wow i can't believe that house is soooo dedicated to stealing wilson's food that he sneakily deleted a voicemail offering wilson an apartment just so that wilson would keep living with him. mmm those delicious pancakes and salads and sandwiches yes indeed it's all about the FOOD there are no other reasons because house is very straight he just likes the FOOD and he just wants himself and wilson's FOOD to be together forever alright???
House MD fans: You wake up in the PPTH ER in summer 2004. What you doing?
Scenario parameters:
All your memories of the show and the past 20 years are intact.
You are stuck there/then and cannot return to our universe/year.
You have nothing but the hospital gown on your back.
Questions:
So, what do you do?
How much would you tell House?
How would you get him to believe you?
Who else would you tell?
How much would you tell them?
Inspiration:
The author self-insert isekai fanfic "Intervention" by VivatRex (aka @acrownforaking). They've been writing it for the past 11+ years and are still updating. It's already nearly 300k words long despite only being up to the events of S02E15. I AM IN AWE.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about this scenario ever since I read that fanfic a month ago. I'd love to discuss it with other House MD fans and hear what you would do.
(Apologies to the mutuals for the abrupt blog topic change. A new brainrot has taken hold.)
My short answer:
My long answers are below the cut.
So, what do you do?
My primary objective would be to enlist House in averting the pandemic.
My reasoning: If anyone can nip it in the bud before it gets out of Wuhan, I figure that a world-renowned genius doctor who is an infectious diseases specialist, speaks Mandarin, and now has a 15-year head start would have the best chance.
Difficulty level: Babysitting a narcissistic manchild with the self-preservation instincts of a toddler until the year 2020 so that he makes it there then alive, out of prison, and with his sanity, medical license, and professional reputation intact. To quote Quantum Leap, "Ohhhhhh boooooooy."
Strategy: I'm in the "I could fix him, but whatever's wrong with him is way funnier" camp, so I wouldn't try to change him (that always backfires anyway). Instead, I'd try to change his circumstances:
A stable romantic relationship would help, so I'd seduce him if I can (I'm not his type but a gal's gotta shoot her shot), try to get him together with Dominika earlier if I can't, and tell him how horribly his relationship with Cuddy ended so he knows better than to even start it.
Avert the shooting. Moriaty was a patient so his info is in the PPTH files. I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS. Or for a less murdery approach, try to get him arrested in April 2006 for violating New Jersey's strict gun laws.
Warn House about Tritter so he can switch patients with another clinic doctor.
Warn House to never get on a bus with Amber.
Tell Kutner I'm from the future and he's the only one who can prevent something horrible from happening (he's a Trekkie so he'll want to believe), then unfurl my big timeline poster and point at the "Kutner suicide early 2009" stickynote and ask him "so what's up with that, dude?"
Tell Wilson everything I can remember about his cancer -- he's an oncologist and thus can work backwards from there to figure out when to start checking for it so he can cut the tumor out while it's still just a tiny baby.
I would take a harm reduction approach to House's drug use, e.g., suggest that he try microdosing psilocybin and extend his liver's lifespan by substituting cannabis for some of his Vicodin and alcohol consumption.
Methods: Even though he doesn't have one for most of the show, House mentions a few times that he's entitled to hire an assistant, and I happen to be excellent at administrative work.
I think he'd be willing to hire me because working as his executive assistant / department secretary would position me to recognize patients as they come in so that I can discreetly pass along anything I remember, e.g., the kindergarten teacher has pork worms in her brain, ask the scientist in Antarctica to show you her feet, etc.
Meanwhile, I could lurk around the hospital preventing miscellaneous shit, e.g., get the gift shop volunteer from S01E04 to go home sick, ensure that the gunman from S05E09 is promptly admitted, diagnosed, and treated before he snaps and takes hostages, etc.
Possible sidequests:
Use my foreknowlege to get rich by milking online poker bonuses until the passage of the UIGEA in 2006, use my poker money to start flipping houses until 2007, get in on the "Big Short" in 2008, and set a Google Alert for "Bitcoin" so I can start mining/buying it from day one. Unfortunately, I haven't paid enough attention to individual stocks to play the market other than knowing that Amazon would be a good long-term buy & hold.
Use my riches to change the outcome of the 2016 election and try to steer the development of the internet and society in general in a slightly less stupid direction.
Send Pete Carroll a letter postdated just before the 2013 Superbowl telling him the outcome, then suggest for the final play of the 2014 Superbowl that the Seahawks try handing the ball off to Marshawn Lynch instead of throwing it because that throw will be intercepted. PRIORITIES.
How much would you tell House? How would you get him to believe you?
Your story about being from the future of an alternate universe in which House and everyone he knows are characters on a fictional TV show is already too batshit crazy to believe even without his kneejerk "everybody lies" skepticism. How would you differentiate yourself from all the patients who pull crazy stunts to try to get him to take their case?
My answer: For the "from the future" part, I'm hoping there's some sort of test that House could run to confirm that I was indeed vaccinated with a mRNA vaccine against the COVID-19/SARS-COV-2 virus. Given that neither of those things existed in 2004, that would be physical evidence that I'm not from around here now.
If producing physical evidence isn't possible, then I know that Vegetative State Guy from S03E15 is already a patient at PPTH because he'd been there for 10 years, so I'd find him and tell House about his son. I could also tell House enough about the cases from the first few episodes that I'm pretty sure he'd believe me by Christmas. I want in on Chinese food with Wilson.
I would wait until House accepted the "from the future" part before broaching the "fictional TV show" issue. Until then, "I watched a TV show about your life and cases" is a 100% true statement and it's not my fault if he assumes that show was a documentary. :)
Once he believed me, I'd tell him everything.
Who else would you tell? How much would you tell them?
There are people out there who would literally kill for your knowledge of the future, so going public or being too open about it seems highly risky.
My answer: I'd tell House, Wilson, and Chase right away. Kutner but not before Jan 2009. Maybe eventually Cuddy and the rest of the Diagnostics team if keeping my foreknowledge of the future from them proves too difficult.
House is the only one who gets to know everything. Everyone else is on a "need to know" basis.
I might also bring Bill Arnello (the brother/lawyer of the mob informant in S01E15 "Mob Rules") into the circle of trust because he could be a very useful resource for some of my sidequests, e.g., changing the outcome of the 2016 election far far far in advance and in the most direct way possible. (Hi, Secret Service! This is a purely hypothetical discussion about time travel and not at all indicative of any real criminal intent, pls do not pay me a visit, kthxbai.)
I think the only people I would tell the "fictional TV show" part to would be House, Wilson, and Chase, because there are things I need to warn them about that definitely wouldn't have been in a documentary. Like Chase needs to know that killing Diballa is 100% the right thing to do but he seriously needs to work on his OpSec. Everyone else gets the implied documentary lie of omission.
If I get caught knowing too much by random patients, I'll just claim to be psychic. Way more people believe in that than would believe in time travel.
Babylon 5 s02e15: And Now for a Word
so2 Table of Contents • previous episode
September 16, 2259! Love me a good documentary!
Never not going to be funny to me that G'Kar's actor and Talia Winter's actor have the same given name (Andrea).
This is really not the time for reporters to be harassing personnel for soundbites.
:| and a very fuck you too, Ambassador Mollari.
Love having the dockworkers back!!
"Overall I've found this to be a good working environment. I've learned a lot here. […] Yes, it's a calm, pleasant environment. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get upset here." - random Earthforce personnel, lying like a liar
Stephen Franklin channeling classic, spacephobic McCoy here.
Oh my god, seventeen-year-old Stephen Franklin either accidentally killed his friend hiding in an airlock, or watched his friend accidentally kill himself messing around in an airlock. It's ambiguous, and horrifying either way.
Good trauma story sharing. But for real, how can he even live in space after that? I'm horrified and impressed.
Dang, that's pretty bad. Almost 60 deaths total, multiple bombings, and several narrowly-averted wars. In three years.
Literally idk how G'Kar can keep his composure. The Centauri are war criming like crazy.
This documentary format is actually delightful. I am loving seeing how the actors are choosing to portray their characters being interviewed. It's so fucking fascinating.
Susan Ivanova continues to be The Best.
Garibaldi wants to be bored and to make a difference. I propose that he could make the most difference by not assaulting people or threatening them with his rank.
This reporter isn't very likeable, which makes me wonder if she's going to end up doing something impactful.
"I am a friend, in peace." and then being met with such vitriol and journalistic malfeasance! This reporter sucks!
A hell of a thirty-six hours to happen to arrive to document!
Fuck, can you imagine a space battle going on outside b5's fragile little, punctured shell and being sent to start repairs while unknown, hostile aliens are still fighting outside? Hope they get hazard pay.
Yeah, I'd be tempted to get into a spacesuit.
Narn vs Centauri literally fighting outside B5 is a significant escalation of risk.
G'Kar backstory!! G'Kar's dad served the Centauri and as a punishment for an accident, was killed horribly over days and died in front of G'Kar. That'd drive anyone into resistance, I think! I respect B5 more for calling it a resistance in-universe, especially compared to in DS9 when they repeatedly and insistently called the Bajoran resistance terrorists doing terrorism. The Narns are increasingly impressive the more we learn about them. They went from low tech to occupied to equaling to if not surpassing the Centauri in a hundred years.
"The Narn have rewritten history enough, don't you think? [..] We have to take a stand. They are the ones who declared war, not us. We want only peace."
:| And then drop a Centauri war cruiser to blockade B5.
A commercial for PsiCorps. I have…so much to say about this. tbh, it's better propaganda than the US military recruitment videos I've seen. Hate that the PsiCops might just beam into your house! Did we already know they have teleportation? Or is that just creative license taken by the commercial?
Super uncool how, yet again, a critique of current events in the 90s being equally as relevant to 2023 current events.
Lotta hard stances being taken. Sheridan is so calm under pressure, but it's weirdly believable that he can out-yell the entire council and then go and calmly discuss the likelihood of mortal threats being mere bluffs. Aaaand awkwardly trying not to make eye contact with the camera that's in his line of sight, hah.
eeeee yikes another space battle! Third for the episode, I think.
I wonder how they clean up space debris. Surely they can't leave it to pose a hazard around the station.
Londo is leaning away from the camera a lot while he talks. Can't even buy his own bullshit.
The reporter was so mean and unethical to Delenn, and Delenn is talking to her again anyway. She's too good and her kindness is too calculated to be deterred by a dickish reporter. Plus, I bet the Minbari reporters are way meaner. Instead of being like "You do war crimes!" they'd be like "You should kill yourself so your memory can be less of a stain on your clan's honor than your life is being right now." Still, they made Delenn cry which isn't exactly a fun human experience to have for the first time on camera.
The inspiring peace lecture would be more believable if it wasn't being delivered by the military.
Anyhow, a very fun episode, especially considering how dark the topics were! Babylon 5 is alone in space, very puncturable, and hosting volatile political enemies bound on murder and/or war.
I mostly didn’t watch Metalocalypse this season when it was new. I fell off sometime early on and just figured I’d wait for the DVD, which I bought and also didn’t watch. This show remains one that I admire a lot, and usually wind up being glad to have watched it... BUT! I am almost never specifically in the mood for it.
I became a diligent Adult Swim recorder around this time, though, so in a bid to record everything new that aired on each block, I wound up accidentally spoiling certain episodes of certain shows for myself. This is one of them. I already knew the ending to this one. SPOILERS (we spoil stuff here, folks): I saw that guy sink like a stone.
As the tribunal puts it, every time Toki touches someone’s life with love, they wind up dying in such a way as to leave Toki with a traumatic loss. This is usually undercut with a detached, absurdist gallows-humor irreverence. This one leads up to Toki confronting his father’s death by traveling to Norway as he lie on his deathbed. He meets his father, who requests that Toki take him to die peacefully in the house he was born in.
Toki must carry his father up a mountain to get to said house, and on the last step he slips. His father falls out of his arms, and slides down the mountain and into a frozen-over lake. Toki scrambles to get to him, but now he’s slid under a thick sheet of ice. We see the life leave his father’s eyes as he sinks into the blackness of the frozen Nordic lake, all while his son watches in horror. How rude!
Seeing this moment out of context (with the sound off; I usually muted my TV when editing my recordings) is a pretty different experience. I expect the show to get dark, and that’s pretty brutal. What I wasn’t prepared for is the cartoony slip sound effect when Toki drops his dad. Hilarious! Also, the gratuitous bit at the end where Murderface throws a firecracker at the side of the mountain, causing an avalanche that crushes the house they were trying to travel to (that’s the culmination of a running gag where the band terrorizes Murderface with firecrackers).
The ending is very memorable, and it’s a great moment for the show, but this episode is maybe on the weaker side? It’s tough to say; I was influenced by sorta knowing the ending so I didn’t really get to go in fresh. The scenes on the way to the climax are hit and miss. And when you really think about it, that ending is simply too weird. Why did that guy go under the ice?? What a freakin’ weirdo. Toki’s dad is a friggin’ crackhead. May he rest in peace.
MAIL BAG
Art book time! Jackson isn't a fan of this episode either. Like you said, it's overstuffed and not the cleanest episode despite it's cool moments. But he also just really hated how the Entmann character tuned out. He wrote for John Hodgman and underwrote as a result cause he figured his delivery would balance it out, but he was busy and so got Stephen Destefano instead. He thought a Kvetchy voice would be funny but it didn't really work for the character, he never came out how he wanted him to.
You can kinda tell cause after Now Museum they did nothing with him for 30 episodes before literally pissing on his grave in season 5.
Thank you for this tidbit! I really should get myself a copy of that thing. I just couldn't pull trigger on it because money is perpetually tight around here and I thought it was weird that they released that thing before the show had ended properly.
In the commentary they mentioned creating that character for a friend of theirs, but wouldn't say who, and they seemed mildly bitter about the whole thing.
Oh. Completely understandable, but you know Eda's going to jump in and help anyway. Mostly bc Luz is going to wind up in the middle of it. But she'd help.