Say Anything Blog

Update: House producer Greg Yaitanes says that this is a rumor that isn’t even a little bit true.  That’s conclusive, and it’s nice to know the DEA hasn’t crossed this line whatever other lines they’ve crossed.

Having nothing better to do, apparently the bureaucrats at the DEA have been writing whiny letters to Fox about the character arc of the eponymous lead character of House Dr. Gregory House (played by Hugh Laurie).  I’ve never watched the show, but apparently Dr. House is plagued chronic, debilitating pain and takes a good deal of narcotics to deal with it.  To the point of abuse, in the eyes of the DEA, and they’re unhappy that the shows writers haven’t written any consequences for the character into the story line.

And they’ve succeeded into brow-beating Fox into producing scripts more to their liking.  At least according to someone who is in the know and posting as much on the internet.

We have not been given, nor will we be given, an adequate explanation for why House’s chronic pain is suddenly manageable without painkillers. Keep in mind House had a legitimate, verifiable medical condition (infarction leading to muscle death) in his leg, so it’s not like fibromyalgia or bad headaches some other painful condition that is hard if not impossible to medically verify.

The DEA has been writing letters to Fox complaining about House’s “flagrant use and abuse of narcotics without consequence” for years now, and finally the network, writers, and producers all caved in to the government’s demands… in the worst possible way. They decided to make the vicodin House had been taking for over a decade into a sudden hallucinogen, causing him to see dead people. They showed him going through the painful detox, and now he’s just fine and dandy, no reference to his pain at all. And there won’t be any further reference to his pain, other than “it’s all manageable.”

This is a bit chilling, no?  There’s no smoking gun to prove this is true, but given some of the other abuses perpetrated by the federal government in the “war on drugs” I’m not doubting it. 

A government agency exerting pressure on the entertainment industry to get a desired story line?  This is as bad as, say, the White House pressuring a show like Saturday Night Live into refraining from skits mocking the President.

It’s just not right.

We all have our opinions about what is and is not appropriate entertainment, and we’re all free to express our opinions publicly and to the producers of the entertainment in question, but the government has no business getting involved.