Wall Banger/Live-Action TV/House (TV series)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • House, third season, 'Que Sera, Sera.' When Cameron investigated his apartment early in the episode, there was a saxophone, clean and polished and clearly well-used, lying on the couch, an instrument which the patient could have never been able to play if he had had lung cancer in its final stages. Think about it: Cameron's failure here allowed House to make a final misdiagnosis, and the writers didn't notice.
  • The Christmas episode in Season 4. The little girl knows that her mom, when having sex, "used to like being on top, but now she likes to be on her stomach." Okay, so their policy was to keep no secrets from each other, but seriously! Is there no such thing as privacy in that household?
    • If they don't keep secrets, then why does their computer request a password? You can set it to go to the welcome screen.
  • In a later episode where a man accepts a herpes infected liver, his daughter warns him that, if he is going to screw mom, then he'd better use a condom. Why, writers? Why?
  • The fourth episode of the fifth season. Wilson returned to PPTH after resigning but before truly leaving. His reason (that he had fun around House) somehow seemed insufficient.
  • Cuddy in "The Greater Good." Yes, House is a bastard and was responsible for her having to come back to work (Cameron left the deanhood because she didn't think she had the backbone to deal with House). But forcing him to walk up the stairs, installing a trip-wire in his office doorway, and taking his cane away? She has no idea that he's been having more bad pain days lately - but that's no excuse, especially since we've been told over and over that she gave him his job because she felt horribly guilty for having a hand in crippling him in the first place. This sort of thing could've crippled him further, or (in the case of the tripwire) crippled someone else! What she did was petty, dangerous, and immature. We might expect it from House (he did spend much of a season 3 episode pulling horrific and dangerous pranks on Wilson) -- but this is Cuddy, the dean of medicine, who is usually officially against horrible pranks.
    • Well, it's not a total Wall Banger. Wilson DOES call her out on it.
  • Kutner committing suicide. The producers and writers, and Kal Penn, were setting themselves up for a no-win situation: they tried to do it without any foreshadowing whatsoever, including no clear immediate cause. It was made worse because, with proper acting, there could have been clear foreshadowing for the viewers. The actor in question was leaving for a political job at the White House, and everyone involved liked the idea that there was no foreshadowing and no answer that anyone could spot, as often happens in Real Life. Total cop out, even so.
    • What's worse, "no foreshadowing" didn't work because of forgotten canon. He was always reckless: he set Greta on fire in 'The Right Stuff', and he electrocuted himself with the defibrillator in 'Mirror Mirror.' Also, the guy in "Mirror, Mirror" picked up on some masochism in him. He was an outcast at school. It's implied on screen that he didn't have a social life or friends. He was constantly taken advantage of because of his kind nature; House did it to him countless times, most notably in 'It's A Wonderful Lie,' and Taub did it in 'Locked In.' He had his parents murdered in cold blood right in front of him when he was six years old, for God's sake! He also seemed least affected by Amber's death. He just stared blankly at her instead of saying a real goodbye, and he was later shown eating cereal in front of the TV, and there was also a scene somewhere in season 5 when he was discussing suicide with Taub and he said something like, 'Wouldn't you do it if you were burning at the stake and someone handed you a gun?' Though he also claimed that he himself would never do it. Ok, there's nothing to concretely say he was depressed -- though Wilson didn't seem that way either, and we learn that he's on anti-depressants in 'Resignation' -- or suffering from PTSD, etc.; but it's clear that he was messed up. Seriously, how much did we know about him? He had more mystery to him than Thirteen because he was Out of Focus so often. Clearly, his cheery exterior was just that; it hid something else. There was something off about him.
    • It's stated explicitly that nobody suspected that Kutner would kill himself and no one ever noticed anything. There were signs, but no one In-Universe noticed them even after the fact. The above list was not comprehensive.
  • Season 6, "Epic Fail." Cuddy closed the Diagnostics department for the summer while House was gone, and then told Foreman that she intended to close it for good after House told her that he didn't want to return. Okay, we understand that she opened the Diagnostic Department specifically for House; but she made House take fellows. She tasked House with teaching Diagnostics to other doctors. Then she's surprised when one of his former students thinks the Diagnostics department can exist without House -- and what's more, it's the one who led another Diagnostics Department, however briefly.
  • A major arc revolves around a cop viciously harassing not only House but also the entire hospital in an attempt to "prove" that House is a junkie and drug dealer and should be in jail. He freezes the accounts of several of the best doctors in the city, cuts off power to a major hospital, and illegally monitors the hospital pharmacy. He does it because House was rude when treating him, and he essentially states that anyone who has ever taken prescription painkillers is a junkie. Not only is he not fired from the police department and incarcerated for harassment, but the OTHER DOCTORS also either take his side or explicitly state that the only reason they don't is that House is a brilliant doctor. In Real Life, that sort of behavior from a cop would leave the city and police department open to massive lawsuits.
    • Okay, yes, House is an addict. But Tritter is causing problems for the entire hospital. (Cutting off the power?!) Cuddy could and should have ended it all in hours with a press conference. No police chief would allow a single agent to raise that much shit to harass a single person. Even blind idiots could see that House was not a drug dealer.
    • The police can't cut off power to a location except in case of immediate need. NO ONE WOULD FLIP THAT SWITCH. The best case scenario for doing that in Real Life is a reckless endangerment charge. The more likely result would be when one of the critical patients dies due to the loss of power; since this was done during felony-level harassment, it is FELONY MURDER, an executionable offense. Tritter shouldn't give the order, and it should never have been carried out.
    • You could say that House didn't want anyone to feel sympathy for him, but wouldn't it have been easier to tell someone why the thermometer incident happened? That Tritter tripping him because of some rudeness never came up again. Ow. Ow. Ow.
    • Maybe I'm confused, but I don't recall Tritter cutting off power to the hospital? I think the OP may be mixing Tritter's arc up with something elsewhere. He attempts bribes the fellows and gets Wilson's DEA license revoked, but no threatening to cut off power to the hospital.
  • Season 6, episode 13: "Moving the Chains." Lucas breaks into House and Wilson's new condo, leaves dangerous animals in their bathroom, loosens the grab bar next to their tub (which could have hurt House VERY badly), causes a lot of water damage to their wooden floor and electronic appliances, and trips House. All because they took the condo his girlfriend wanted. Cuddy already HAS a good house. One hell of a reason there, buddy.
    • Cut to the episode right after, "5 to 9." Apparently, House and Lucas are back on speaking terms even though Lucas had practically ruined House's and Wilson's condo recently. Nice one, writers.
    • NON-crippled people can have serious injures or even die from falling in the bathtub. What if House had hit his head and drowned? Now, House has done some horrible stunts himself, but he's supposed to be a jerk. (And his drugging Wilson's drink earlier that season was to save Wilson's career.) Lucas had been portrayed as a nice guy for his job and eccentricities; he was supposed to be the "safe" alternative for Cuddy. His actions in "Moving the Chains" pushed him across the Moral Event Horizon in the eyes of many fans.
  • How about the time they mistakenly erased someone's brain, which could've been averted by asking the patient's brother or female friend one simple question? In fact, that's how Cameron found out they were mistaken, entirely by accident. The show just goes back to the House-centric B-plot, and never addresses the massive lawsuit they'd be about to get slapped with.
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