House and Neruda

Two quick reviews.

1) House M.D. Season 4: We have enjoyed watching House over the past year or two. It is smart and funny, and each episode is like a Sherlock Holmes story. But the dysfunctionality of the characters is getting painfully predictable. Near the end of season 4, just when one of the characters was starting to show some positive change out of dysfunction, they killed off the catalyst. Argghh. The show seems to revolve around House's mantra that people don't change. That's getting a little frustrating, but not so much as to ruin the whole show. We tried to start season 5 last night, but couldn't get it to load.
Also, the writers did a surprisingly good job of incorporating the new set of characters into the story line.
However, here's a big downer. The show seemed to get a little more soap-opera-like. In one scene - in which House really jumped the shark for us - all of House's team gets paged to find their patient passed out in a hallway. It's so melodramatic. If the nurses saw that the patient had fallen and took the time to page House's team, why didn't they attend to the patient instead of waiting for Houses team to come running from various ends of the hospital???
Over all rating: jjj.
(If anyone has recomendations for good TV shows, Sarah and I are in the market for a new series. Korean shows are also welcome.)

2) Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda. (Thanks to my friend Sarah Gu for this loaner.) This is a short little book of love poems packed with images from nature. I'm not sure if they are all about the same woman or not, but poor Pablo seems to have his heart broken again and again. They are alternatingly beautifully sensual and oddly confusing. Sometimes I couldn't quite tell what he was talking about - possibly because they are translated from Spanish. Neruda is Chilean and won a Nobel Prize for his writings in 1971. Even though some of the poetry soared and raced, the confusing parts take it back to a basic rating of: jjj.
(I enjoyed reading poetry for a change, so if anyone has a good book of poetry, I'd be happy to make your shelf lighter for a month or so.)