As fall season ends, ‘House’ finally in order

When the “House” fall finale airs Tuesday night on Fox, Dr. Cuddy will force House to make the last cut from his batch of fellowship candidates and name his new team of three.

All together now: “Finally!”

The process will have dragged itself over nine episodes by the time it is all said and done. It started with a lecture room full of 30 wannabes — at least 80 percent of whom we knew would never make it — and even included a guest-star stunt that saw House hire Michael Michele of “ER” onto the team on one episode, only to fire her during the next.

While many “House” fans will be happy that the turmoil has passed, it hasn't been without value. Over the past couple of months, the cries of “we want the old team back” and “let's just get this over with,” have given way to comments such as, “I like Thirteen the best” and “I was sad to see Cole go.”

That means it worked, for the most part. The writers boldly shook up the cast before it was necessary, and viewers who were initially outraged at the thought of dismissing House's original team have slowly embraced the newcomers. How many even noticed that Cameron and Chase didn't appear in last week's episode?

But while the ratings remain consistent — averaging about 19 million an episode, about the same as last season — the question of whether “House” has successfully made us care about each of the newbies still depends on which of the newbies we're talking about. “Thirteen” and Kutner seem to have found their places, for wildly different reasons, but Taub and Amber remain ultimately irrelevant. On top of that, the old team of Cameron, Chase and Foreman still need to figure out where they'll live in the renovated “House.”

This season's storylines mostly follow the typical “House” pattern, with the exception of House's impromptu assignment for the CIA, and last week's “Sixteen Candles”-inspired quest for Cuddy's thong. House's field trip to Langley was pretty brilliant as he got a chance to play with some new people and brought one back to Princeton only to ruin her life.

But the hunt for Cuddy's thong stretched the boundaries even beyond what we've come to expect from modern-day hospital dramas. While House's quirky relationship with Cuddy is a beloved part of the series, his introduction of the job candidates into the mix and their efforts to obtain the hospital administrator's underpants — including setting off the hospital sprinkler system — were beyond sophomoric. Even less plausible was the final revelation that Cuddy willingly handed them over.

But it's all been part of House's “Survivor”-style elimination process; he even called the mission for Cuddy's thong an “immunity challenge.” Through all the silliness, the writers have maintained viewers' interest by slowly — very slowly — endearing fans to the new candidates, sometimes to the show's detriment.

Cole became one of the more sympathetic and easily embraced new characters on the show before he was abruptly sent packing last week. We'd learned that he was a devoted single dad, his Mormon background earned him the affectionate nickname “Big Love,” and he had extremely strong principles that would clash well with House.

And, just like that, he was gone.

That's the danger of not knowing which characters will be left standing from one week to the next because now we're potentially left with someone such as Taub, who is one of the least interesting TV doctors in existence. That's no fault of actor Peter Jacobson; he just plays a poorly developed character. Despite uncovering Taub's backstory a couple of weeks ago — that he had to leave his plastic surgery practice because he cheated on his wife with a nurse there and his old partners promised to keep it quiet — viewers have no interest in seeing what happens with him. Taub contributes little substance to the show. He's clumsy, easily duped, short-sighted and superficial. These aren't attributes that make for a whole lot of interesting television on what is an otherwise smart and witty show.

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