveting, particularly the dismantling of Chase’s conscience throughout. Jesse Spencer’s acting was just phenomenal, the scene in the confessions booth was heart-wrending as you could so clearly see his moral struggle across his face and body. So I guess my question is this: (and I don’t mean this to sound as accusatory as it no doubt will in typing) why is it that you only graded it a C?

When I first watched the episode just a few moments ago (off the internet, it’s still two weeks away from being shown here in Australia, so I apologise for the lateness of this post) I thought that the solution had to be impossible because even if an aneurysm pressed onto the cardiac centre, it would mean that only sympathetic/parasympathetic stimulation to the heart would be stopped, meaning that it wouldn’t be able to respond to signals from baro or chemoreceptors for example, but surely the natural pacemaker properties of the SA node would be enough to drive the heart despite a lack of neural imput? I thought the ANS was responsible only for altering the rate at which the cardiac myocytes conducted action potentials because they’re designed to self propagate signals regardless?

When House thought he is again “loosing it”, he started to be more irritating for other people (doctor/students at rounds, partially Cuddy, Wilson) in contrast of his recent “Im polite now” attitude – yet he eventually did a nice thing, recommending Chase to find help.

Also everyone seems to fight with daemons this episode; Dead girlfriend, dead “forbidden-love”, murder guild, issues with father (House and the patient).

What a blonde.

Thanks for the appreciation, I hope you liked the episode, it was fun to be on both sides of the camera for once, but our producers make it look easier then it really was to do….

Hugh,

Congratulations on finally getting an Executive Producer credit. Suddenly, I am looking forward to the next four years of the show.