Jay Bobbin, Tribune Media Services

Hugh Laurie stars in 'House', Tuesdays at 9, on Fox.

Finally, Dr. Gregory House makes someone mad enough to strike back. Not known for his bedside manner, the typically curt medic (played by Hugh Laurie) earns a new enemy in the police detective (guest star David Morse) he treats as a six-episode House arc starts Tuesday, October 31, on Fox.

Seeking help at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital for an apparent infection, the cop is enraged by House's standard behaviour. He soon gets the means to even the score, and House gets an education in rubbing somebody the wrong way - not that it will change him, or he wouldn't be House.

Most recently a series star in Hack, soft-spoken Philadelphia resident Morse knows medical drama, having been on board for the whole six-year run of St. Elsewhere in the 1980s. "We had the largest audience in our last season that we'd ever had," he recalls. "I felt what we did, in a way, was to prepare audiences for shows like ER. They took it in their direction and had great success with it.

"One of the things St. Elsewhere did was to push the boundaries of storytelling, and I feel series such as House have benefited. That show is pushing the edges in its own way with the medical stories it tells, and I think it's great. The more we challenge ourselves as storytellers, the better the stories are going to be."

With his recent run in feature films from The Green Mile to 16 Blocks, Morse wasn't looking for television work, but he knew House creator-producer David Shore from Hack. "I don't tend to watch anything except news and some sports, but when I started telling people House was interested in me, they went, 'Oh, my gosh, it's my favourite show! You've gotta do it!' I said, 'Well, OK. I'll talk to them.' "

Not only did Morse do that, he began watching the series and liked what he saw. "I watched this guy getting really cranky with people who looked like interns following him around, and I thought, 'Are they really getting away with this?' I developed an opinion about the guy, and it's been kind of fun to get to express that."

Immediate inspiration

British talent Laurie evidently provides immediate inspiration. "He's terrific," Morse says, "not just as an actor, but also as a person. He'll always be the heart of that show. Everyone there, including the crew, loves him and has great respect for him. There's no ego; it's just about getting in there, having fun in the scenes and letting the characters live. As an actor, you can't ask for more than that."

As Dr. Jack Morrison on St. Elsewhere, Morse was the image of righteousness, but he has played a number of devious turncoats since. "It's what all actors face," he reasons of the House stint that makes him nasty again. "When I was doing St. Elsewhere, I played nice and sensitive, and I couldn't get a break from that for a long time. You start playing some bad guys, and people think you'll always be that. I don't know if there's a way around it; it just seems to go with the territory.

"In the conversation with (the House producers), I expressed that concern. I didn't want to just be a bad guy on the show. Their feeling was that they wanted someone who was the equal of House, somebody who could really stand toe to toe with him and be as complicated, as lonely and as obsessed with his work. He 'gets' who House is on all levels and can really shake his foundation. That was interesting to me."