“Lupus was the perfect disease for us!”
showrunner David Shore says with a laugh ahead of the 20th anniversary.
The doctor is back in.
Hugh Laurie, ‘House’.Adam Taylor/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
Well, sort of.
“But I can’t believe it’s been 20 years.
I’m thinking of getting an auditor to come in and double-check it’s actually been 20 years.”
Robert Sean Leonard, Hugh Laurie, ‘House’.Paul Drinkwater/Universal Television/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
“It’s bizarre.
I’m incredibly grateful.
I can’t believe it is still seemingly as relevant to so many people today as it was then.
Hugh Laurie, ‘House’.Carin Baer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
And that’s amazing, and I’m thrilled and I’m grateful.”
Why did he almost always think it was lupus first?
Because apparently it was the second or third or fourth time we’d mentioned lupus.
And unfortunately for many for us, it was fortunate, lupus was the perfect disease for us!
And so we just kind of embraced that and ran with that.
But it was never lupus!
[Laughs] It’s never lupus.
We had a t-shirt that said, “It’s never lupus.”
This is when I realized it is 20 years ago, and I can’t recall the details.
What did you think of that theory, and could it be true?
Enjoy it however you want to enjoy it, have fun with it.
We wanted that form of a happy ending.
The whole thing was a dream.
I was very pleased with how it went out, and that hasn’t faded.
It wasn’t the end of them, but the end of them was near.
There was so much bittersweet about it, but it was a wonderful eight years.
Did Foreman realize House was still alive at the end of the series finale?
I’ll say this, that was my intended message with that.
I don’t want to pin myself down, weirdly.
And I hate to tell them, “No, he’s doing something else.”
He’s out there doing something House-like.
Which I love that House-like became a bit of a phrase.
I wouldn’t say no to it, but those things are very, very difficult to do.
You don’t want to spoil anything.
People are going, “Where’d House go?”
Rather than, “Why is House still here?”
You don’t want to spoil your legacy.
I missed Lisa at the end.
That was too bad.
I would’ve loved to have had her there.
At the time I had ideas.
I don’t remember them, so I can’t be specific on that.
Have you ever considered making a spinoff centered on any of the other characters?
We did talk about it at some point.
But there’s also a danger in a show going too long.
And so again, no complaints.
How wouldHousebe different if you made it today vs. 20 years ago?
That’s a really good question, and that’s one that we can all speculate on.
I don’t have any magic answer.
It’s highly unlikely we would’ve done 24 episodes.
It was a connection show, and personally, I don’t think there’s enough connection shows.
There’s no reason we can’t do them anywhere.
There’s not a big difference.
Doing one-hour storytelling is doing one-hour storytelling.
I don’t think it makes a huge difference where you’re doing it.
