(Don’t worry, the memorial isn’t for Dr. House). Like all of you, I was completely shocked by Monday’s episode of House. If you haven’t seen it yet, then why the hell are you reading this? Go watch it. However, if you just can’t tear your little peepers away from my brilliant prose, I’ll humor you and wait until after the jump to talk about the big twist that turned me into a confused, stuttering mess.
But suffice it to say, somebody dies on House. It was a very serious episode that was brilliant in its realism. So why would FOX cheapen it by putting a tacky memorial up on Fox.com?
If you haven’t seen it yet, go take a look at www.fox.com/kutner. Ordinarily, I’m all for website tie-ins for TV shows, but this one really doesn’t sit well with me. I was on the conference call yesterday with Kal Penn and House Executive Producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs, and someone of course asked about the memorial site. Jacobs specifically said that they made the site to let viewers know that this was important to them, and that Kutner’s death isn’t something they’re just moving on from.
That’s all well and good, but the execution just seems a little tin-eared to me. From what I’ve read from viewers, this episode hit home for a lot of people who have experienced suicide in their lives. The audience is taking this episode very seriously, and having a Facebook page complete with embeddable badges really diminishes the weight that this issue has.
The memorial video has lovely music that was composed by Hugh Laurie, and it gives fans some nice highlights of Penn’s time on the show, which gives the actor a nice sendoff as he embarks on the next phase of his career. While it’s well done, it would have seemed more appropriate had Kutner died in a different way; in more of a “TV” way.
At the end of the episode, producers showed a hotline number that people could call to get help if they were having problems and thinking about suicide. The Kutner memorial page would have been much better served with more information about that and other suicide resources, instead of a poorly-written fake obituary (“after a couple of years in foster care,” really? Does that sound obituary-like to you?).
In the end, this memorial page is undone by the strength of the episode. “Simple Explanation” deserves to stand on its own. It will certainly go down in television history as one of House‘s greatest achievements, but the Kutner memorial page does nothing more than cheapen something that for my money, is one of the greatest episodes of television I have ever seen.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Apr 09, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Make me down for creepy.
It could have been great if they made the website about his suicide and all suicides in general, give the hotline number and make it classy and serious. An 11 year old in the city next to mine hung himself at his aunt’s house, suicide is a huge issue and Fox blew a chance to do some good.
Can we please be done with this now?
It really don’t care about the death of Kutner. To be honest with all the bickering about how bad House has become this season I don’t really see a reason why we have to dissect this death in such extreme detail. I mean even the interview with Ausiello leaves me with this feeling of “meh”. Who cares. Oreo mentioned this yesterday – we didn’t know squat about Kutner so why do we care about him now all of a sudden? Badly developed character – bad memorial page. Seems to fit.