Streaming services constantly try to make their new shows the next big thing, but the power of the nostalgia watch is unrivaled. It’s not just about Friends and The Office — every so often, an old show just starts to gain traction again, and it seems like everyone across social media is rewatching it at the same time. Columbo, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad, for instance, have all risen back into the zeitgeist within the last couple of years.
And we can add House MD to that list.
The House resurgence has slowly been gaining momentum since the end of 2022, but this year it’s fully come to a head. And as it turns out, the medical drama is just primed for the shitpost era. With The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, fans have to work to imagine its characters in absurd scenarios. In House, those scenarios just straight-up happen.
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Image: Universal Television
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Image: Universal Television
Premiering in 2004, the cases of the eccentric, narcissistic, and brilliant Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) ran for eight seasons as he solved confounding medical mysteries and his best friend — soft-hearted oncologist Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) — put up with his increasingly batshit behavior. Technically, House was inspired by Sherlock Holmes (House = Holmes, Wilson = Watson), but as the show went on, that connection became looser and looser. During its time, House was a serious hospital drama, and Laurie’s performance as the tortured, unhinged jerk that was Dr. House was critically acclaimed.
But in the almost 20 years since the show first premiered, fans are appreciating it for just how bonkers it actually is. The doctors commit medical malpractice every episode (breaking into their own patients’ houses is a regular occurrence and honestly one of the more benign ones). House just says whatever the fuck comes to his mind and does whatever the hell he wants. Oh, and House and Wilson’s relationship just oozes with psychosexual tension. This was a ship that viewers latched onto when the show was airing, but as people rediscover House, they also rediscover just how blatant the subtext around their codependent relationship is. Nearly 20 years after the show’s premiere, it’s not just a medical drama; it’s toxic yaoi.
The way people interact with House is similar to modern memes derived from Breaking Bad — over-the-top character moments and interactions are isolated and transformed — with one big caveat. In House, most of the unhinged examples are actually in the show itself. House risks a patient’s life to prove his friendship to Wilson. At one point, hospital administrator Cuddy has to stop the team from deliberately infecting a patient with malaria. A B-plot involves House bullying Wilson into buying his own furniture, and the passive-aggressive manipulation that ensues. Promotional material for the show featured the entire cast snuggling on a bed.
Often, hearing about a show through memes and goofs via social media leads to slight disappointment. The shows themselves might be good, but the meme content made around them is, understandably, absent. But House delivers on its most unhinged shitposty moments and on the gay subtext that fans latched onto. The show literally ends with (and spoilers here) House faking his own death and riding off into the sunset with Wilson, who only has months left to live after a terminal cancer diagnosis (the sheer romance of this scene has spawned yearning fan edits).
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Image: Universal Telvision
House and Wilson’s deliciously dysfunctional relationship certainly makes up a bulk of the modern love for the show, but what really fuels this wave of House fandom is how it somehow both meets and defies all expectations. Yes, it is a medical drama and toxic yaoi and full of medical malpractice and at one point House waxes on about Arceus from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
Nothing sums it up more than this fan video set to Boney M.’s “Rasputin” — with an exchange in the comments that fully hammers home the everlasting appeal of this show.
“i thought this was a hospital drama why does he have a shotgun?!??!?” says one comment.
“It’s a really, really good hospital drama,” replies another.