An Open Letter to the Producers of Fox's House and More Generally to all Television Producers*

Dear Producers of Fox's House and other television shows,

Do you know how many people die on average in a year? No, this letter is not a threat. Approximately 2,443,387 die each year.**

What does that have to do with you?

Good question, obviously, you're the sort of people who don't want to waste their time on things that don't matter.

Assuming that people are dying at all times of year equally (which I guess you could quibble about if you were the sort of sick person who wanted to determine when people were most likely to die. You aren't those sort of people, are you???), we can assume that in a three month, say June through August, period 615,867.4 people will die. In case you were wondering, the .4 person will probably die shortly after midnight at the end of the three months; he's only partly dead.

So in June, July and August, over half a million people are going to die. They'll die from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, flu/pneumonia, even from nephrosis (that has nothing to do with fucking dead people . . . sicko). Almost 27,000 of them will die from accidents in those three months. My point is not all of these are old people who just don't care anymore and have lost all interest in the world around them. Some of these people were just trying to clean out the gutters because their wives wouldn't quit nagging at them and all of the sudden -- whoops!

Some of these people watch your show. 615,867 people will never have the chance to find out if House is going to live (okay, so it's a given that he's going to live because otherwise you would have to change the name of the show, but some people aren't as clever as you and me), will never find out if Cameron and House are going to do it, will never find out if Foreman will ever confess his burgeoning attraction to House, will never find out if House is really giving Cutty injections of heroine (you know, as a really funny joke that only he would get. Do you really want to live with that kind of guilt?

In addition, you ended the season really badly. 90% of the episode was a dream. A dream? So is Bobby going to come back from the dead next season too? Essentially, your season finale was like telling 615,897 people half of a story, then telling them that yes, that outfit makes them look fat, and you never really liked their cooking right before they die.

Smooth.

Sincerely,
Lynn Dalsing

* Open letters seem to be all the rage these days. But if you feel like being a rebel, you can consider this a closed letter.

** Stats according to National Center for Health Statistics