That's right! Here comes the feminist to suck the fun out of everything! And this is really just scratching the surface. I could write a whole essay on "Amber vs Thirteen" alone.

Spoilers for 409 - Games.



Rating: Very Wrong

Cuddy
At the beginning of House, MD, Cuddy, House's boss, is the strongest of the two female characters in the main cast, if not one of the best characters overall. The pilot episode quickly establishes her dynamic with House – House does everything in his power to subvert her authority, while she often gives him a smack down. Other times, House simply outsmarts her, or Cuddy weighs the cost of his insanity against the value of his genius – an interesting and sincere conflict for her character.

When Cuddy arrives, House runs away from her, and Chase even declares that Cuddy is scarier than House. Cuddy is the bitch in heels, and although she wears entirely inappropriate clothing to work, it's funny and almost ironic since she is actually very competent at her job.

Yes, House often makes sexual remarks to her and she does nothing about it – but that's because it's not a case of “man bad, woman good”; Cuddy can choose to shut House up if she really wants to, but the sexual banter is how they talk. Furthermore, Cuddy is able to outwit House with her comments from time to time. (“Yeah, your big cane is real subtle.”) Underneath the sniping, Cuddy has a respect for House, which he reciprocates, and they clearly enjoy each other's company.

Cuddy's established as an equal to House early on, and without being played up as a love interest, she comes off as an appealing option.

Perhaps the writers didn't know how to handle a female character with such a hard edge, as Cuddy is softened beyond reasonable in Season 2. Cuddy is established as a mediocre doctor, refuses to disengage from a case she is emotionally involved in (203 – Humpty Dumpty), and sets out to have a baby.

But at least in Season 2, Cuddy still had some bite; in Season 3, Cuddy is truly the ultimate doormat. She talks the talk, but rarely, if ever follows through on her demands and threats. After perjuring herself to keep House out of jail, she threatens to have him sent to jail if he doesn't work in the clinic. House calls her on the bluff, but Cuddy tells him that he owes her. So what does House do? Flaunts her authority just as badly as before, if not worse, completely disrespecting her – not just as a boss, but as a friend. And Cuddy just lets him, playing games and bribing him rather than just telling him to do his goddamn job.

Somehow, Cuddy's character manages to degrade further in Season 4. Although Bitch magazine drooled over her prior to the season premier, Cuddy leaves a lot to be desired. She's no longer even a shadow of the woman she used to be: instead of acting like House's boss, she behaves as though she is powerless against his wacky ways. She refuses to put him in his place, presumably because she has the hots for him – after all, she spends her day flitting about House (doesn't she have a hospital to run?), being cute and flirty. Her revealing clothing is no longer funny; it now suggests that she didn't get to the top on her merits.

Since the latter half of Season 3, the show has been playing up the so-called “sexual tension” between her and House – except, it's utterly contrived (stealing her panties?), especially when contrasted against the organic energy between them in the first season. And, quite frankly, the idea of House sleeping with someone he doesn't respect isn't exactly appealing.

HINT: Hey, David Shore, remember making a comment about how you didn't want to have caricatures for House to just steamroll? Guess what, that's exactly what happened with Cuddy – which is insulting to both characters and the show. Here's an easy out: let's just say the hormones from the fertility treatments caused Cuddy to act batshit for the past two years. At the very least, don't let Cuddy and House sleep together as long as she acts this way.


Cameron
The other female in the main cast is Cameron, one of House's three employees. She's young (Jennifer Morrison is 24 at the start of the show, but, logically, Cameron could not have been that young), pretty in a generic way, and has a raging crush on House. Cameron is entirely too emotionally involved with her patients from the beginning, but at least this is presented as a flaw (and unprofessional), so as Season 1 airs, one expects her to overcome this sometime in the future. Does she? I think that's supposed to be a “yes.”

Adding to her unprofessionalism and acting younger than she is, Cameron has a delusional romantic interest in her boss that she handles in completely inappropriate ways: “Do you like me?” “You just can't handle your feelings for me!” “I'm allowed to sexually harass my boss.” And she even has the nerve to say, “I thought you couldn't love anyone. But you just couldn't love me.” Cameron sounds like she's a middle schooler with a stupid crush, not a professional woman in her thirties attempting to pursue an adult relationship.

Cameron ends up essentially manipulating House into a date he doesn't want to go on – he wants her to come back to work because he thinks she's a good doctor, but Cameron says that's “not good enough.” Well, now we know her priorities. On the date, Cameron performs more juvenile antics, forming an argument for why House must have feelings for her, and that there's no way he can convince her otherwise. House ends up analyzing her in return, and more accurately, and after the botched date, she makes the immature decision that she “hates” House now, but continues to have far too much interest in his personal life and defends him if anyone dare say something bad about him.

But that should be the end of that storyline, right? No – we're forced to watch more of this painfully one-sided crap. Cameron devises an unworkable scheme in Season 3 to get House's blood by distracting him with a kiss, a transparent excuse for them to lock lips, both on Cameron's part and the writers'. Most of the season, Cameron at times comes off as borderline stalkerish, like a deranged fangirl who must have House or no one else can. Thankfully, Season 3 closes on a note that indicates she's finally “over” him and she moves onto Chase, who actually has feelings for her.

Season 4 begins promisingly enough; Cameron is a little flirty in her exchanges with House, but she doesn't seem determined to hump his leg like before. In fact, they almost seem like friends; without the “will they or won't they,” their dynamic seems stronger and more authentic. But that's too much to ask for, of course. A few episodes in, Cameron says, on camera, “I love Dr. House,” then proceeds to flip out. Cameron is not over House, after all. Clever! Except, not. It's just old at this point. And it's unnatural to harbor a one-sided crush (because this is not what love looks like) for three years.

Additionally, Cameron is shockingly underdeveloped when you actually take a close look at what's been revealed about her during the series. She's initially supposed to be mysterious, but that “trait” is gradually dropped, and all she has is her obsession with House. Sadly, Cameron's life apparently revolves around men – her deep, dark past is that she married a dying man, which she repeatedly brings up. Most of her run on the show thus far has been about her crush on House, or screwing Chase's brains out around the hospital.

HINT: Cameron has an interesting and deliciously complex relationship with Foreman, and not in a romantic way. Both characters would benefit greatly from developing it more. Also, drop the “Cameron loves House” storyline.


Thirteen
In Season 4, House looks to hire new employees. Among the competitors, only two women are around long enough to be in the running. Seriously, two? Anyway, one of them is “Thirteen,” who is, no denying, eerily similar to Cameron: she's atrociously young (Olivia Wilde is only 23), shares similar looks, and is supposedly mysterious. She's far more confident than Season 1 Cameron, which at first seems to be a plus for her character.

However, Thirteen shares many mannerisms with Cameron: the smug smile, getting into House's personal space, “caring.” Unsurprisingly, Thirteen's mystery falls flatter than Cameron's, coming off more as blandness: most viewers seem to be able to take her or leave her, she's so nothing. Even the majority of the cast has no reaction to her: beyond the short-lived friendship between her and Cole, Amber's hate for her, and House's irrational and out of character favoritism, she doesn't exactly shake things up - and wasn't that the point of adding new characters?

For some reason, House irrationally favors her. Supposedly, it's because of her “mystery,” but much more likely because of her looks – which was amusing when he claimed to have hired Cameron for being beautiful, because he admitted it was a puzzle and Cameron felt insulted. In “Ugly,” House acts stupid around Dr. Terzi because he's attracted to her; he shows the same stupid behavior around Thirteen, who has killed a patient (and his dog!) over a careless mistake, got her head screwed with far too easily by both Amber and House, and refused to believe a druggie's health problems just might have to do with drugs. It's unnecessary and insulting, since Thirteen is portrayed as competent in her first appearance. But, apparently, looks trump actual skill.

Thirteen is given a tragic past – her mother died young – and a tragic future – she might have Huntington's, oh no! Even when she screws up, she somehow comes off as being perfect and House would never fire her. The show firmly establishes that House thinks she's “hot” (something any idiot can deduce). This, combined with his favoritism, spells even more forced sexual tension in a similar vein as Cameron's storylines. And, really, whatever happened to age-appropriate love interests like...Stacy? (Or the patient's mother in “Merry Little Christmas”? She's universally popular.)

I have nothing against Olivia Wilde, but she, like Jennifer Morrison, is a weak actor. The two of them, in fact, are the weakest, and in their scenes with House, Hugh Laurie has to carry them. The rest of the cast is so strong, that it's apparent they were both hired because they fulfilled the criteria of “young and pretty.”

HINT: If Thirteen can't get booted or die unexpectedly, how about rounding out her character? Just say no to sexual tension, and stop letting her “get” House instantaneously and bending him out of character. Develop her relationship with her coworkers, in a non-romantic context. Let's see her angst over killing a patient a bit more (Foreman and Chase have done the same, and at least they seemed upset for more than five minutes). I know it's hard, but don't let her fall into the same trap as Cameron and let her life be about men. Let Thirteen be competent as a doctor and let that stand on its own.


Amber
The other competing female candidate is Amber Volakis, the anti-Cameron, the anti-Thirteen. She's the new bitch in heels; no, she's just the Bitch with a capital B. Amber's motivated to diagnose and win the competition because of her intense desire to be right – because if she's right, she's valuable, and people will have to listen to her. This is precisely the same insecurity that our leading man has (he states it himself in Season 3's “Son of a Coma Guy,” if you want to check). So Amber is, in some ways, a female House. Fellow feminists and anyone not deluding themselves can guess how the end to this story goes.

While House's behavior is fun, cool, and perfectly fine with the audience and most of the characters, Amber, being a woman, is called a bitch for acting the same way and showing no shame (as opposed to Thirteen, who wears a nice face as she acts like a bitch herself). Thankfully, House, although taking glee in referring to her as “Cut-Throat Bitch,” doesn't actually endorse this sentiment. Sadly, the hate for Amber seems greater than the neutrality towards Thirteen. Just when you think society's made progress, blatant sexism turns rears its ugly head.

Amber actually solves one of the cases and often comes close to the right answer, so she's incredibly competent. But Amber doesn't have the same, generic, mass-market looks of Cameron and Thirteen to back up her qualifications; in fact, she looks more like a regular person than a supermodel. She's also not young enough for TV's taste: Anne Dudek is 32.

The argument can not even be made that she doesn't care about her patients, when, in fact, the opposite has been shown. In “Mirror, Mirror,” when the other candidates are busy squabbling about the game, Amber is concerned about keeping the patient alive. In her final episode, “Games,” Amber goes to check on the patient even after being fired. Amber likes to be right, so what? She's cut-throat? Good. She knows in the end, it will benefit her patient. (Which, again, makes her similar to House.)

Obviously, the Bitch got the boot. Unfortunate. Even if everyone didn't like her, at least she elicited some kind of response from the audience and the other characters.

HINT: Short of bringing her back, there's not much to be done to fix this blunder. The story arc should have ended with her being hired (because firing her is a punishment for daring to be a woman and unapologetically cut-throat), and not even necessarily in place of Thirteen – why can't there be two women on board? Plus, they were developing a rivalry that wasn't born of interest in the same man. Interesting and unique relationships between and among women alone isn't seen enough on TV.