House: 6x16 - "Black Hole": Discussion and Spoilers

[LitmusDragon]

... and tonight, on a very special House, we blow our entire season's special effects budget on one episode.

Decent episode, if a bit gimmicky. I award bonus points for trying something new and for the focus on the patient storyline, so this throws it into "Good" territory.

Whatever cognitive imaging is or how it works, I'm sure it doesn't work like they showed it in the episode. We don't know much about the brain, but one thing we do know is that it doesn't work like a VCR, or a movie projector.

 

[Venardhi]

Obviously they pushed it to the realm of sci-fi, but with all the tech we have that can interface with the brain, I doubt this kind of thing is all that far away.

 

[S. Gomez]

House, the final frontier of medicine.

My favourite moment of the episode was House sitting at the organ: "I like what this says about you, Wilson." It sounded sincere and you got another glimpse of him being Wilson's genuine friend.

 

[Christopher]

Obviously they pushed it to the realm of sci-fi, but with all the tech we have that can interface with the brain, I doubt this kind of thing is all that far away.

I think it's very far away. Getting actual movin' pitchers of what a person is thinking about, rather than displays of brain activity that an expert can interpret as representing certain types of thought, will probably always be fantasy. At most, if there were a device that could represent those activity patterns by translating them into animated visuals of the subject matter, it would be a gimmick for public consumption rather than an actual diagnostic tool. Just as real geneticists don't get their information by looking at CGI images of DNA molecules like TV geneticists do, but by looking at patterns of lines that they can read as DNA sequences but which the average observer would see as gibberish. And I'm sure computer programmers work with the actual code in computer language rather than needing everything to be represented by GUI icons and animation at every step of the way.

 

[sidious618]

This one was kind of dissapointing other than a few moments. To be honest, I've been quite dissapointed as of late. House got out of an insane asylum and there's been no follow up on that recently.

 

[Venardhi]

Obviously they pushed it to the realm of sci-fi, but with all the tech we have that can interface with the brain, I doubt this kind of thing is all that far away.

I think it's very far away. Getting actual movin' pitchers of what a person is thinking about, rather than displays of brain activity that an expert can interpret as representing certain types of thought, will probably always be fantasy. At most, if there were a device that could represent those activity patterns by translating them into animated visuals of the subject matter, it would be a gimmick for public consumption rather than an actual diagnostic tool. Just as real geneticists don't get their information by looking at CGI images of DNA molecules like TV geneticists do, but by looking at patterns of lines that they can read as DNA sequences but which the average observer would see as gibberish. And I'm sure computer programmers work with the actual code in computer language rather than needing everything to be represented by GUI icons and animation at every step of the way.

It wasn't exactly a useful diagnostic tool in the episode either.

 

[Marten]

The space shots made no sense at all to me. I thought they would give a clue about the solution, but they instead did nothing.

 

[Trekker4747]

The space shots made no sense at all to me. I thought they would give a clue about the solution, but they instead did nothing.

It's just some of their SFX masturbatory stuff. Sort-of similar to the MMO stuff earlier in this season and the aliens stuff with the little boy in Season 2 or 3.

 

[Snaploud]

Some special effects guy is probably building up his resume. He can always pull out this video and say he made that...

 

[Checkmate]

I got the impression (based on the title of the episode as well as the effects early on) that the show changed from some idea of a 'hole' in her heart, to a quasi-pedo/incest story half way through the filming or something for whatever goofy reason.

Red herrings are a natural part of the show, but that was less a red herring and more a random meandering to Nowheresville.

 

[Hermiod]

^You realise that paedophiles like children, not 18 year old women right ?

Oh, and it's not incest if you're not related in any way.

 

[S. Gomez]

I did like how there wasn't a fade to black between the teaser and the main titles. The 'H' appeared and the music started just a split second before the picture went away. Probably the only change they'll ever make to the title sequence in the run of this show.

 

[Trekker4747]

Interestingy, Jennifer Morison is still in the opening credits.

 

[Checkmate]

Clearly someone has a condition in their contract where the opening credits can't be altered. Though extending that to the actual credits seems a bit much.

Despite that, I personally find it kind of refreshing. I really dislike it when shows change their openings between seasons. It subconsciously sets the mood for the show, and I tend to be keenly aware of that when it gets mucked around with.