[Photo: © 2009 FOX Broadcasting Co.]

Kristin at E! Online gives us some inside scoop on what to expect to happen with the various relationships on House in season 6. There’s a bit of Huddy & Hameron info from Lisa Edelstein, some Foreman scoopage from Omar Epps and some teaser info about who will take over the diagnostic team in House’s absence…Cuddy perhaps?

Martin in Hackensack, N.J.: Any word on who will be in charge while House is in the mental institution?

Executive producer David Shore tells us, “We are going to have some fun with who is going to be running the diagnostics department. We’re not bringing in anyone new right now, so it’s going to be somebody you know.”

Andy in Long Beach, Calif.: What’s the Huddy scoop for the next season of House?

We asked Lisa Edelstein if she’d be visiting House in the mental hospital, to which she replied, “I hope so, unless he doesn’t want to see her.” When it comes down to it, she is rooting for Huddy to be together, but not in the way you’d expect. Says Edelstein, “I love that storyline, but not together together. I just like the torture of it all.” And for you Hameron fans, Lisa sets the record straight on if she wants to see House with Cameron? “No! Are you kidding?”

Aaron in Rancho Bernardo, Calif.: Any good news for fans of Foreteen on House?

Not likely. As Omar Epps explains, trouble at work may equal trouble for Foreteen. Says Epps, “Knowing the rhythm of our show, [their relationship] is going to progress into a brick wall.” [Source: E! Online]

House creator and executive producer David Shore tells us why they chose to have House enter the mental hospital after suffering a breakdown. He talks about whether the breakdown was a result of the Vicodin or something else. He gives us a very thought-provoking answer.

David gives us some teasers about the two-hour season premiere and what we can look forward to. But even more importantly, the question of whether House will be able to return to medical practice is discussed in this clip. Check this out!!

[Photo: © 2009 FOX Broadcasting Co.]

According to Robert Sean Leonard, who plays Wilson on House, probably not. The show’s creator, David Shore says that season 6 will deal a lot with House’s “recovery” and what happens at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital as result.

Here’s the spoiler from Michael Ausiello:

Question: Will House recover from whatever it is that landed him in the psycho ward? –Catherine

Ausiello: You mean will he stop being crazy? “No,” says Robert Sean Leonard. “It would be like Quincy suddenly getting nice and loving examining dead bodies. There are certain things that are just givens about the show, and one is the general makeup of House’s attitude and personality. He may stop hallucinating but he’d never stop being sarcastic.” Adds series creator David Shore: “It depends on how we define better. That is the question. How sick is he? Does House want to get better? Can he get better? And how much better? And how much will the team be told and how will the dynamic shift with House away? Those are the questions we are going to deal with in the first bunch of episodes, and perhaps even the whole season to a certain extent.” [Source: EW]

[Photo: Newscom.com]

When last we saw Dr. House, he was sadly entering a mental hospital, presumably to check himself in for rehab. At the Paley Center this week, the cast and producers for House gave us some info about what to expect for the show in season 6. Sadly, since I could not be there, I have to rely on other members of the press for the news.

According to Zap2It, Andre Braugher has been cast to play House’s doctor in the mental hospital. He was fantastic as the doctor on the series Gideon’s Crossing. (I loved that show!) He played a rather gruff, but extremely brilliant doc on that series and I feel very confident that he can be a serious factor in Dr. Greg House’s recovery. Great casting!!

The faceoff between Dr. House and his psych doctor will happen in the two-hour season premiere on September 21.

Series creator David Shore calls the premiere “more like a movie,” and word is the episode will take place almost entirely inside the mental facility.

[Hugh] Laurie, for his part, says he’s psyched to work with Braugher. “I have admired him as one of the greatest actors there is.”

Now I’m even more excited about the new season!!

[Photo: Zuma Press]

There’s a very comprehensive play-by-play account of the evening’s House discussion at the Paley Center last night at The Futon Critic, so I won’t re-write the entire thing. I do encourage you to go read the entire account. It’s wonderful.

I do want to share a couple of my favorite quotes from the evening, though. This first one is Hugh Laurie’s trademark wit:

When asked about House’s trip to the loony bin at the end of this season. “It’s all drawn heavily on my personal life,” Hugh quips.

SPOILER ALERT!!

Here’s a quote from David Shore about the beginning of season 6:

When asked why the season premiere will pick up shortly after the finale wrapped instead of the usual three month or so gap: “We don’t want to shake things up for the sake of shaking things up,” David says. “We just want to keep exploring this character… we’re just seeing where his life progresses and where it goes. And the end of last year obviously we did something that felt natural and real to me but is very extreme and we want to be as true to that as we can and follow up on that. So we are doing, Katie’s going to be directing a two-hour season premiere, which is basically a movie which basically follows House through that institution. And it takes place over a much longer period of time than we’re used to. And [it's about] his life in there, his search for getting better.”

And this quote is for the Huddy fans. To me, it’s hard to imagine House & Cuddy not having that chemistry, but here’s what David Shore said about it:

When asked about when the Cuddy/House ball started rolling: “Very early on,” David says. “No matter what we wrote, the two of them had this odd sexual tension. And that’s been something we’ve been nurturing and trying to explore from day one.” As for their imaginary hook-up: “I think it was significant even though it turned out not to be real. It was very significant - we got an insight into House’s subconscious.”

There’s also some of what was said to the press at The Press Association. My favorite quote from this aricle is from Lisa Edelstein:

“He’s a sexy man, he’s eight feet tall, his eyes are like ice blue, he’s extremely intelligent, really talented, what’s not sexy about Hugh Laurie?!”

I agree with her completely! Now I absolutely can’t wait for Season 6 to begin!!!

As we found out a couple of days ago, Hugh Laurie was at the Paley Center last night along with Katie Jacobs & David Shore to talk about the creative process that goes into the making of House.

I’m really sad that I couldn’t be there, but know that it had to be an amzing evening. I’ll follow this post with one that tells us all about the presentation, but I thought you would love to see some photos of Hugh Laurie that were taken at the event. Yes, he’s still got the beard, but he had it trimmed down short last night:

[Photo: Newscom.com]

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[Photo: © 2009 FOX Broadcasting Co.]

House fans in the Los Angeles area, take note! Hugh Laurie, along with House executive producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs will be speaking to press and fans at the Paley Center this Wednesday evening. I absolutely love the way LA Around Town describes Hugh:

After all, Mr. Laurie gives the sparklingest of sparkling acceptance speeches at various award shows. He was one half of that fizzy, funny, debonair duo Fry & Laurie (not to mention an unfailingly chipper Bertie Wooster). And he starred with Rowan Atkinson on “Blackadder,” which is the best history-based history sitcom in history.

The topic of the event is the creative process for creating House. It will probably be a fascinating presentation and since it’s very affordable, House fans should try to make it if at all possible. All the details are available on the Paley Center site. You can also buy tickets here.

[Thanks so much to Grace for the tip!]

[Photo: © 2009 FOX Broadcasting Co.]

At this point in the interview, Katie Jacobs & David Shore, the executive producers for House joined the conference call. There’s much more info to come…keep reading! It gets more and more interesting. What a great opportunity for Kal Penn!!

Q: Kal, is there any chance that they’ll be having you do commercials or public service spots on behalf of the Administration?

K. Penn: I don’t know. That’s not something that we discussed. I would imagine that my role is not going to be any different than the other talented staffers who are already on that team. So, I would imagine not, but I don’t know for sure.

Q: Okay, and now for the producers, I assume this is going to resonate through the rest of the season, or how long will it resonate?

D. Shore: It’ll resonate at least through the end of this season. The impact on “House” and the rest of the doctors and the people that work there… is what we’re looking forward to exploring.

Q: Are you proud you were able to keep a secret in Hollywood as well as you did?
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[Photo: © 2009 FOX Broadcasting Co.]

Whew! Finally! Here’s the complete conference call interview with Kal Penn, Katie Jacobs and David Shore. It’s so much more than you got in all the other sites’ interview posts. The entire thing is 62 typewritten pages long! No kidding! I gave you some of the highlights already, but I know you want all the scoop, just like me!

So take a second to refill your beverage of choice and start reading the interview. It’s definitely worth it for House fans!!

Q: Now, I know that you had requested to leave the show to go work for the White House, which is awesome. I just wonder; were you taken aback at all when they said that they were going to kill you off I mean because it does rob you of the opportunity to ever return to the show. Were you taken aback at all?

K. Penn: I think everyone is always taken aback with every episode on that show to be perfectly honest. I know in this case they’re unique circumstances because the character is actually being eliminated. But I feel like House is one of those shows, at least from the actor’s perspective, when we get each script every week, we really don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s on a page-to-page basis partially because obviously the writers are so brilliant in creating and crafting these characters, but also the character of House, it’s virtually impossible to get into his head.

So, we’re sort of used to going page-to-page and going, “Wow. Is this actually going to happen?” and that goes for any episode. Obviously, yes, you’re connected to the character. I love playing “Kutner” and so, there’s a little bit of shock and loss- more than a little bit of shock and loss when I found that out also, but I think that’s sort of, plot-wise, what they were going for as well. So, yes, I was probably as shocked as the audience was when I first found out.

Q: Was there any discussion of you appearing in that final episode in any capacity?

K. Penn: I was there when Olivia and Omar shot that scene, where they discover “Kutner”.

Q: So, those were your legs?

K. Penn: They were.
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I just got off the phone from a conference call interview with Kal Penn who played Dr. Laurence Kutner and Executive Producers for House, Katie Jacobs and David Shore. They talked for over an hour and answered so many questions about Kutner’s suicide and Kal Penn’s new opportunity. I will have the entire interview for you as quickly as possible, but I wanted to give you a few of the highlights right away because I know you want answers.

First of all, it’s a sad occasion because a beloved character on our favorite show, House, has committed suicide and will no longer be a part of the show.

But secondly, and even more importantly, it was the way the producers chose to have Kal Penn’s character leave after he gave them the wonderful news that he will be taking a position working for the Obama administration in Washington D.C.

Kal Is very excited to let us all know that he found out in December that he will be joining the Office of the Public Liaison for the White House. He had worked diligently during the Obama campaign and had approached Barack Obama about his desire to be a part of the new administration. He was apparently chosen because of his qualifications, and not because of his celebrity.

Kal is very excited and eager to start his new position in Washington as soon as possible. He’ll be moving to Washington and will have to deal with the same horrible real estate market we all deal with when deciding what to do with his house in Los Angeles, but he feels it is more than worth it.

I want to say first and foremost to him:

And now on with the House-related information I know you are looking for. David Shore was adamant about the fact that the decision to have a character leave would not have happened if Kal had not announced he was leaving to take the new opportunity. There were no budget constraints involved, and we would not have lost a character otherwise.

Katie Jacobs & David Shore told us that now that the tragedy has unfolded, we will see each of the characters on the show react in their own different way, much like the way people react to such an event in real life.

Katie explained that the web site memoriam for Kutner was done so people could have a place to share their thoughts and to know that the event was not planned lightly.

She also wants people to know that suicide is a medical illness and needs to be treated as one. The information about the National Alliance for Mental Illness and the suicide prevention hotline were given in hopes of perhaps preventing anyone in the audience from contemplating suicide themselves.

Now that this has happened, Katie said numerous times that “Kutner is irreplaceable.” They will not be bringing in a new team member to replace him. We will also be seeing Cameron & Chase move more to the forefront on the show. That’s good news for Cameron & Chase fans.

Kal said that he knew of the plans to have Kutner commit a totally unexpected suicide only since the work on the 17th episode this season and had to keep it to himself since then.

David & Katie said that they considered many possible ways that Kutner could leave the show, but that this was the way that would have the most impact on House. He’s the man with all the answers and he does not have any answers about this.

By the way, David Shore was very clear that there was no foreshadowing on the show. There were no hidden clues and anyone who tries to read them into the previous episodes will only be doing what House has done, try to get answers that aren’t there.

Again, I will finish the full episode recap for you as quickly as I can today, and will have the interview posted in its entirety for you as soon as I can.

I have to admit that I feel much less bitter this morning after finding all of this out. I actually didn’t sleep well last night because of the episode.

Stay tuned. There’s still much more information unfolding today and I’ll do my best to get it for you. WOW! What a surprise this all is!!