In one of the tricks he causes Kutner's wallet to set-fire when being opened (fire-wallets are trick-wallets), he causes House's Vicodin pills to appear in his own hands without any meaningful contact with House and the "big" one is where he has House pick a card, the magician tries to "guess" the card and fails before throwing the entire deck at the wall in frustration causing House's card to appear on the other side of a glass wall.
All well within the realm of possibility. As with most magic tricks, the key is to set them up in advance. The switch isn't made when the audience is looking for the switch; it already happened before they even started to look. So it seems impossible to them because the magician had "no chance" to make the switch or set up the card or whatever, but that's only because they didn't notice him doing it earlier, because they didn't yet know there was going to be an illusion performed and thus weren't paying attention. Magic is all about misdirecting the audience's attention and assumptions.
The card trick I've seen done but it's impossible to do "live" or without the audience having some fore-knowledge of the set-up, it's one of those tricks that only works on TV with an audience believing the trick and the reactions of the observers in the show. The card trick requires the card to be selected to be placed -ahead of time- where it's to end up (on the other side of the glass.) It
is a trick of mis-direction but mis-direction to a TV audience.
In the House episode it'd require some incredible level of participation of the hospital staff -not to mention good timing- for House's card to appear on the other side of the glass (behind the location where the "wrong card" would end up when the deck is tossed against the wall. ) This doesn't happen in the episode it's played off as if the trick was really done "by magic." Same thing with the fire in Kutner's wallet. For this to happen, obviously, some sort of incendiary compound would have had to been placed in Kutner's wallet. (Not to mention it and the other items in it being fire-proof(ed). This would, again, require someone working for the magician to lift Kutner's wallet, set-up the compund, and place it back on Kutner all without his knowledge. I can't speak for everyone but I know for sure that where I keep my wallet I would certainly notice it missing and since I keep it in my front pocket I'd certainly notice it being lifted/placed back.
Same with the Vicodin bottle. House has this bottle on him
all of the time and is
constantly pulling it out to either just play with it or to pop a pill. In the episode House pulls out the empty bottle and the magician makes the pills appear (and disappear) in his hands. There's no mis-direction, there's no sleight of hand, the magician produces magic like he's on a TV show and is capable of producing things out of thing-air. This is pretty much how magic is treated on every scripted TV show, like it's real and
doesn't require misdirection, participation of others, or extensive set-up.
The card trick is the big one as it's one that simply
cannot be done without the participation of someone else or the subject being "in on it" in order to fool a TV audience. There's no way sleight of hand or misdirection is going to cause a selected card to appear on the
other side of a pane of glass that moments ago was empty.
[yt]]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sevj2XlWmuI[/yt]
This video demonstrates it nicely and even uses the same "director's sleight of hand" to pull it off. Notice that the "secret" to the trick working is revealed at the end where we're told the participants need to be misdirected away from the window for the trick to work and we're shown the card on the window in the background (which wasn't there in the earlier stages of the video.) In the House episode the card is never there until the POTW does the "trick" and it's further complicated by the fact that the "wrong card" is over the "right card" on either side of the glass. It's "TV Magic" where we're to believe that "magic" is real.
Anyway, all neither here nor there. I've not yet watched this week's episode.
Like Christopher this show is no longer a "must" for me as it's just weakened over the years, has taken it's premise less and less seriously and has taken House from being an interesting, dynamic character who was likable in spite of his character flaws to something much, much different.
Even looking at House was in Season 4 and how he is now and you see two very different characters and it's not simply a matter of "progression" or development the characters are just different and I really think it's what House did at the end of last season is what wrecked the character in many ways.
He went from an eccentric Renaissance man of many talents, great genius and a world-renowned doctor who was sought out by people due to his unique diagnostic skills to.. This. Hell, remember when the mystery of the disease of the week was all House needed to be interested? Or when some character moment for the POTW would resonate with House usually forcing him to meet with them? Man this show used to be so, so much more. Even the House/Wilson interaction isn't as much fun as it used to be.
