Sure People magazine called Hugh Laurie one of the world’s sexiest men. And yes, millions of women tune in each week to catch a glimpse of the smoldering curmudgeon. But Fox Network’s House is a delight for the eyes in more ways than watching beautiful doctors heal the sick and play god. One of my favorite reasons to watch House is the artistic camera shots and special effects, making it more than just a TV show, elevating it to the artful.

Last night’s episode (#507, The Itch) opened with the weaving and bobbing of the camera, which persisted on and off throughout the show, depicting the confusion, inner turmoil and disorientation of the agoraphobic patient that forced House to move his surgical team offsite. This move to an offsite location is yet another way the writers try to shake things up for viewers. We know the basic formula for every House show. Patient gets sick with some mysterious disease. House and Co. make a few erroneous guesses and the patient alternates between getting better and getting worse. Then, finally inspiration hits House. He pieces together the mystery, the patient is cured and House saves the day. If, week in and week out this was all to be enjoyed in House, things would get boring quick. But House is driven by its characters and our desire to see him interact with his staff, Cuddy and Wilson, not to see a patient cured each week.

In this, the producers, directors and writers get it right. Mix up the basic formula but pull us in each week to see House struggle with his own demons, terrorize and abuse people and conflict with his inner teddy bear. And it doesn’t hurt that he is so darn adorable to watch struggling, either.

30 Rock came back last week but felt a bit off. It was madcap and witty, clever and bright, but I thought too much of the episode was bookkeeping, trying to get everything back into balance. With Jack’s departure from GE at the end of last season, the world was shaken up. The writers could have pretended it never happened and started out this season back at status quo, but made the more interesting choice.

Then they spent all of one episode resolving it.

Why, why put Jack at the bottom of the ladder if the writers weren’t going to do anything with it?

What I would have liked to have seen, and what I believe would have been a richer vein of comedy for Jack, is a three-episode B-story arc seeing Jack’s meteoric rise from mail room to boardroom. Something a little like this…

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