HOUSE Does DMc -- In Spades.

I've often remarked to friends that I'm just smart enough to watch HOUSE, but not smart enough to write it. I know, I know, were I to write HOUSE, I'd have lots of medical researchers to help me out -- but the very nature of this medical show -- A Rubik's puzzle that illuminates the very real, and yet very scary (and very absent from television) notion that Doctors, God love'em, are guessing. Guessing based on a preponderance of evidence and observation, but, you know...still.

From the earliest days of HOUSE, I've had an idea. It was an idea that I never thought I'd pursue, not in a million years. I didn't think I would pursue it because I knew it was such an interesting medical condition that eventually they would get to it.

The condition was aphasia. Aphasia, for those who didn't watch, is a neurological condition which can be caused by a number of factors, where the patient thinks that they're communicating, they can understand what's being said to them, but when they speak, it comes out as gibberish. Anyone who's ever suffered through a family member who's had a stroke probably knows more about this than me. But to me it is the perfect metaphor, and also the perfect conundrum for Dr. Greg House. He already believes (with evidence amply supplied through a season and a half of shows) that everybody lies. So what happens if you can't even challenge the patient? What happens when they can't tell you the truth -- or if you can't even pick through their lies, because you don't understand what they're saying?

That was my idea. As I said, I never thought of writing that as a spec script, because I knew they'd get there eventually, and my script would be dross.

So tonight they do that story, and the devil, my friends, as always -- lives in the details. First, the sufferer/patient is a journalist. A truth teller. Nice. Is he lying? Of course. It's HOUSE. How does House expose him? It's really hard. Because the whole time he's six hundred miles away making out with his Ex-Wife in snowed-in Baltimore.

Man. I salute you. This is the thing, chickens. Over the years, I've advised a lot of people about those first all important spec scripts. I've laughed and commisserated as people saw their ideas scooped, and done by the show. Most specs I have in my library were eventually invalidated by the show itself. Sometimes, my take was better. Often, it wasn't.

But moaning and bitching aint the NFL kids. No one's asking you to write a spec. When you tamp out that Smallville or Commander in Chief or My Name is Earl, it doesn't just have to be a typical episode -- it has to be way better than a typical episode.

It has to take that great idea I had about aphasia -- and plus it...just like HOUSE did last night.

Which, at the end of the day, is why they're pricing new Priuses and split levels in Silver Lake and I'm in Canada. Their take on my idea? Way, way, way, way better than I ever considered. Man, I enjoyed it.

I still can't believe HOUSE is a popular show. Thank you, American Idol. I forgive some of what you've wrought.