Physician, don’t heal thyself

THAT “House” was, at least for the night of May 15 (at least in the 18-to-49 demographic), more popular than “American Idol” might come as something of a shock even to regular viewers and admirers of the show. This is largely because Dr. Gregory House is not the sort to curry much favor with those who spend too much time with him. He’s irascible, snide and motivated by knowledge, not compassion. Over the three seasons of “House” (Fox, 9 p.m. Tuesdays), this hasn’t changed a bit, and if the show runners are sensible, it’s not likely to change at any point in the future.

And why would anyone want him to? House (Hugh Laurie) is the doctor the other doctors let get away with murder because he’s smarter than they are. He’s done as much for the diagnosis of “sarcoidosis” (if you’re keeping score, “a disease of unknown origin characterized by the formulation of granulomatous lesions that appear especially in the liver, lungs, skin and lymph nodes,” says the American Heritage Dictionary) as “ER” did for the diagnostic tests CBC and Chem 7. He pops Vicodins like vitamins (with an exaggerated gesture) and routinely does things to undermine the best interests of his colleagues. Indeed, the central conceit of the show, which has its season finale Tuesday night, involves the persistent efforts of House’s peers and subordinates to get him to evolve, to crack his hard shell just a bit.

What a waste of energy -- House’s shell is everything. Whatever hope for redemption exists is in his sad, beautiful eyes. But the moment the camera lingers on them too long, Laurie is sure to cut the attention with a quick furrowing of the brow. He’s a jovial, glorious presence, a guy who walks into a classroom full of young kids and asks a girl, “Do you have hair in your special place?” -- in the name of diagnosis, of course. That he’s self-centered and oblivious to the needs of others isn’t nearly the repellent the show might like it to be. There are no relevant subplots -- there is only House. (A suggestion for next season: “The House Monologues.” Each week, Laurie will face the camera directly, Spalding Gray style, and in perfect House-ese hold court on medical cases and social psychology.)

Over the course of this season -- which has been, on the whole, a slight letdown from last season -- House has been consistently subjected to the sort of do-goodering that is at the very ideological core of other medical shows. (For House, though, doing good is an unnecessary byproduct of doing well.) A five-episode arc this season in which House was threatened with jail time after forging a prescription for himself sputtered out under the weight of its own faulty assumptions -- namely, that anyone, even a stoic cop played by the crisp David Morse, could compel House to be something other than he is.

The characters who get under his skin most are those who are even more emotionally frigid than he -- witness Nate, the difficult teenage chess prodigy from this month who blithely berated him. Or, better still, John Larroquette, whose performance as a father recently awakened from a coma who has to make a difficult decision about saving his sick son was a masterpiece of small acting and created one of the few true moments of empathy House’s character has ever subjected himself to.

It’s that lack of empathy that so alienates House’s co-workers. In this week’s finale, he finds himself facing down problems with all three of his team members, including Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), who for the last few weeks has been on the verge of quitting lest he become like House. It’s a pointless game of chicken -- even when House cracks and asks him to stay, he doesn’t really mean it; and even though it seems certain that Foreman is out the door at season’s end, the allure of working for House might prove too irresistible for him. He is, after all, like House: clinical and committed to solving difficult problems.

A couple of weeks ago, Foreman flouted protocol to, rather violently, withdraw bone marrow from one brother to save another. It was gruesome to watch, and yet, when the gamble proved successful, easy to dismiss as a tiny speed bump. Better still, it was the first time he’d seemed alive in weeks. Being like House is so much more compelling than rejecting that same fate.