Kurtwood Smith/FOXI don't know about you tubers, but I have been loving this season of House.
Yes, the Tritter (David Morse) time was rough on everybody, but the cases, the romances and House's pissy disses have never been better—which explains why my email inbox has been flooded with your House Q's. To get some answers, I talked with executive producer Katie Jacobs, who also just so happens to be making her directorial debut tonight.
Tonight's episode, "Half-Wit" (which guest stars Dave Matthews as a savant musician with a seizure disorder and brain damage), finds House facing a health crisis of his own and getting up close and personal with just about everyone at Princeton-Plainsboro. Ooh-la-la!
Here's what Katie can tell us...
Congratulations on directing your first episode!
Well, thank you.
You work in conjunction with David Shore, right?
Yeah, we sort of divide and conquer. I do the casting, I do all the editing, I hire all the directors and I check the music, and then David supervises the writers and the writing room.
I have questions from the fans, and the first one is from Marcia in Rhode Island: What's going on with Cuddy's attempts to get pregnant and/or does House want to be the one to impregnate her?
I think that Cuddy is continuing [in her attempts to get pregnant], and we are in postproduction on an episode where all the emotions of being a mom are brought up again. I think it is a constant struggle for her to figure out the balance in life, work versus personal, so that continues. It's funny, because if I had to answer for House...I think House doesn't want to be the father of her child, but I certainly think he doesn't want anybody else to be the father—you know what I'm saying? Whether or not that would ultimately lead him to say "Okay, I will," is sort of up for grabs.
Excellent. And she had that very charming date with the guy she met on the Internet who ran Eastern Lube. Will he be a continuing storyline?
She kind of screwed that up. That didn't work out so well, but that whole notion of Cuddy trying to be with someone, and House not willing to sort of step over that line and overtly announce himself, but [also] not wanting her to be with someone else, is something we've definitely got in play.
From Thomas in Sylmar, California: Will we ever see Foreman's father (Charles S. Dutton) again?
Yes. In fact, in this episode that we're prepping right now, he is coming back—and you're going to meet Foreman's mom as well.
And what about Chase? His father died of lung cancer obviously, but does he have other family in Australia? Is he running away from something?
No, his mother died before his father died, so he is alone, and you've seen the beginnings of the Chase-Cameron agreement, so to speak. So, I think you'll learn a lot more about Chase through that "friends with benefits" agreement that they've got and how that works and whether it works or if it doesn't work.
From Dr. Anna Graham: Do you think we'll ever get a House-Wilson flashback episode, showing how they met and how they became House and Wilson?
I don't think we have to flash back. I think we can tell it in the present day insofar as again we're prepping an episode where Wilson—you know he has been divorced three times—where we get to meet his second wife...[and from that] you understand more about House's relationship with Wilson and who Wilson is as a person.
From George in Pleasantville: Is there going to be any follow-up to the episode where House got shot? People want to know if there will be any revisitation of the shooter and what happened to him, or was that a one-off sort of situation?
We didn't plan on doing it that way, but tell the fans I think it's a great idea. I'll talk to David Shore about it.
Many of the fans asked if Hugh Laurie's old comedy partner Stephen Fry might appear on the show.
We would love to have Stephen Fry on the show. He just did three episodes for Bones, and we just want it to be the right part, the right opportunity—so that it actually isn't Fry and Laurie, but is organic to our show. But he's phenomenal, and we would love to do that.
And the number one questions the fans want to know: What's going to happen with House and Cameron?
Well, stay tuned this week...[Long-term], I think it's complicated—I think it's really complicated in a wonderful way. I mean, I think that, again House is impossible, wonderfully impossible. So, here she is, she has this arrangement with Chase, and you guys have not seen House find out—but inevitably he's going to find out, and how does he feel about that?
Do the writers or producers have a preference as far as who belongs together? I know Hugh Laurie has suggested that Jennifer Morrison is much too young for him, but do you guys see that one relationship is more or less right?
No, I think that you know there are equal chances he could wind up with Cuddy or Cameron or someone new—or Wilson for that matter, which I love to play with.
As does everyone else! This was wonderful—congratulations on the episode.
Thank you!
—Additional reporting by Jennifer Godwin