house

It's time to meet the parents on 'House' -- and the rest of the family, too.

When Cuddy brings home boyfriend House during a January episode, not only will the doctor meet mom and dad, he'll meet Cuddy's sister as well. According to TV Guide, sis will be played by 'Californication' and 'Nip/Tuck' actress Paula Marshall.

Marshall joins Candice Bergen, who's been cast as Cuddy's mom.

In other TV news ...

• Rapper Nelly will appear as himself in an early 2011 episode of '90210.' The rapper will pop up when Navid and Dixon somehow get involved in the shoot for his 'She's So Fly' music video. [Movieline]

• It's rumored that Terry Wood will take over programming at Oprah's OWN network. Wood, who brought Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray to the air, quit her job at CBS earlier this week. [NY Post]

• A suspect in the murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen killed himself when police served him a search warrant last night. He was a person of interest in Chassen's Nov. 16 shooting death. [The Hollywood Reporter]

['House' - 'Small Sacrifices']

Religion always makes a great foil for 'House.' Notice that I put House in quotation marks, referring to the show and not just Hugh Laurie's character.

Of course, it can fall into the inevitable tiger trap of House using his medical prowess to prove to some pious dolt that religion is just a big scam designed to do whatever scam it really is (i.e. financial, ethnic cleansing, sucking money out of poor people to build giant gold buildings).

This week's episode did go for the giant flank steak dangling over the covered hole in the ground, but it wasn't totally unsatisfying to know that the dumb ol' lug would fall in it.

Skating with the Stars - Monday November 22, 9PM ET/PT, CTV/ABC

No, it's not a typo. It's 'Skating with the Stars,' not 'Battle of the Blades' or 'Dancing with the Stars' or the long-canceled 'Skating with Celebrities.' ABC's latest foray into mismatched-pairs-competitive-reality-show launches tonight, just as that other dancing show is undergoing its final performance.

['House' - 'A Pox on Our House']

Everything about last night's episode felt like a set-up to the usual disappointment from weekly viewings of 'House.'

It opened with a slightly meaningless intro that inevitably left a tiny clue about the patient's true condition.

Then, Patient Zero pitted the team against each other in an endless stream of bizarre symptoms.

Even the opening credits were a giveaway. Actor Dylan Baker's name under the "guest starring" column guaranteed a snooty villain who throws his authority in everyone's face.

So how is it that last night's smallpox outbreak felt so fulfilling and entertaining?

'House' creator David Shore's life would have been very different had he never left the law firm where he worked as a municipal and corporate lawyer for six years and had never followed his best friends from the firm to Los Angeles.

And imagine if he had returned to the firm after having never found success writing for shows like 'Due South,' 'The Practice,' 'Law & Order' and 'Hack'? Ironically -- as Shore told the large audience at a Q&A session at Toronto's York University -- had he never become a lawyer, he may never have created 'House' at all.

['House' - 'Office Politics']

'House' is far from being the worst show on television. It has its occasional moments, but recently, it's felt tedious and worn. The show's need to drag out certain plots to was starting to rip holes in the fabric, like they were trying to stretch a queen-size sheet around a king-size season.

As I went through the previous episodes in my head, I was starting to really dread the show's return. I really didn't want to spend another late Monday night/early Tuesday morning trudging through another stalled plot about House not wanting to hire a woman doctor to replace Thirteen while she's either on some bizarre drug treatment program or trapped in a computer program battling the evil forces of the 'Tron' world.

But that never-ending plot line finally got a bullet in the brain. And that wasn't the only event that made the return of 'House' slightly more enjoyable.

Amber Tamblyn, welcome to the mad 'House.'

The actress joins the Fox medical drama for a guest-starring stint, beginning Mon., Nov. 8. Her character -- a brilliant med student named Martha Masters -- is hired by Cuddy to replace the MIA Thirteen (Olivia Wilde is taking a break from the show to film the movie 'Cowboys and Aliens'), and House is not happy about it. At all.

House's testerone-heavy team give the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newbie a good hazing, calling her "the Internet with breasts," "the love child of Einstein and Mary Poppins" and "Pippy Long Division" among other nicknames.

Watch what the cast has to say about Tamblyn's debut in our sneak peek.

['House' - 'Unplanned Parenthood']

This show is starting to feel like a bipolar roller coaster from week to week.

One episode is crazy, almost to the point of exhaustion and leaves you wondering why you're still bothering to waste an hour each week watching it. Then, just as you're about to get off the ride and into another line, it speeds forward before you even have a chance to undo the safety belt and finds new ways to mess with your head and make the experience fun again.

Either I need some heavy-duty meds or the show does. Either way, keep the dosage coming because we've finally found some magic, happy pills that are working.

I actually remember the pilot season of 2004 -- that alone is saying something. When you write about TV, you're constantly bombarded by previews and they tend to run together. After all, half the time they star the same actors year after year (Matthew Perry, Amy Brenneman, etc.) and they often come in matched pairs with the same plot ('30 Rock' and 'Studio 60,' 'Ghost Whisperer' and 'Medium,' etc.). But 2004 stands out as a year when the pilots were unusually good, and the casts full of fresh faces. At least it all seemed fresh then. Not to be cruel, but it's starting to look a little haggard now.

A lot of shows that began in 2004 are still lingering on the air -- 'Desperate Housewives,' 'House,' and 'The Apprentice' are probably the biggest -- but even those that aren't running anymore still exercise a big influence over our thoughts about TV. 'Lost' changed how networks and viewers think about supernatural dramas on TV, and while the results have been mixed, thanks to 'Lost', we viewers have seen some bizarre stuff make it into series over the last while. 'Veronica Mars,' though it didn't last, was another 2004 show that tested the waters of what you could do in certain genres on TV. The normative violence of rape and sexual assault that girls face in high school and college had never been shown that way before -- and no tougher, smarter, cooler heroine had faced it.

['House' - 'Massage Therapy']

The Emmys don't give out awards for this (yet), but 'House' has the best TV listing descriptions in the long hall of television excellence.

This week, my TiVo tried to tantalize my eyeballs' taste buds with this enthralling description: "House and his team make unexpected discoveries about a female patient admitted to the hospital after severe and uncontrollable vomiting."

No other medical drama on my television would dare throw up (no pun intended) a listing like that. In fact, they wouldn't even focus on the patient. They would usually read something like "Doctor A. falls in love with Nurse B., even though he's currently dating Nurse C., and is scheduled for a brief fling in the supply closet with Nurse D. and Nurse E."

'House' has an interesting back-story outside of the patients' lives, more so than most medical dramas, which tend to treat their long-suffering patients like second-class citizens even more than Bob Kelso. Lately, they just don't seem to meld very well together and both end up getting lost like so many loose socks in the dryer.

['House' - 'Unwritten']

'House' works best in my mind when the main case wraps itself around the back story of "Who's sleeping with whom?" and "Who's got a beef with whom, and for what?".

We initially tuned in because of the concept: An angry, sarcastic doctor who solves bizarre medical mysteries like finding the metabolic answers for why a California spruce is growing out of a small boy's forehead. The back story behind the characters is important, but when it zooms in on just that, or gives it too much focus, it feels like it's lost its edge.

If I want a medical melodrama where the doctors care more about each other than the patients, I'll watch 'Grey's Anatomy.' And last time I checked, my manhood won't even let me turn the TV on when new episodes of that show air.

That's what made this week's 'House' work.

['House' - 'Selfish']

Sex in the workplace isn't a new issue for TV shows to tackle. It's been on television for ages, well before TV series were even allowed to use the word "sex."

And just like a real workplace romance, a TV romance can bog things down, relying on the relationship as a crutch for conflict or drawing unnecessary attention away from the things that matter most around the office. Just such a relationship runs the risk of throwing a show completely off the roadway and into the path of an orphanage that manufactures highly flammable methamphetamine.

Could it be that we're starting to see some skidmarks?

Hugh Laurie has just begn the seventh season of the series 'House.' And although the show revolves around the more curmudgeonly aspects of Dr. House, M.D., all good things must come to an end. So now, House has entered into a relationship with Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). It remains to be seen if this romantic pairing spells plot-line doom for the show or not. But one thing that has happened as a result -- Hugh Laurie is forced to get naked! That's what we all wanted to see, right?

On 'Ellen' (weekdays, syndicated), Laurie met with host DeGeneres to discuss the whole "nudity" thing. First, Ellen wanted to know if Hugh danced -- then asked if he dances around naked, which is not a question that we'd ever ask . But hey, she's the talk show host, not us. Laurie admitted to occasionally dancing nude, which brought an unexpected cheer from the crowd. Hurray!

Former 'Access Hollywood' anchor Nancy O'Dell will host 'Your OWN Show: Oprah's Search For The Next TV Star' along with Carson Kressley on Oprah Winfrey's OWN.

According Entertainment Weekly, O'Dell and Kressley will work with 10 finalists out of the 15,000 entrants and put them through a boot camp designed to tackle the struggles of talk show hosting. Contestants will have to book guests, research stories and complete screen tests. The series is produced by Mark Burnett and will premiere in January. Each episode will feature a celebrity guest judge.

"I am so thrilled, grateful and excited to be a part of Your OWN Show," Kressley said in a statement. "Not only do I get to inspire and be inspired by an amazing group of very talented contestants, I will also have the privilege of working with seasoned pros like Nancy O'Dell, Mark Burnett, and of course, my hero, Oprah Winfrey. How lucky am I?!"

Burnett has also signed on to produce a morning talk show on OWN that will feature a panel similar to 'The View.' According to the New York Post, the series will also premiere in January.

In other TV news ...

• Olivia Wilde will miss several episodes of 'House' this season. Her character, Thirteen, appeared in the Sept. 20 premiere, but will be missing until "well into this season," according to series creator David Shore. Wilde will miss episodes because of her movie shooting schedule for 'Cowboys and Aliens' and 'The Change Up.' [Ausiello Files]

['House' - 'Now What?']

Every rabid 'House' fan has been twitching with nervous anticipation about House and Cuddy's relationship, which officially went from cold indifference to full-on bloom at the end of last season's wrap-up.

It's one of the more interesting relationships on television now because the two are almost professional rivals (he's the patient-saving miracle worker and she's the sensible hospital administrator) and 'House' isn't your typical romantic medical drama. The hero doesn't always get the girl in the end or even keep her, for that matter. Love is for chumps and hearts are things you stick in people to keep them alive. It's the anti-'Grey's Anatomy.'

Of course, even Dr. House, the man with the concrete blood pumper, has a soft spot for Cuddy, and now we get to watch TV's current reigning cantankerous curmudgeon try to (gasp!) trust another human being with his soul and emotions once again. It's like watching your little one learn how to ride a bike for the first time, only with less bruises, bleeding and bodily disfigurement.