son of C.G. (spoilers)
This is primarily a writing journal, not a House journal or even necessarily a television journal; and given my schedule the past few months I'm afraid it's not even really that. I can't get into in-depth discussion -- for one thing, time doesn't allow it -- but I wanted to say thanks for the enthusiasm over "Son of Coma Guy." (I keep thinking they're going to stop me from using these offbeat titles, but so far, no. When I wrote "House vs. God," I almost titled it "Faith," or some other typical TV thing. Then I thought, "Don't self-censor. Make other people censor!" Just before production I was asked, "Is that what you want for the title?" "Yes," I said firmly, thinking, "Now it comes..." There was a pause, a shrug, and "Okay." And off it went ...)
I can't tell you how privileged I feel that such amazing actors are working with my material. I know perfectly well how rare it is to have so much excellence in one place, and I'm still taking in my good fortune. Let me just add it is also cool to find yourself riding backward in an open platform on the freeway, flanked by the highway patrol, as Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, and John Larroquette do their scene in the car towed behind. Knowing that you have just enough road distance for two takes.
So, simply to amuse myself (and the 50 people reading this) I'll share a few of my favorite lines that had to be cut for time.
(You might think timing is an exact science. You would be wrong. This episode, for instance, was twelve minutes over. Skilled editing artisans with the careful finesse of 18th-century printmakers slipped in and snipped a second here, five seconds there, a scene... it's a huge undertaking, and an art in itself. It's all about weighing the losses: leave this in, you get a laugh, a character moment, a piece of plot exposition -- at the cost of a different laugh, a different character moment, a piece of exposition that may be even more necessary. Editing and triage have a lot in common; it's about what can be saved.)
I include these for no deep reason except I liked them, and it's not as though I can put them into my next novel.
Gabe: Why are you so concerned about me?
House: Deep inside, Wilson believes that if he cares enough, he'll never have to die.
Wilson (to Gabe): What you're doing isn't normal.
House: And you would know normal. Have you even gotten postcards from normal?
(Postcards From Normal: The James Wilson Story. Sorry I lost that.)
House: Quid pro quo, Clarice. Game's not over.
Gabe: I thought the answer was mercury poisoning. What else would you be interested in?
Wilson: If you each had one day to live, you'd look for one last meal, and House would look for one last answer.
Gabe: What would you look for?
Wilson: The Maltese Falcon. It's an obsession.
(Because smartass Wilson should never be far away.)
After House tells the Japan story, Gabe turns to Wilson for confirmation:
Wilson: I can't tell you if it happened. I can tell you that it's true.
(I was having dinner with two of my favorite television writers -- the excellent Rich Hatem and the divine Jane Espenson -- a couple of weeks ago, and told them that I'd written a scene in which House would tell a story about his past followed by those Wilson lines. I said, "We ran long, and they're not in it any more." Without missing a beat, the divine Jane E. said, "Can I use them?" This is why she is a force to be reckoned with. I will add that if you have any interest in television writing, as spectator or participant, and you're not reading her blog, you are a foolish mortal.)
Wilson originally had more lines in the hotel room scenes, both hoagie and non-hoagie related; his conversation with the unknowns at the other end of the line were meant to wrap around House and Gabe's more serious dialogue. I also liked using street names from Monopoly, so the words and rhythm would go like this: Wilson: "Well, where did his daughter move it to?" --Line from Gabe.-- Wilson: "I hope you mean Vermont the street..."
As for the medical story:
Plotwise, we stripped down to the bone. At the beginning of the season, I'd wanted to do a story about Coma Guy (the original Coma Guy, a recurrent character). I'd read the story about the Boston firefighter who "spontaneously" woke up after years in a vegetative state; it made a lot of newspapers. I asked an expert if I could wake someone up like that -- how would it happen? Could you cure whatever had sent them into a coma or vegetative state? He told me that, unfortunately, when you investigated stories like this, you discover two things: first, that someone in the background was messing with the patient's meds, and the wakeup was not such a surprise after all -- so much for your miraculous act of God. Second, nobody's been able to wake anyone permanently. All those news articles? They don't follow up to tell you that two days later the patient's back where he was and the family's devastated.
Well, damn. I went away thinking I saw why it was so difficult to do a coma guy story. Then one day it occurred to me: why not do exactly what my medical informant said? Deliberately wake him up. In order to help someone else, since we can't medically justify helping him.
Alas, I couldn't use our recurrent Coma Guy, since he really was in a coma. A vegetative state covers more useful ground; a patient in a vegetative state may be able to move around, sit up, etc. -- but not in a purposeful way, more the sort of thing a sleepwalker might do. (In an early version of the script, House likens him to a sleepwalker.) (I even wanted to show him restlessly thrashing in bed during the teaser, but that just seemed way too confusing to the audience.)
Next, I needed a drug cocktail. Unfortunately, this behind-the-scenes experimentation with meds hasn't been done as part of a study; it's only been done unofficially, in individual cases, and so far nobody's published. Though there was a recent article in a South African journal about waking people out of vegetative states using a different drug; it sounded promising, but I wanted to go with the original unknown cocktail. So I went back to my medical informant for some ingredients. The two big ones he suggested were dextroamphetamine and L-Dopa. As I researched further I saw the amphetamine had a couple of pluses; one was speeding up the body temporarily, which could leave the patient in a state similar to one of the case studies in Awakenings -- a woman who woke up fully, went from zero to sixty in about a second, and when she tried to play catch with the medical staff a few hours later had to be told to count to ten after catching the ball before she threw it back. Her reflexes were beyond human. She said, "But I am counting to ten."
Thus we have Gabe snatching car keys out of the air... and half a day later, unable to close his hand quickly enough to catch a soda can, because the drugs were wearing off and he was slowing back into his vegetative state.
The other plus of all that amphetamine was to help with the big leap of the story, which was not that someone could wake up -- that was a long shot but possible (though I knew many people who were unfamiliar with these cases, including doctors, wouldn't think so). The real leap was that his muscles weren't atrophied. Now, this is still a gray area, in that Sacks reported a lack of atrophy he couldn't explain when he woke his patients. And while a vegetative state differs from catatonia, neither one has sufferers getting a whole lot of exercise. Did it have to do with the drugs Sacks used? One doctor I consulted pointed out that nobody has any clue what a big wallop of dextroamphetamine would do to someone who'd just come out of a vegetative state, and he was willing to accept muscle use as long as it was confined to the period of time the drugs were in Gabe's system.
I ran with that. I will tell you frankly that if running with a long shot will get me House, Wilson, and an interesting guest character into a hotel room in Atlantic City, I will run all day. I fully understand if your mileage varies.
One note that rather depressed me: I was talking with one of my experts and said, "I understand it's a long shot, but why don't more doctors experiment with the meds of patients in a vegetative state? If it works sometimes -- even if it's for a day or two -- wouldn't some families want you to try?" I thought he'd tell me that experimentation was incredibly risky, but no. It's risky in that there's always some danger in experimenting with real people, and a big dose of amphetamines may be problematic. But the real objection? Convenience. Vegetative state patients, if they're long-term, are warehoused somewhere. Maybe a nursing home, maybe some other facility; but basically, they become freight to be stored. In a bed or sitting in a chair, they're not too tough to deal with; but give them a drug that makes them active, you could have a problem on your hands. Because you could succeed with the "active" part, but still fail to wake them; you could end up with a guy walking around, possibly aggressive, dangerous to himself and others -- but still "asleep."
A great deal of the medical discussion upfront vanished in the pre-shooting snipping; more vanished in the post-shooting snipping. (When you write a script and then see it air, it's like watching the two-minute version of Hamlet: Ophelia walks out, and drops dead.) This is pretty much unavoidable, in that audiences today are more sophisticated than they were (or at least, than they were perceived to be) in, say, the 1970s -- they prefer more complex stories; writers want to give those to them; and studio and network executives will encourage it -- and yet the amount of time you have to tell a story has shrunk inversely. And in fact, that's not always a bad thing; certainly today's pacing is far more vigorous than what you'd find in an old Barnaby Jones episode.
Anyway. Hoagie. Yum. I promise my fellow New Jerseyans that I wanted to use "Wawa," but it didn't work out.
I can't tell you how privileged I feel that such amazing actors are working with my material. I know perfectly well how rare it is to have so much excellence in one place, and I'm still taking in my good fortune. Let me just add it is also cool to find yourself riding backward in an open platform on the freeway, flanked by the highway patrol, as Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, and John Larroquette do their scene in the car towed behind. Knowing that you have just enough road distance for two takes.
So, simply to amuse myself (and the 50 people reading this) I'll share a few of my favorite lines that had to be cut for time.
(You might think timing is an exact science. You would be wrong. This episode, for instance, was twelve minutes over. Skilled editing artisans with the careful finesse of 18th-century printmakers slipped in and snipped a second here, five seconds there, a scene... it's a huge undertaking, and an art in itself. It's all about weighing the losses: leave this in, you get a laugh, a character moment, a piece of plot exposition -- at the cost of a different laugh, a different character moment, a piece of exposition that may be even more necessary. Editing and triage have a lot in common; it's about what can be saved.)
I include these for no deep reason except I liked them, and it's not as though I can put them into my next novel.
Gabe: Why are you so concerned about me?
House: Deep inside, Wilson believes that if he cares enough, he'll never have to die.
Wilson (to Gabe): What you're doing isn't normal.
House: And you would know normal. Have you even gotten postcards from normal?
(Postcards From Normal: The James Wilson Story. Sorry I lost that.)
House: Quid pro quo, Clarice. Game's not over.
Gabe: I thought the answer was mercury poisoning. What else would you be interested in?
Wilson: If you each had one day to live, you'd look for one last meal, and House would look for one last answer.
Gabe: What would you look for?
Wilson: The Maltese Falcon. It's an obsession.
(Because smartass Wilson should never be far away.)
After House tells the Japan story, Gabe turns to Wilson for confirmation:
Wilson: I can't tell you if it happened. I can tell you that it's true.
(I was having dinner with two of my favorite television writers -- the excellent Rich Hatem and the divine Jane Espenson -- a couple of weeks ago, and told them that I'd written a scene in which House would tell a story about his past followed by those Wilson lines. I said, "We ran long, and they're not in it any more." Without missing a beat, the divine Jane E. said, "Can I use them?" This is why she is a force to be reckoned with. I will add that if you have any interest in television writing, as spectator or participant, and you're not reading her blog, you are a foolish mortal.)
Wilson originally had more lines in the hotel room scenes, both hoagie and non-hoagie related; his conversation with the unknowns at the other end of the line were meant to wrap around House and Gabe's more serious dialogue. I also liked using street names from Monopoly, so the words and rhythm would go like this: Wilson: "Well, where did his daughter move it to?" --Line from Gabe.-- Wilson: "I hope you mean Vermont the street..."
As for the medical story:
Plotwise, we stripped down to the bone. At the beginning of the season, I'd wanted to do a story about Coma Guy (the original Coma Guy, a recurrent character). I'd read the story about the Boston firefighter who "spontaneously" woke up after years in a vegetative state; it made a lot of newspapers. I asked an expert if I could wake someone up like that -- how would it happen? Could you cure whatever had sent them into a coma or vegetative state? He told me that, unfortunately, when you investigated stories like this, you discover two things: first, that someone in the background was messing with the patient's meds, and the wakeup was not such a surprise after all -- so much for your miraculous act of God. Second, nobody's been able to wake anyone permanently. All those news articles? They don't follow up to tell you that two days later the patient's back where he was and the family's devastated.
Well, damn. I went away thinking I saw why it was so difficult to do a coma guy story. Then one day it occurred to me: why not do exactly what my medical informant said? Deliberately wake him up. In order to help someone else, since we can't medically justify helping him.
Alas, I couldn't use our recurrent Coma Guy, since he really was in a coma. A vegetative state covers more useful ground; a patient in a vegetative state may be able to move around, sit up, etc. -- but not in a purposeful way, more the sort of thing a sleepwalker might do. (In an early version of the script, House likens him to a sleepwalker.) (I even wanted to show him restlessly thrashing in bed during the teaser, but that just seemed way too confusing to the audience.)
Next, I needed a drug cocktail. Unfortunately, this behind-the-scenes experimentation with meds hasn't been done as part of a study; it's only been done unofficially, in individual cases, and so far nobody's published. Though there was a recent article in a South African journal about waking people out of vegetative states using a different drug; it sounded promising, but I wanted to go with the original unknown cocktail. So I went back to my medical informant for some ingredients. The two big ones he suggested were dextroamphetamine and L-Dopa. As I researched further I saw the amphetamine had a couple of pluses; one was speeding up the body temporarily, which could leave the patient in a state similar to one of the case studies in Awakenings -- a woman who woke up fully, went from zero to sixty in about a second, and when she tried to play catch with the medical staff a few hours later had to be told to count to ten after catching the ball before she threw it back. Her reflexes were beyond human. She said, "But I am counting to ten."
Thus we have Gabe snatching car keys out of the air... and half a day later, unable to close his hand quickly enough to catch a soda can, because the drugs were wearing off and he was slowing back into his vegetative state.
The other plus of all that amphetamine was to help with the big leap of the story, which was not that someone could wake up -- that was a long shot but possible (though I knew many people who were unfamiliar with these cases, including doctors, wouldn't think so). The real leap was that his muscles weren't atrophied. Now, this is still a gray area, in that Sacks reported a lack of atrophy he couldn't explain when he woke his patients. And while a vegetative state differs from catatonia, neither one has sufferers getting a whole lot of exercise. Did it have to do with the drugs Sacks used? One doctor I consulted pointed out that nobody has any clue what a big wallop of dextroamphetamine would do to someone who'd just come out of a vegetative state, and he was willing to accept muscle use as long as it was confined to the period of time the drugs were in Gabe's system.
I ran with that. I will tell you frankly that if running with a long shot will get me House, Wilson, and an interesting guest character into a hotel room in Atlantic City, I will run all day. I fully understand if your mileage varies.
One note that rather depressed me: I was talking with one of my experts and said, "I understand it's a long shot, but why don't more doctors experiment with the meds of patients in a vegetative state? If it works sometimes -- even if it's for a day or two -- wouldn't some families want you to try?" I thought he'd tell me that experimentation was incredibly risky, but no. It's risky in that there's always some danger in experimenting with real people, and a big dose of amphetamines may be problematic. But the real objection? Convenience. Vegetative state patients, if they're long-term, are warehoused somewhere. Maybe a nursing home, maybe some other facility; but basically, they become freight to be stored. In a bed or sitting in a chair, they're not too tough to deal with; but give them a drug that makes them active, you could have a problem on your hands. Because you could succeed with the "active" part, but still fail to wake them; you could end up with a guy walking around, possibly aggressive, dangerous to himself and others -- but still "asleep."
A great deal of the medical discussion upfront vanished in the pre-shooting snipping; more vanished in the post-shooting snipping. (When you write a script and then see it air, it's like watching the two-minute version of Hamlet: Ophelia walks out, and drops dead.) This is pretty much unavoidable, in that audiences today are more sophisticated than they were (or at least, than they were perceived to be) in, say, the 1970s -- they prefer more complex stories; writers want to give those to them; and studio and network executives will encourage it -- and yet the amount of time you have to tell a story has shrunk inversely. And in fact, that's not always a bad thing; certainly today's pacing is far more vigorous than what you'd find in an old Barnaby Jones episode.
Anyway. Hoagie. Yum. I promise my fellow New Jerseyans that I wanted to use "Wawa," but it didn't work out.