Thoughts on the Fifth Season Finale of House, M.D.

The fifth season finale of House, M.D. aired several weeks ago now, and as an avid viewer, I ask myself, "Where do we go from here?" If you have not seen the season finale, watch it before you read the rest of this article. Consider this a spoiler alert.

House has begun to have hallucinations. Long hallucinations of people that are not present or dead and of things that never happened. The season finale of House left the source of House's hallucinations unknown, but implied that they were due to mental illness. It was stated repeatedly and explicitly that if House were to have a mental illness, it would be impossible for him to continue to practice medicine. Until we see what the writers do with this, I feel like it will be difficult to evaluate its effectiveness. However, I would be disappointed if it would be a story arc of five to six episodes, upon which House would be cured. I hope the writers acknowledged that the decision to write mental illness into the story would have series-long repercussions.

It appears as if House and Cuddy will not have any romantic relationship. I feel that the hallucination in the last two episodes of season five will be as close as those two get to having an actual relationship. If it has not happened after five seasons of House, it will not happen.

More and more, House, M.D. has become a soap opera and strayed from its medical roots. It seems as if the patient of the week always has a medical ailment that is somehow a critique on the way in which a main character is living his or her life. I wish that the show would focus more on the diagnostic department of Princeton-Plainsborough and less on the hospital's drama. The show could not continue without character development, however the situations in which the main characters have become fairly ridiculous with the passage of time. The destruction of frozen sperm as the subject of three to four episodes? Please.

I am not sure where House, M.D. is going as it enters its sixth season. If it continues to stray into the territory of a soap opera, I may stop watching the series regularly until the DVDs are released. It feels as if the series has taken a more serious tone as of late so we will see. That is all we can say in response to the cliffhanger series finale. We will see.