Brilliant people can often feel free to be total assholes if their intelligence outweighs their douche-baggery enough to make others unable to tell them to blow. Take Dr. Gregory House for instance: He’s a sarcastic, mean, grumpy, unshaven dickhead who refuses to follow the rules and is a general pain in the ass to everyone around him… but when a patient shows up with an unexplainable hemorrhoid on his forehead and cubed testicles that may or may not be making him mysteriously speak in Russian even though he didn’t know Russian before the hemorrhoid popped up on his forehead and his testicles got all square, House is also the guy to call.

British funnyman Hugh Laurie plays the darkly humorous and very American Dr. House with a perfect scruffy, above it all yet hurting and sensitive deep down inside bravado that everyone loves in their anti-heroes. He’s a snarkier Sherlock Holmes surrounded by three little Watson’s in the form of doctors Wilson (Omar Epps), Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Chase – the tough, reserved guy who had some law breaking times in his misguided youth doctor, the bleeding heart chick doctor who carries a torch for the oh so complex and mysterious House, and the pretty boy rich Limey doctor respectively. They’re main function, aside form occasional soap opera side plots, is to ask House questions so he can explain himself to the viewer and sound really smartly smartass while doing it. Rounding out the main cast is Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Cuddy, who runs the teaching hospital House works for, and Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. Wilson, the one guy who can actually claim to be House’s “friend,” not that it’s a very rewarding thing to be in most cases.

Other than House, the characters aren’t all that interesting, truth be told. All the actors do their job, and as the show goes on (now entering it’s third season as of this writing), the writers and giving them more to do, but it’s House’s show all the way. His name is the title after all. Hugh Laurie deserves much of the credit for making this whole show work. The production values are swell, and often there will be gory makeup effects for the outlandish medical mysteries House must solve as well as snazzy computer graphics showing us viewers wacky crap happening inside the patient’s bodies, but none of it would matter if House weren’t such a fascinating character. He’s addicted to painkillers and has to walk with a cane, making him oddly sympathetic and interesting right off the bat. He also doesn’t like to shave, which I can relate to.

In a prime time world where all hour long dramas are increasingly taking the season long storyline approach (24, Prison Break, and more), House is almost a throw back. Each episode works on its own, unless it’s a two parter. Sure there are side and background storylines that carry over from episode to episode, but you can still tune in without needing a five minute recap and extensive Google search to get the gist of what’s going on story wise. This can make it a little old fashioned and repetitious at times, but it’s a welcome change of pace. I didn’t start watching House until the first season was in reruns, and even then I haven’t seen every episode and often watch them out of order when I happen upon the show now and again, but I’m still fairly certain of what’s going on. That’s a far cry from, say, 24, which is a great show, but if I miss an episode I’m lost—actually, Lost is another one of those can’t miss an episode if you want to know what the hell is going on shows, too. Not so with House. It’s a fun little medical mystery show with lots of character driven humor, heart, and drama. Give it a shot if you’re looking for something you can watch without having to make a weekly commitment—though you just might want to if they pull one of their maggots on the burn victim to help treat him or whatever kind of hijinks. It’s fun television.