It just occurred to me that House is Hugh Lurie.

It seems such a switch in character performance from what I know him from (Blackadder, Jeeves & Wooster, etc) that I never made the connection beyond, "hey that guy seems familiar."

Guess I wasn't paying attention when the show premiered and just wrote it off as "unlikeable doctor gets away with behavior he'd be fired for in the real world" kinda show.

So, should I watch this, then?

I actually watched it for the first time about a month ago and enjoyed the hell out of it. I was pretty surprised, not being one for medical dramas, but it's really Hugh who makes the show. He's quite entertaining. Omar Epps is pretty good too. So yeah, in terms of mainstream primetime shows, you could do worse. Give it a shot when it goes into summer repeats.

It's pretty amazing that a guy can go from the clown geek on Black Adder to an alleged sex symbol some 20 years later.

Gives hope for gangly 45 year olds everywhere

i too thought the premise was laughibly bad, but it is really great and keeps getting better.