A STRUGGLING ARTIST FALLS ILL AND THE TEAM MUST USE A DISCERNING EYE TO UNCOVER WHAT MAY BE HIDING BELOW THE SURFACE

Breckin Meyer and Michael Weston Guest-Star

House and the team take on the case of a struggling artist (guest star Breckin Meyer) who has been painting bizarre portraits. His undiagnosed illness is distorting his perception, threatening to undermine his career, his relationships and everything else in his life. The team soon finds out that he hasn’t sold anything lately and is on three separate drug trials to pay the bills. House must unlock the puzzle of which drugs are causing which symptoms before it’s too late. Meanwhile, House continues to have private investigator Lucas Douglas (guest star Michael Weston) dig up dirt on everyone on his team, including Taub who is having trouble in his marriage in the “Adverse Events” episode of HOUSE airing Tuesday, Sept. 30 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/ PT) on FOX. (HOU-503) (TV-14 D, S)

Cast: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House; Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy; Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman; Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson; Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron; Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase; Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub; Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner; Olivia Wilde as Thirteen

Guest Cast: Michael Weston as Lucas Douglas; Breckin Meyer as Brandon; Jennifer Crystal Foley as Rachel Taub; Marika Dominczyk as Heather; Sarah Knowlton as Susan; Drew Powell as Anthony

“Oddly enough, the smaller the show, the more logistically complicated," says Laurie. "If everyone is in everything, it becomes a very complicated thing to shoot. “I think it’s worked wonderfully well. I think the new cast members are absolutely terrific and we’re a very happy group. We get along very well.”

"House, M.D." started its fifth season on Sept. 16. Any delay in the start of the season because of a looming actors strike gives the writers for "House, M.D." the chance to write an episode involving a patient with sudden hearing loss.

It would be a medical mystery just like every other episode. The cause of his patient's sudden hearing loss would turn out to be a Vicodin addiction. In the episode, Dr. House could finally enter rehab for his own addiction to Vicodin. More importantly, thousands of loyal viewers will learn how an addiction to Vicodin can cause total deafness. What a wonderful public service opportunity.

THE TEAM INVESTIGATES A STRING OF MYSTERIOUS DEATHS
CENTERING AROUND A SINGLE ORGAN DONOR, AND HOUSE HIRES
A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR TO SNOOP ON WILSON AND THE TEAM
ON “HOUSE” TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, ON FOX

When several people die suddenly and without warning five years after receiving transplants from a single organ donor, House and the team rush to save the only two surviving recipients. With one already dying and other healthy but sure to fall ill at any moment, the team must find out what was wrong with the original organ donor. As the team sorts through the records on the deceased donor recipients to find the common thread, they must deal with a new intrusion. House has hired Lucas (guest star Michael Weston), a private investigator, to dig up information about the deceased despite the team’s skepticism. Meanwhile, House auditions new best friends to replace Wilson, and soon uses Lucas for his own personal means to spy on Wilson and the other team members in the “Not Cancer” episode of HOUSE airing Tuesday, Sept. 23 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/ PT) on FOX. (HOU-502) (TV-14 D)

Cast: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House; Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy; Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman; Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson; Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron; Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase; Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub; Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner; Olivia Wilde as Thirteen

Guest Cast: Michael Weston as Lucas; Felicia Day as Apple; Tim Conlon as Dr. Laibson; Elaine Kagan as Belinda; Melissa Loprire as Girl; Christine Lucas as Emma; Denice Sealy as Nurse; Tyler Patton as Neurosurgeon; Eric Kaldor as Frank; Aimee Bell as Holly; Dennis Keiffer as Danny; David Buglione as Rico; Mark Beltzman as Tibalt Oyylant; Mike Gaines as Morgan; Jamine Alvarez as April; Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse.

IN THE AFTERMATH OF AMBER’S DEATH,
WILSON ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION
ON THE SEASON PREMIERE OF “HOUSE”
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, ON FOX

Eight weeks after the death of his girlfriend, Amber, Wilson is still mourning her death, and his relationship with his best friend House is shattered. Needing to make a change in his life and give himself time to recover emotionally, Wilson resigns from Princeton-Plainsboro. He is forced to decide if House is a destructive force in his life, while House has to determine if he’s responsible for the death of his best friend’s girlfriend. The team must push forward as they encounter a case involving an assistant to a high-profile executive, who is a textbook “Type A” personality. The team suspects that the patient’s symptoms stem from her obsession to constantly please her demanding boss. However, her shocking medical condition forces the team to rethink their initial diagnoses and see the case through House’s eyes. Meanwhile, Cuddy attempts to salvage the irreparable rift between House and Wilson, and Thirteen struggles to treat the patient objectively without bringing the reality of her own medical condition to the case in the “Dying Changes Everything” episode of HOUSE airing Tuesday, Sept. 16 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/ PT) on FOX. (HOU-501) (TV-14 D)

Cast: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House; Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy; Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman; Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson; Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron; Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase; Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub; Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner; Olivia Wilde as Thirteen

Guest Cast: Christine Woods as Lou; Jamie Rose as Patty; David Kagen as C.E.O.; Paul Haitkin as Another Suit; Bob Sherer as Patient; Janet Song as Surgeon; Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse.

"Hugh says that movies are about a lead character changing while everybody around them stays the same and TV's kind of the opposite. I'm not sure it's quite that simple, but there's a lot of truth to that," Shore said. "I don't want to change that character dramatically, drastically. I like this character."

House introduced several new characters last season, three of whom -- Peter Jacobson's Dr. Taub, Kal Penn's Dr. Kutner and Olivia Wilde's Thirteen -- will be part of the series' regular ensemble this season.

"It made sense that that would happen after three seasons," Shore explained. "It's a three-year fellowship. Nobody's going to work with this guy ad infinitum after suffering three years of being subject to his every whim. It would have felt like a real television convention to keep the same people together."

"Day one sales were 25% bigger than the year before, and we didn't really change the price point," notes [president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Craig] Kornblau, who also says that several of U's other recent tube releases, "House, M.D.: Season Four" and "Heroes: Season Two," are selling 25% above the studio's original expectations. Kornblau expects "Heroes" to again eclipse the 1 million unit mark.

Under a pact with producer Universal Media Studios, Laurie's salary is expected to rise to the neighborhood of $400,000 an episode or more than $9 million a year. He also would get some sort of producing credit on the medical drama, which returns for a fifth season Tuesday. The deal also adds another year to the actor's contract on the series, assuring he will stay on at least through the 2011-12 season.

''Stupid, stupid, stupid!'' Hugh Laurie chants over and over, his eyes closed. The actors around him try to give the star as much space as they can in this tightly staged elevator scene. Is he throwing a tantrum? Engaging in a moment of self-castigation? Hardly — he's practicing. The line he's supposed to deliver to his team of underlings, Kutner (Kal Penn), Thirteen (Olivia Wilde), and Taub (Peter Jacobson), is this: ''Tell her that the thing about emotional reactions is that they're irrational — or stupid.'' But for some reason, ''stupid'' isn't coming out American enough to the British star. ''It just doesn't sound right,'' he says. The camera rolls, the director calls ''Action!'' Again, to the untrained ear, Laurie's ''stupid'' sounds about as Yankee as baseball. ''Nope, one more time. Sorry.'' Surely, eight episodes into House's fifth season, the actor who's won two Golden Globes playing Dr. Caustic can relax about two tiny syllables? ''The accent is the most frustrating thing for me,'' Laurie says later. ''Almost everything else you do in life gets easier the more you do it. This one doesn't.''

According to a publicist for the studio that produces House, "Breckin guest stars on the show in the coming season as a struggling artist—a painter whose undiagnosed illness distorts his work and his perception, and threatens to undermine his career, his relationship, everything in his life. Of course, this leads House and his team to uncover a much deeper, darker secret beneath Breckin's canvases."

Question: Huh? Fox's official House site lists Thirteen's real name as Rena Hadley. I thought her real name was Remy? -- Polly
Ausiello: It was! It is! A House rep tells me someone goofed and listed her name as Rena on the site. It should be fixed by the time you read this.