Our House

There are some moments in history that will live with you forever, that you simply have to be there for, whatever it takes. Think ‘the moon landing’ (inverted commas offering token fence-sitting scepticism), England’s World Cup win in 1966, John Prescott punching a man in the street, and so on. Sadly, I wasn’t around for two of those events – and narrowly avoided being the man who got punched by staying safely locked up inside my own house – but even within my relatively short lifetime I have witnessed some similarly-headline-grabbing moments.

Tomorrow evening – Thursday the 24th May 2012 – at 22.58ish, the credits will roll, the music will start, the voiceover will risk atmosphere-destroying interference and the end will finally have come. The end, my friends, of House.

I know I’m one of the biggest fans of hyperbole in the world but I don’t think I’m really offering even the slightest hint of exaggeration when I call House the greatest television series of all time. And yet, eight seasons in, the end has come. Television – and, quite possibly, the world – will never be the same again.

I first heard of House when my dad blasphemously suggested that he would rather watch this mysterious programme than the Middlesbrough UEFA Cup game (ah, those were the days). A programme called ‘House’ was taking precedence over football? It simply made no sense at all. Something was up.

I remember, or I think I remember, hearing of a horror film called ‘House’ (does such a thing actually exist?) and so, logically, the conclusion I came to was that this must be the TV series of the film. You know, like the Stargate spin-off series only with scary things going on.

Imagine my surprise then when I sat down one day expecting to be frightened to the core, only to discover a gripping medical drama staring back at me. And not just any ordinary medical drama. This was thriller, comedy, romance and mystery rolled into one, turned upside-down and inside-out and spat right back out again. And, more than that, it was good. Very good. So good, in fact, that requests for box sets were made at subsequent birthdays and Christmases. I even went so far as to use my own money (a rare occurrence) to purchase future series and watched and re-watched every episode in record-breaking time (I assume, having never checked the records…).

My dad’s blasphemy was forgiven. Heck, this was a show that was so good it was almost worth giving up watching football altogether. Hugh Laurie had created a character so unbelievably captivating that my moral compass was losing all sense of where North was, whilst my affinity for metaphors was growing by the hour. He was everything a character should be and everything a character shouldn’t be in equal measure. He was, quite simply, incredible.

And yet, life must go on. There is, it seems, a world beyond House, however hard it is to contemplate such an idea, and so into that world I must trek from tomorrow evening onwards. I’ll always have the box-sets and the memories and, who knows, one day I may set up my own medical practice and call myself Gregory House.

Until then, I invite you to join me in a minute’s silence to mourn our loss…