Oh No, Not the New Girl!

I'm taking a break from "House." This is not because I dislike the title character's new relationship with his lovely female superior. On the contrary. I can't wait to see the pair hit the skids and the inevitable workplace fallout. Rather, and I am ashamed to admit this, I'm staying away from the series until Amber Tamblyn's guest run as a newly recruited medical student on the show is over, or at least until Olivia Wilde comes back, or Tamblyn's settled into the show's universe for a few months. I really have no excuse for being apprehensive. It's been years since Tamblyn was trembly-lipped Emily Quartermaine on "General Hospital" and Joan from the cloying "Joan of Arcadia," and she deserves a chance as much as anyone.

And yet, the immediate thought that entered into my head when I first heard about the casting decision was, oh good grief. Another photogenic twenty-something actress of dubious acting ability being shoehorned into the established cast of one of my favorite television shows to introduce more sexual tension, draw in younger viewers, and muck up the status quo. I know that part of this is simply ingrained resistance to change, but it's just as much a reaction to too many past experiences where these kinds of additions have been done badly. Cast changes are often the shark-jumping moments when a long-running show begins its inevitable decline. And when they happen as late in the game as this, you often get a Cousin Oliver situation, a la the infamous introduction of a bratty younger relative to "The Brady Bunch" in one of its later seasons. "House" is currently in year six, and is threatening to actually resolve several character and story arcs, so it's understandable why the producers are looking for new sources of conflict. But tossing a new girl into the mix just seems desperate and cheap at this point.

I have a similar gut reaction about Julia Stiles joining the cast of "Dexter" for the fourth season, even though I like Julia Stiles. And it'll be the same with whoever they get to fill A.J. Cook's spot on "Criminal Minds." "House" itself has been through a round of cast changes already. It was a smooth transition adding Olivia Wilde to the cast as Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley, because two other cast members were rotated in with her and the transition period was much longer. On the other hand, it doesn't help that she was quickly paired up with Foreman, and now Chase is pursuing her. I know there's been a gender imbalance since Jennifer Morrison departed the show and Olivia Wilde is on leave, so the addition of a new female character should be something to look forward to. And I know I wouldn't have these same apprehensions if it was a new guy coming on board as opposed to a new girl, and it's stereotyping to assume that Tamblyn is being introduced simply to add another option to the staff hookups that "House" indulges in. And yet the nagging unease persists.

I've blogged before about my dissatisfaction with the way female characters are underrepresented or sidelined in the media, and the way that many of the creative types behind the scenes view them as interchangeable. We're a long way from the days when producers could write Suzanne Sommers off "Three's Company" over contract disputes without consequence, but A.J. Cook was unceremoniously dropped from "Criminal Minds" this season over budget cuts, with Paget Brewster soon to follow. There's still a significant gap between how male and female characters function in fictional narratives on television, how much screentime they get, and how they're treated in general. A new girl isn't just a new castmember, but a walking plot device that too many shows have bungled. Whether Tamblyn turns out to be a good fit on "House" or not, I'm skipping out on the first few episodes that will feature her because I have no interest in watching the usual rounds of salacious gossip and awkward adjustment that tend to accompany similar newbies.

Just looking at Amber Tamblyn's filmmography and reading the descriptions of her character on "House," it's clear she's going to be a wide-eyed young idealist who will initially be in over her head on House's team of diagnosticians. In other words, she'll be an easy target for House's curmudgeonly snark, which is bound to resurface over the course of the season. And given that she bears no resemblance to the three doctors House hired during Season Four, in either experience or temperament, the real medical mystery is going to be what kind of convoluted logic the writers are going to use for House to justify hiring her. As much as I enjoy watching House's cynical smackdown of naivete and positivism on the show, this feels too easy. Maybe I'm wrong and Tamblyn will turn out to be a cynic or a firebrand, but right now the feeling I get is that she'll be a younger retread of Jennifer Morrison's Cameron from the early seasons of the show, another cardboard cutout to add to the roster of underused secondary characters.

Maybe while Olivia Wilde was on vacation, they could have given Foreman a mini-arc or looked into Taub's marriage problems a little more in-depth. The biggest bone I have to pick with the new girl, is that she's frequently a distraction from a long-running show's real problems - narrative stagnation and lack of ideas. The writers could have used Wilde's absence to do all sorts of interesting things, or brought back plenty of characters from the past to stir up trouble, but instead they're going the safe route with a fresh face and the same old story.