We caught up with the stars of House last night at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, where Hugh Laurie made us nervous (he's just so very fabulous and tall and intimidating—you'd wibble, too), Lisa Edelstein made us laugh, and the rest of the cast and exec producers shared scoop about the season to come.
Press play above to see Hugh Laurie be his usual charming self, and then click in for more from the rest of the crew, plus seven sneak peeks of Monday's season premiere.
Want to know more? Read on for our Q&A's with House bosses, and check back in Monday's Spoiler Chat for additional dish from Omar Epps, Jesse Spencer, Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobsen.
David Shore, creator and executive producer
What's House's life like after the mental hospital—does he go right back to doctoring?
[After the premiere] he's in a position to get his license back eventually, but the question is should he get back to work? Is that a healthy environment for him, and can he stay away from it? The first several episodes are exploring what happens to the team without him and how far away he really is. House does want to go back, but he also doesn't want to go back—so we explore that. It's about House trying to take the journey to be a little better, and not always succeeding, barely succeeding.
He always seems so happy-go-lucky around other people—is he really, truly miserable?
Clearly something had gone wrong in his life—he wound up in an institution for several months—something was amiss in his world.
Is House just a guy with a really stressful job? Is that his problem, if you boil it down to the bones?
[House's job] is life and death. As much as he professes that's all a game—and I think that is largely true—it can't ultimately be that simple.
What else do we have to look forward to this year?
We're going to do some interesting stuff with the old team coming back. We're going to have some fun with that.
Is the team coming back together because one House is equal to five lesser doctors?
In House's absence, Foreman is kind of stepping into the breach, and it's about what's going to happen with Foreman and Thirteen's relationship and who's he going to confirm his team with and who makes sense for that. We are going to see Chase and Cameron intimately involved with the team.
Does Foreman succeed at being the boss?
Yes and no. How helpful an answer is that?
Katie Jacobs, executive producer
What kind of stories will we see once House gets out of the asylum?
We're working on a bunch of different arcs. What it's like when House comes back to Princeton-Plainsboro, what it's like for him being rehabilitated, not only in terms of Vicodin, but in terms of being less of an ass. What is that like? I don't know. Will he fall off the wagon? Will he insult Foreman on day one? We'll see.
Robert Sean Leonard is one of your faves—where does Wilson fit in this year?
One of the episodes coming up that [Robert Sean Leonard] hasn't even read yet is that we felt it was important to spend more time with him as a doctor, as an oncologist, which we never really do. We're in medical mysteries, differential diagnosis, but he's head of oncology, so we have this upcoming episode where House is to Wilson as Wilson is usually to House. Like he'll be in the middle of something and House will drop by, or he'll go see House in the middle of a differential diagnosis meeting, and we'll never even know what they were working on. I'm excited about it.
That sounds awesome—
Oh, and big news, when House comes back, I think it's best that he not live alone, so the season starts out with House and Wilson living together.
It's impressive, almost shocking that the show is showing us a cured, healed House.
Oh, he's not cured. The way I describe it is if House came into the hospital with a huge wound, a huge hole, like one tiny part of it is healed, it's one more piece of the puzzle—but that's all.
House premieres Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. on Fox. Will you be watching?