Hugh Laurie issues apology for ‘slightly drunk’ reaction to criticism over House
Hugh Laurie has apologised after responding to criticism of his TV series House.
The medical drama has a lot of fans and received a lot of acclaim during its run. It focuses on a brilliant but flawed doctor who leads a team at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, focusing on the unconventional methods to solve medical mysteries.
It was highly praised and won numerous awards, including multiple Primetime Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards.
However one person who perhaps is not a big fan of the eight-season show is writer Janet Murray, who took to X to criticise the first season for having the ‘same narrative every episode’.
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She complained each episode revolved around Dr. House wrongly diagnosing his patients and narrowly avoiding being fired, until he gives them the correct diagnosis and then avoids losing his job.
“Eight seasons of this?” she asked, prompting Laurie himself to respond.
“Thanks for your critique,” he said on X. “We actually tried a couple of episodes where House gets it right first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren’t happy.
“Then we tried some where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn’t happy.”
He added: “One could apply your trenchant analysis to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the same chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself; Henry Moore, what??
“The point is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you. Nonetheless, I look forward to your first novel!”
After Murray published an article about the “horrific trolling” she said she faced following his ‘witty riposte,’ Laurie issued an apology, stressing that he had never intended for others to target her with abuse.
"I'm sorry if people have been having a go at you because of my tweet. Not at all the plan," he wrote on X on Monday. "I was very slightly drunk and already upset about something that had nothing to do with you."
The Stuart Little actor, 66, also noted that he had received criticism as a result of the exchange.
"If it's any comfort, I got it in the neck too. I'm a thin-skinned t**t, apparently, even though it wasn't my skin. I was sticking up for the writers who I adored," he added.
Laurie went on to acknowledge that citing composer Johann Sebastian Bach and artist Frida Kahlo in support of his argument that art often repeats itself had been a mistake, describing it as “asking for trouble.”
"[It] would have done better to go for the 10,000 blues songs written around the same 12 bar chord structure. I've listened to most of them and will keep doing so. Because we love what we love," he concluded.
Murray later thanked Laurie for the apology and said she remained a fan of both House and his performance in the series.
Topics: TV And Film
Greg Harris