The Doctor's Always In

In the wee-hours of the morning while channel surfing for something other than infomercials, I'm grateful for the USA network and its late-night programming. While other cable channels are running 6 Week Body Makeover and Cash Flow Generator ads as early as 2am EST, USA's programming often runs until 5am or, even better, all night!

I enjoy most of USA's original programming - Monk, Psych, The Starter Wife, and even In Plain Sight if there's nothing else on - but the best late night USA programming is syndicated from the big four networks.

While I love six straight episodes of Law & Order: SVU as much as the next person, the best late-night USA marathons are back-to-back-to-back episodes of the FOX medical drama House M.D. On Thanksgiving, USA played 24 hours of House, and I watched most of them. 24 hours of yummy Hugh Laurie + co-stars??!! Huddy-, Hameron-, and Hilson-shippers are sure to be pleased! My fingers are crossed that their Christmas marathon is just as fabulous.

My one complaint with House marathons is that the episodes are rarely aired in any real order. A majority of the episodes may be from a single season, but the order will skip around and the first few episodes will run again towards the end of the marathon. That's no way to run a marathon!

If I could have House marathons my way, they would go something like this:

House, M.D. Marathon: 24 Hours of "It's Not Lupus"

• "Pilot" (1.1) Introducing Dr. House: he's an ass, but it's hard not to love him.

• "Maternity" (1.4) The choices doctors make are never easy. This clinic case - 'woman with a parasite' is one of my favorites.

• "Babies & Bathwater" (1.18) Cuddy finally stands up to Vogler, and there is a bittersweet ending for the patients.
  

• "Kids" (1.19) There's a meningitis outbreak at the hospital following a competitive swim meet, and it's a 12 year-old diver who seems to be the sickest.
  

• "Three Stories" (1.21) Carmen Electra guest stars in House's diagnostic fantasies and we finally learn the sacrifice House made that ended his marriage and left him a pill-popping cripple.

• "The Mistake" (2.08) Chase's negligence leads to the death of a patient and consequences for all.

• "Skin Deep" (2.13) The eventual diagnosis of a supermodel's symptoms is one of the series' most surprising.

• "Safe" (2.16) Buffy alumnus Michelle Trachtenberg guest stars in a role she was apparently born to play: whinny, annoying teenager.

• "All In" (2.17) House meets a boy with the same symptoms as an elderly woman he wasn't able to save years ago. The question is, how far will he go for his diagnosis?

• "Euphoria Parts 1 & 2 (2.20 & 2.21) A patient puts Foreman's life in danger and Foreman puts Cameron's life in danger. Tensions amongst the team have never been higher.
  

• "No Reason" (2.24) The first, of apparently several, episodes where someone pulls a gun on House. And maybe for good reason.
  

• "Meaning" (3.1) See House Run. Plus one of the show's happiest endings for this week's patient.

• "Son of Coma Guy" (3.7) While bordering on fantasy, this episode offers more insight into why House is the way he is. Although it's never quite clear if he's being honest.

• "Finding Judas" (3.9) House suffers Vicodin-withdrawal symptoms and puts his young patient in further danger. The 'House in pain' episodes are always good ones. Karma, much?

• "Merry Little Christmas" (3.10) Guest star Meredith Eaton is one of the few characters sharp-tongued enough to keep up with House. She's a pleasure to watch.

• "Airborne" (3.18) House's diagnostic skills have never been more vital than when he and Cuddy are trapped on an airplane at 35,000 feet with a dying and potentially contagious man.
  

• "Alone" (4.1) Wilson kidnaps House's guitar and refuses to return it until House hires a new team. The (sexual?) tension between the two men in this episode will satisfy any Hilson-shipper.

• "Frozen" (4.11) House diagnoses a patient in the South Pole, and even though he and guest star Mira Sorvino can only communicate via webcam, their chemistry more than heats things up.

• "House's Head" (4.15) As House struggles to remember who he saw dying following a serious bus crash, we see inside his head where Cuddy does a strip-tease.

• "Wilson's Heart" (4.16) I don't think anyone is capable of watching this extremely moving fourth season finale without crying like a baby. If you weren't already in love with Wilson, you will be when it's over.
  

• "Lucky Thirteen" (5.5) The writers really try to make you like Thirteen despite her many personal failings, and in this episode, they almost succeed.

• "Joy" (5.6) Cuddy struggles to save the pregnant woman whose baby she hopes to adopt. The episode ends with a moment Huddy-shippers have been waiting for.

• "Let Them Eat Cake" (5.10) This episode aired for the first time on Tuesday and I've only seen it once, but the Kutner-Taub patient scam/fiasco was just so entertaining, I had to include it.
  

Why Buffy Matters

I recently finished reading Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a collection of critical essays on Joss Whedon's hit television series, written by Buffy scholar Rhonda Wilcox. In what was the most entertaining, consistent, and accessible Buffy essay collection I've read so far, Wilcox focuses on the psychology of the series (perhaps overreaching a bit with all of the so-called Freudian phallic representations) and on the show's various cycles through the Campbellian hero myth paradigm. But what I found most interesting about Wilcox's approach to the series was the time spent on the "art" part - from analyzing the lighting to the diegetic and non-diegetic sound cues, to the many other artistic nuances that Joss Whedon's creative team brought to the series, making it more than just a run-of-the-mill cult phenomenon.

Along with dissecting the "broad patterns" in the series, Wilcox spends six chapters on seven of the episodes that most completely represent the artistic, emotional, and thematic merit of the series - season two's "Surprise/Innocence" (love and loss), season three's "The Zeppo" (comedy), season four's "Hush" (fear - the only Emmy-nominated episode) and "Restless" (poetry), season five's "The Body" (death), and season six's "Once More, With Feeling" (song - the famed musical episode). These episodes are widely considered the best of the series and were amply dissected by Wilcox, though she made it clear that there was much more that could be said about the episodes, and as a reader hungry for more Buffy (can one ever be truly satiated?), I would have been happy to read another hundred pages on the subject.

Why DOES Buffy Matter?

I was a fan of Buffy from the very first episode which I watched at the age of eleven in March of 1997. A month later, after experiencing a personal tragedy , I felt terribly guilty as I tuned into season one's "The Pack"; I knew that watching Buffy would make me happy, and I wasn't sure that I was allowed to feel that way.

For seven years I was moved, excited, and inspired by the series, although it wasn't until college, a full year after the series ended, that I fully embraced my fandom when I discovered that thousands of grownups, scholars, and college students like me loved Buffy too - and that was okay. There hasn't been another series before or since that I have fallen in love with so thoroughly, and at least part of the reason is that I only had one childhood, and that childhood was dedicated to Buffy, a kick-ass heroine, and the gal every girl secretly wishes she could be, assuming that imminent death and the complex business of being responsible for the fate of the world were not always getting in the way.

Long before I began listening to the director's commentaries and reading essays on the greatness of Buffy, I had my own list of episodes that moved me the most (to laughter or to tears), and along with the seven Wilcox discussed, these are the episodes that I eagerly awaited to see in syndication during the series' run and the episodes that I watched the most frequently in my Buffy DVD series box set.

• Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest - I was hooked from the beginning. When Buffy outsmarts the Vessel to save the day, it just sets the pace for all of the sassy quips and near-apocalypses to follow.

• The Witch - Buffy may have super strength, but she's vulnerable too, and this is the first episode where we really see that her friends, the "normal" folk, are invaluable sidekicks in the Slayer's mission.

• Nightmares - As if living on the Hellmouth wasn't bad enough, imagine how terrifying it is when your personal nightmares are roaming free. What is it that frightens a slayer the most? Becoming the very evil that she is charged with exterminating.
  

• Prophecy Girl - Buffy is sympathetic and vulnerable again when she learns that, at sixteen years old, she is destined to die. But only Buffy could turn the tables to make a prophecy where she dies work in her favor.

• Halloween - Okay, so I was a fan of the vulnerable Buffy episodes. But how great was it seeing Xander taking command, Willow walking with confidence, and Buffy slipping free of her wig and kicking Spike's ass?

• What's My Line, Part One and Two - The cliffhanger ending of Part One reveals that there is another slayer (wtf?!!), inspiring every girl between the ages of 9 and 19 to spend hours daydreaming about becoming the next chosen one - until Part Two aired and we discovered it was just a fluke. And oh yeah, Xander and Cordelia hook up!
  

• Passion - Joss Whedon likes to kill off beloved characters, right when things are starting to look up for them. Low blow, Joss. Low blow.

• Becoming, Part One and Two - Packing the most emotional punch of any of the episodes prior to the major deaths in season five, Buffy sacrifices her lover to save the world, and this second season finale is still the best of them all.

• Homecoming - Buffy and Cordelia battle it out, but it is Cordelia that emerges the victor, in true slayerette fashion.
  

• Lovers Walk - Can no relationship work out in this series? Why do you torment us so?

• The Wish - What if Buffy never came to Sunnydale? This alternate reality is truly horrifying, giving the Gentlemen in "Hush"a run for their money.

• Enemies - Angel pretending to lose is soul is just as traumatizing as Angel really losing his soul. It's in this episode that we realize to our great dismay that there's too much standing in the way of Buffy and Angel's happily ever after.

• The Harsh Light of Day - Mega baddie Spike is back with a vengeance and, fortunately, he's here to stay.

• Who Are You - Faith switches bodies with Buffy and has more fun pretending to be the "good" slayer than Buffy seems to have most of the time.

• Fool For Love - Spike's past as a serial slayer killer is intriguing, and he adds another piece to the puzzle that is the Slayer. Along with "haven't even begun" to knowing who she is, apparently Buffy also has a "death wish".

• The Gift - Another great season finale where Buffy must make a truly difficult choice, the consequences of which last longer (in days) than her previous finale sacrifices.

• Bargaining, Part One and Two - Who would have thought bringing a slayer back to life would have so many severe consequences for all involved? Especially the cute forest critters.
  

• Life Serial - As wacky as their torture-Buffy inventions are, the Trio just aren't as intimidating as the big-bads of the past.

• Tabula Rasa - A hilarious episode with bizarre shark-headed loan sharks, forgotten identities, and the most powerful musical performance to not be included on a Buffy soundtrack (Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You" - the Willow/Tara breakup song).

• Normal Again - Are Buffy's adventures in Sunnydale really just one epic hallucination of a mentally-ill young woman in an institution? This episode aired four months after the Charmed episode with a suspiciously similar plotline (Buffy's was better).

• Seeing Red - Seriously, Whedon? You set us up for yet another happy ending and then rip our still-beating hearts from our bodies as tragedy ensues?

• Selfless - Anya's 1000 year-old past is revealed and we are treated to yet another wonderful song from the "Once More, With Feeling" era. If only it made it on to the soundtrack.

• Conversations With Dead People - Dawn is terrorized in her home by an unseen force, Willow turns on the waterworks, and Buffy is psycho-analyzed by a vampire who tells her that she has an inferiority complex about her superiority complex. Reminds me of my own self-diagnosed procrastinating perfectionism.

• Potential - Dawn's not a potential slayer! And the world rejoices. Although most of the potentials were unlovable whiners, the potential plotline was full of exciting possibilities that reminded me of my favorite Buffy book - Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row by Christopher Golden.

• Chosen - Despite a rocky seventh season, the finale was a satisfying conclusion to the series and a welcome addition to the Buffyverse mythology. And Whedon, bless his heart, set it up so the show could live on through more than just our memories, as the eighth season is now in comic form.

7 + 29. Am I allowed to have 36 favorite episodes?