Conception In 2004,
David Shore and
Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner
Katie Jacobs, pitched the series (untitled at the time) to
Fox as a
CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital
whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes; the main character would be loosely based on Arthur Conan Doyle's "
Sherlock Holmes". Attanasio was inspired to develop a medical procedural drama by
The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician
Lisa Sanders, who is an attending physician at
Yale–New Haven Hospital (YNHH); the fictitious Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH, not to be confused with the
University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro) is modeled after this teaching institution. Fox bought the series, although the network's then-president,
Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don't want to see white coats going down the hallway." Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of many influences leading to the show's ultimate form. ("
zebra" is
medical slang for an unusual or obscure diagnosis, while "circling the drain" refers to terminal cases, patients in an irreversible decline). Shore felt it was important to have an interesting central character who could examine patients' personal characteristics and diagnose their ailments by figuring out their secrets and lies. The character was named "House", which was adopted as the show's title as well. A central part of the show's premise was that the main character would be disabled in some way.
References to Sherlock Holmes References to fictional detective
Sherlock Holmes appear throughout the series. Shore explained that he was always a Holmes fan and found the character's indifference to his clients unique. Shore said that House's name itself is meant as "a subtle homage" to Holmes. House's address is 221B Baker Street, a direct reference to
Holmes's street address. Individual episodes of the series contain additional references to the Sherlock Holmes tales. The main patient in the
pilot episode is named Rebecca Adler after
Irene Adler, a character in the first Holmes short story, "
A Scandal in Bohemia". In the season two finale, House is shot by a crazed gunman credited as "
Moriarty", the name of Holmes's nemesis. In the season four episode "
It's a Wonderful Lie", House receives a "second-edition Conan Doyle" as a Christmas gift. In the season five episode "
The Itch", House is seen picking up his keys and Vicodin from the top of a copy of Conan Doyle's
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. In another season five episode, "
Joy to the World", House, in an attempt to fool his team, uses a book by
Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Season 7 episode 3 includes a
young adult boyhood detective book series written by the patient, whose final unpublished volume concludes with an ambiguous ending for the main character, reminiscent of "
The Final Problem". The series finale also pays homage to Holmes's apparent death in "The Final Problem", the 1893 story with which Conan Doyle originally intended to conclude the Holmes chronicles.
Production team created the series and served as its
showrunner.
House was a co-production of
Heel and Toe Films,
Shore Z Productions, and
Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with
Universal Network Television for Fox. Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs, the heads of Heel and Toe Films; David Shore, the head of Shore Z Productions; and
Bryan Singer, the head of Bad Hat Harry Productions, were
executive producers of the series for its entirety.
Lawrence Kaplow,
Peter Blake, and Thomas L. Moran joined the staff as writers at the beginning of the first season after the making of the pilot episode. Writers
Doris Egan,
Sara Hess, Russel Friend, and Garrett Lerner joined the team at the start of season two. Friend and Lerner, who are business partners, had been offered positions when the series launched, but turned the opportunity down. After observing the show's success, they accepted when Jacobs offered them jobs again the following year. Writers
Eli Attie and Sean Whitesell joined the show at the start of season four; Attie would stay on the show's writing staff through the series finale, which he co-wrote. From the beginning of season four, Moran, Friend, and Lerner were credited as executive producers on the series, joining Attanasio, Jacobs, Shore, and Singer. and third episodes of season five. Shore was
Houses
showrunner. Through the end of the sixth season, more than two dozen writers had contributed to the series. The most prolific were Kaplow (18 episodes), Blake (17), Shore (16), Friend (16), Lerner (16), Moran (14), and Egan (13). The show's most prolific directors through its first six seasons were
Deran Sarafian (22 episodes), who was not involved in season six, and
Greg Yaitanes (17). Of the more than three dozen other directors who have worked on the series, only David Straiton directed as many as 10 episodes through the sixth season. Hugh Laurie directed the 17th episode of season six, "
Lockdown". Elan Soltes was the
visual effects supervisor since the show began.
Lisa Sanders, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the
Yale School of Medicine, was a technical advisor to the series. She writes the "Diagnosis" column that inspired
Houses premise. According to Shore, "[T]hree different doctors ... check everything we do". and apologized for its appearance (which Singer compared to a "
bin Laden video"). Laurie improvised, using an umbrella for a cane. Singer was very impressed by his performance and commented on how well the "American actor" was able to grasp the character. Singer was not aware that Laurie was English, due to his American accent. Laurie credits the accent to "a misspent youth [watching] too much TV and too many movies". Laurie later revealed that he initially thought the show's central character was Dr. James Wilson. He assumed that House was a supporting part, due to the nature of the character, until he received the full script of the pilot episode. Laurie, the son of medical doctor
Ran Laurie, said he felt guilty for "being paid more to become a fake version of [his] own father". Laurie was earning around $400,000 per episode by the fifth season, and $700,000 per episode for the final season, making him one of the
highest-paid actors on network television.
Robert Sean Leonard had received the script for the
CBS show
Numb3rs as well as that for
House. He believed that his
House audition was not particularly good, but that his lengthy friendship with Singer helped win him the part of Dr. Wilson.--> Singer had enjoyed
Lisa Edelstein's portrayal of a high-priced call girl putting herself through law school on
The West Wing, and sent her a copy of the pilot script. Edelstein was attracted to the quality of the writing and her character's "snappy dialogue" with House, and was cast as Dr.
Lisa Cuddy. After he was cast, he persuaded the producers to turn the character into an Australian. Patrick Dempsey also auditioned for the part of Chase; he later became known for his portrayal of Dr.
Derek Shepherd on ''
Grey's Anatomy. Omar Epps, who plays Dr. Eric Foreman, was inspired by his earlier portrayal of a troubled intern on the NBC medical drama ER; his character was given the name "Eric Foreman" despite the fact that Fox was still airing That '70s Show when House'' premiered and had the similarly named
Eric Forman as that series' main protagonist. (The two series overlapped on Fox's schedule for two seasons, though
Topher Grace left ''That '70s Show
at the end of its 7th season and House's'' first, only returning for that show's series finale.)
Jennifer Morrison felt that her audition for the part of Dr.
Allison Cameron was a complete disaster. However, before her audition, Singer had watched some of her performances, including on ''
Dawson's Creek'', and already wanted to cast her in the role. At the end of season three, House dismisses Chase, while Foreman and Cameron resign. After an episode in which he "borrows" a janitor whom he calls "Dr. Buffer" to assist in a diagnosis, House must then recruit a new diagnostic team, for which he identifies seven finalists. The producers originally planned to recruit two new full-time actors, with Foreman, who returns in season four's
fifth episode, bringing the team back up to three members; ultimately, the decision was made to add three new regular cast members. Along with Epps, actors Morrison and Spencer remained in the cast, as their characters moved on to new assignments. During production, the show's writers dismissed a single candidate per episode; as a result, said Jacobs, neither the producers nor the cast knew who was going to be hired until the last minute. In the season's ninth episode, House's new team is revealed: Foreman is joined by doctors
Lawrence Kutner (
Kal Penn), Chris Taub (
Peter Jacobson), and
Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (
Olivia Wilde). The candidates rejected by House did not return to the show, with the exception of the last one cut: Amber Volakis (
Anne Dudek), who appeared in a recurring role for the rest of season four as Wilson's girlfriend, a recurring role in season five as a hallucination of House's, returning as such in the series finale. While Penn and Wilde had higher profiles than the actors who played the other finalists, Jacobs said they went through an identical audition process and stayed with the show based on the writers' interest in their characters. The contracts of Edelstein, Epps, and Leonard expired at the end of season seven. As a cost-cutting measure, the three actors were asked to accept reduced salaries. Epps and Leonard came to terms with the producers, but Edelstein did not, and in May 2011, it was announced that she would not be returning for the show's eighth season.
Filming style and locations is the source of the aerial views of PPTH.
House is often filmed using the "
walk and talk" filming technique, popularized on television by series such as
St. Elsewhere,
ER,
Sports Night, and
The West Wing. The technique involves the use of
tracking shots, showing two or more characters walking between locations while talking. "Cameras and special effects travel not only down the throat" of one patient, another critic observed, "but up her nose and inside her brain and leg". Instead of relying primarily on
computer-generated imagery, the interior body shots tend to involve
miniature effects and
motion control photography. Bryan Singer chose the university near his hometown,
West Windsor, New Jersey, as the show's fictional setting. Some filming took place at the
University of Southern California for the season-three episode "
Half-Wit", which guest-starred
Dave Matthews and
Kurtwood Smith. Part of
Houses sixth season was filmed at the abandoned
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, in
Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, as the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.
Title sequence The opening sequence begins with an
MRI of a head with an image of the boxed "H" from the logo (the international symbol for hospital) in the foreground. This is then overlaid with an image of Dr. House's face taken from the pilot episode with the show's full title appearing across his face. House's head then fades and the show's title is underlined and has the "M.D." appear next to it, producing the entire logo of the show. This was the full extent of the title sequence in the pilot episode. All subsequent episodes contain a longer sequence including the names of the six featured cast members and creator David Shore. Laurie's name appears first, followed by the names of the five other featured cast members in alphabetical order (Edelstein, Epps, Leonard, Morrison, and Spencer), then Shore. After the show's title fades, an aerial view of PPTH (actually various Princeton University buildings, primarily Frist Campus Center) Spencer's name appears next to an old-fashioned anatomical drawing of a
spine. Between the presentations of Spencer and Shore's names is a scene of House and his three original team members walking down one of the hospital's hallways. The title sequence continued to credit Spencer and Morrison, even when their characters were reduced to background roles during seasons four and five, and Morrison even after hers was written out. A new opening sequence was introduced in season seven to accommodate the changes in the cast, removing Morrison's name and including Jacobson's and Wilde's. It was updated in season eight, removing Edelstein's and Wilde's names and adding Annable's and Mutuc's. The series' original opening theme, as heard in the United States, comprises instrumental portions of "
Teardrop" by
Massive Attack. The piece was used in part because of the distinct tempo which roughly mimics the sound of a beating human heart. An acoustic version of "Teardrop", with guitar and vocals by
José González, is heard as background music during the season-four finale. Because of rights issues, broadcasts in many European countries changed the first season opening to an original piece of music by Scott Donaldson and Richard Nolan. From the second season onward, a new intro composed by Jason Derlatka and Jon Ehrlich was used instead. ==Series overview==