house cane and able (2/24)
21.00–22.00

Hugh Laurie returns as the curmudgeonly medic in the third season of the acclaimed hospital drama. This week’s episode sees the doctors take on the bewildering case of a boy who claims to have been abducted by aliens.

A young boy named Clancy is unable to sleep one night when, all of a sudden, the TV flickers and a white light floods his room. The next day, Clancy’s parents discover he is missing from his bed, only to find him sprawled on the lawn and bleeding.

As Clancy arrives in hospital, House’s team debate the merits of the boy’s claim to have been abducted by aliens. House is typically cynical, but for UFO believer Chase, Clancy’s story is not entirely incredible. Chase tests to see if Clancy has a bleeding disorder and finds nothing. A second test by Foreman, however, confirms that the boy does have a disorder, leading House to think that Chase has messed up.

Clancy, meanwhile, is convinced that aliens have left a metal chip in his neck, and wanders away from his room to investigate. Chase finds him in the bathroom trying to cut the imaginary chip out of his neck – but to Chase’s surprise, there really is something under the skin.

It transpires that the chip is a titanium surgical pin that should have been removed years before. But House is more interested in the fact that Clancy’s blood is clotting again, throwing doubt on the bleeding disorder diagnosis. The case then takes another twist when a hallucination sends the boy into a hypertensive seizure. Cameron suspects a link between the blood clotting and Clancy’s excitement levels, so they run a test on his heart.

The doctors finally make a breakthrough when they discover that the DNA in Clancy’s heart does not match that in the rest of his body. Cameron suggests a plan to “light up the DNA” and remove the genes that shouldn’t be there. The procedure goes ahead, but back in his room the boy suffers another alarming hallucination in which he levitates from his bed. It would seem that not all of the ‘bad DNA’ was removed and the nature of his condition remains puzzling – he displays neurological problems but his brain scan is clear. As different theories are thrown about, House despairs. “Please, somebody give me a plausible, terrestrial explanation for this kid’s alien DNA,” he says.

When House decides to send Clancy home, the team are alarmed. “We don’t know that we’ve fixed anything,” Chase says –but House believes there is nothing more they can do. In private, Cuddy and D Wilson worry that House’s despondency may have something to do with their covering up the result of his last case (see last week’s episode, ‘Meaning’). They kept the successful outcome a secret because Wilson believes a dose of humility might temper House’s recklessness and help his recovery from drug dependency: “We have a window of time here when House may be healthy enough to change,” he says. But Cuddy suspects that House may be depressed about his apparent failure and this could be affecting his work. She is compelled to reveal her deception –but will this revelation make any difference to Clancy’s case?