Hugh Laurie continues to be a fierce defender of “House,” even greater than a decade after the show’s ending.
The English actor, who starred within the Fox medical drama from 2004 to 2012, didn’t mince his words in response to a critic who went viral on X over the weekend for saying that “House” has the “same narrative every episode.”
Freelance journalist Janet Murray wrote on X that in each storyline, “Patient has mysterious illness.
Hugh Laurie (House) gets diagnosis incorrect. Patient nearly dies. Hugh Laurie gets diagnosis incorrect again. Gets threatened with being fired. Patient nearly dies again. Hugh Laurie has last minute leftfield idea. Gets diagnosis right. Doesn’t get fired.” She concluded, “Eight seasons of this?”
In response, Laurie fired back: “Thanks on your critique, Janet. We actually tried a few episodes where House (Hugh Laurie) (please put the brackets in the fitting place) gets it right first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren’t pleased. Then we tried some where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn’t pleased.”
He added, “One could apply your trenchant evaluation to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the identical chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself; Henry Moore, what?? The purpose is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you.”
Laurie finished off his post by quipping, “Nonetheless, I look ahead to your first novel!”
Though many fans within the comments responded with support for Laurie, Murray appeared to take the roast in stride. “Woken as much as just a few latest followers this morning. Who could also be disenchanted to learn that TV reviews usually are not normally my forte,” she wrote on X Monday. “Plus I’ll now be too busy working on my first novel.”
For his work on “House,” Laurie received two Golden Globe Awards and develop into certainly one of the highest-paid actors in TV drama on the time. He went on to star in “Veep” and “The Night Manager” and can soon feature in BBC and MGM+’s series adaptation of John le Carré’s “Legacy of Spies.”