The hit medical show “House” — one of the all-time best Fox shows — was inspired by a New York Times column that began in 2002. Executive producer Katie Jacobs explained in a 2012 interview with TV Guide how the weekly column “Diagnosis,” written by Lisa Sanders, would list “a serious of incongruous symptoms … and then it took 1,200 words to discover the mystery of what the diagnosis was.”
The “Diagnosis” column, which continues to this day, takes readers through a doctor’s thought process and gives them the chance to form their own theory about a patient’s symptoms. As Jacobs put it, each article functions as “a medical mystery with the symptoms as the suspects.”
Not only was “House” inspired by Sanders’ column, but the show hired Sanders as a technical adviser. In a 2009 interview with Yale News, she described receiving constant emails from “House” writers asking her questions like, “I’ve got a 26-year-old cop who’s undercover. What can happen to him?” She said her “favorite part” of the role was “coming up with wacky, wonderful diagnoses.”
House explores why patients lie about their symptoms
David Shore noted that the formula of a “Diagnosis” article, while compelling, was not enough to make for a hit TV show. “Germs don’t have motives,” he said. “People watch mysteries not because of whodunit, but because of ‘why done it.'” Shore believed that Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) should spend much of his time figuring out what the patient is hiding from him: “That’s what the show became about: Why do people do the things they do?”
Katie Jacobs explained that Dr. House’s motto “everybody lies” was inspired by “the notion of [someone] giving their medical history to the doctor. He says, ‘How many glasses of wine do you have during the week?’ You say two, and he writes four.” For eight full seasons, patients on “House” routinely lie about parts of their life. House lies to his patients in return, and often even breaks into their homes to figure out what they’re hiding.
“House” writers grappled with the moral ambiguity of House’s deceitful, unconventional, and often illegal methods. “What’s more important: motives or results?” Shore said. “And what matters more: the emotion or the intellect?” The show, often considered one of the best medical dramas of all time, never hesitated to depict its main character as an unapologetic jerk. “Sherlock Holmes was a bit of an inspiration,” Shore said. “[I wanted] to make the show about somebody who cares more about the puzzle than about the lives.”
