Radio Times

Episode 1/16 Alone

A woman is pulled from the debris of a building that has collapsed and is rushed to hospital. As the doctors treat her extensive injuries, they note that she has an unexplained fever. Despite the fact he has no team to assist him, Cuddy forces House to take the case. House suspects an infection is to blame - but what caused it? Meanwhile, someone is holding his beloved guitar hostage.

RT Choice (Alison Graham, 20 March 2008)

This fourth series of House, truncated by the writers' strike, came in for considerable flak when it was broadcast in America, mostly from fans angered by the absence of the brilliant doctor's trio of acolytes: Chase, Cameron and Foreman.

Episode 2/16 The Right Stuff

A female candidate for astronaut training contacts House complaining of synaesthesia - she is "seeing" with her ears. She's adamant about keeping her condition a secret from Nasa - which makes House wonder what she's got to hide. He puts the candidates for Cameron, Chase and Foreman's jobs on the case. Meanwhile, he's convinced he keeps seeing his former colleagues in the hospital corridors.

RT Choice (Alison Graham, 27 March 2008)

Though not without flashes of brilliance, it all feels a bit flat. Nothing to do with the absence of [House's] boring trio of underlings, mind you (unfortunately, the dullest of them, Cameron, re-appears this week, we can hope only briefly). It's just that the format feels tired, and House himself seems weary of being rude.

Episode 3/16 97 Seconds

A young man in a wheelchair loses consciousness in the middle of the street. House divides the remaining Fellowship hopefuls into two teams - men v women - to investigate the latest baffling case. Meanwhile, he becomes obsessed with a patient who electrocuted himself after seeking treatment for injuries sustained in a car crash. Elsewhere, Foreman struggles to work with new boss Schaffer.

RT Choice (Alison Graham, 3 April 2008)

The House-isms haven't exactly been coming thick and fast in this latest, so far lacklustre, series, so it's good to hear the good doctor returning to something approaching his previous blackly comic form when he snaps at a young female student hopeful, "You're hiding something…Turkish prison? Gay porn?" All right, so it's not brilliant, but it's a start.

Episode 4/16 Guardian Angels

Irene Walesa, who works at an undertaker's, suffers a seizure and visualises the dead coming back to life. As House and the remaining Fellows get to work on her case, she develops new symptoms. Notwithstanding all the medical tests, it's a debate about religion and scientific beliefs that provides the answer to her condition. Meanwhile, Cuddy's got a proposition for Foreman, who's looking for a new job.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 10 April 2008)

This episode begins with a mortuary worker being attacked by corpses and ends with a parody of reality shows (House fires one of his students with a cheesy air of suspense). There's also a Charlie's Angels reference, some creepy hallucinations, a daft bet between House and Cameron, and a digging-up-a-coffin scene. So, on the face of it, there's plenty to enjoy.

Episode 5/16 Mirror Mirror

A mugger calls the emergency services when his victim suffers respiratory failure. Once the patient is admitted to hospital, he begins mimicking the behaviour of the doctors around him. The battle to diagnose him is made even more difficult by the fact he suffers from memory loss, so the medics must think outside the box to obtain a medical history. House, meanwhile, sets about punishing Cuddy for employing Foreman.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 17 April 2008)

Suddenly House has become a series where doctors get into funny scrapes, trade wisecracks and end up learning life lessons. The thing is, we already have a show like that. It's called Scrubs. What House needs if it's not going to melt into a goofy sitcom is a bit more jeopardy, a sense that there's something at stake when House does horrible things to people, because we're supposed to be in the real world and not Comedyville. Mind you, tonight's episode is no less enjoyable for being a bit of a farce.

Episode 6/16 Whatever It Takes

The CIA draft in House and Dr Curtis, a consultant from the Mayo clinic, to treat an operative they fear has been poisoned. The two clash over the best course of treatment for their patient, but it's not all bad - House also meets the beautiful Dr Terzi at the CIA hospital. Meanwhile, Foreman leads attempts to diagnose a drag racer who lost consciousness after a competition.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 24 April 2008)

This is more like it. At last House is back on song, with a funny, dramatic, two-pronged episode that includes a couple of splendidly devious twists.

Episode 7/16 Ugly

Teenager Kenny Arnold suffers cardiac arrest as he's being prepped for facial reconstruction surgery. The film crew who are paying for the procedure demand full access as the doctors focus on this new medical problem, forcing House to come up with believable excuses for ditching them so that his team can brainstorm without being afraid of sounding stupid. As the case progresses, he worries he's misjudged Dr Terzi.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 1 May 2008)

A light, tight episode with a hint of satire on the wicked ways of TV.

Episode 8/16 You Don't Want to Know

The medics ponder the case of Finn, a magician whose heart stopped during a re-creation of Houdini's famous water chamber trick. At first, House thinks the illusionist is faking, but it quickly becomes clear he's suffering from a serious illness. Meanwhile, he sets the Fellows a typically unorthodox challenge, and tries to find out what secret Thirteen is hiding.

Episode 9/16 Games

Cuddy puts House under pressure to fill the vacancies on his team. House tells the Fellows that diagnosing Jimmy Quidd, a hard-living rock musician who collapsed shortly before a gig, will be their final test. Wilson discovers that he has wrongly diagnosed a healthy patient as having terminal cancer, but the man's reaction when Wilson tells him the good news is totally unexpected.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 15 May 2008)

Let us rejoice and be glad. The extended reality-show-type contest via which House has been choosing his new batch of recruits is coming to an end. By the close of tonight's enjoyable episode he has made his final pick - after a few last twists. But the choicest moments come in House's dealings with his peers, Cuddy and Wilson. In one scene, he relishes his best friend's discomfort in a confrontation with a cancer patient. Without giving too much away, it's the kind of tragicomic, farcical-but-philosophical scene that House can still pull off brilliantly.

Episode 10/16 It's a Wonderful Lie

The Fellows ponder the case of Maggie, who was admitted to hospital after her hands became paralysed. Her symptoms become progressively worse as she loses her sight, suffers respiratory problems, and bleeds from her eyes. Daughter Jane could provide the cure for her condition. Why is Maggie so resistant to the idea of her helping? House, meanwhile, proposes the Fellows take part in Secret Santa - but, as ever, his motives are far from pure.

RT Choice (David Butcher, 22 May 2008)

There are so many snappy, philosophical exchanges between House and his colleagues that you almost long for a change of pace, a kink in the formula. But there are treats, too - as when House says of Santa: "You know, I worship him. No wait, do I mean Satan? I always get them confused…"

And there's an outrageous storyline involving House and a female clinic patient, the implications of which may suggest why the episode wasn't aired in America until a month or so after Christmas. It's filthy.

Episode 11/16 Frozen

Cate Milton, a doctor working at a base in the South Pole, collapses with agonising stomach pain. Using teleconferencing technology to contact her, House gets Cate to run vital tests on herself. He also talks to her from home via a webcam, leading Wilson to suspect that his friend's interest in her case goes beyond the professional. Meanwhile, House is keen to uncover the identity of Wilson's new girlfriend.

RT Choice (Alison Graham, 29 May 2008)

It's a masterly episode that plays brilliantly with the sexual tension between Cate, the psychiatrist, and House. They never meet, but that makes their rather sweet and delicate flirting all the more delicious. And sexy. As he guides her remotely through a full-body self-examination with her webcam, it feels as intimate as if they were actually…well, never mind.

Sorvino is perfect as a clever, resourceful and brave woman who has to perform her own biopsy, while House, for once, becomes wrapped up in her plight as he grows increasingly fearful that she may be doomed. At long last, albeit briefly, there's a woman in House's life who is actually worthy of him.

Episode 12/16 Don't Ever Change

Bride Roz Viner falls ill during the hora, a traditional Jewish wedding dance. She admits to a wild lifestyle before she converted to the Hasidic Orthodox faith. Could the clue to her condition lie in her hard-living past? House questions Wilson and Amber's motives for dating one another - he just can't accept that they might truly be in love.

RT Choice (Alison Graham, 5 June 2008)

Now all that Apprentice-type "you're fired" nonsense is over, and House has a good, sparky new team, this drama is starting to shine in ways it hasn't shone for some time. Hugh Laurie as House is at his most malevolent, and there's much more of Wilson - always a neat foil for his twisted "best friend".

Now, if we could just dispense with the tiresome, little-seen Chase, Cameron and Foreman, everything in the House would be just peachy.

Episode 13/16 No More Mr Nice Guy

Jeff Tallridge, the husband of a nurse who works at the hospital, suffers fainting spells and his sense of taste is affected. Soon after he's admitted he suffers a stroke and his condition steadily worsens. When the team tell her that Jeff's easy-going personality could be a result of his illness, wife Deb begins to wonder if the man she fell in love with ever really existed. Meanwhile, House negotiates with Amber to spend time with Wilson.

Episode 14/16 Living the Dream

House literally kidnaps Evan Green, an actor who stars in his favourite soap opera, and convinces him to undergo medical tests. Why? While watching his performance on the TV, House has picked up on clues which lead him to suspect Evan has a brain tumour. Cuddy has her hands full as a hospital inspector visits the Princeton-Plainsboro, while Amber and Wilson find that shopping for a new mattress puts their relationship under the microscope.

Episode 15/16 House's Head

House sustains head injuries in a bus crash. He experiences flashbacks of the accident and is convinced that someone he saw at the scene is going to die - if only he could remember who… While being treated at the hospital, he's desperate to learn more about the condition of the other passengers and the bus driver. Can he recover his memory and make sense of his confused visions in time to save the person who's at risk?

Episode 16/16 Wilson's Heart

Wilson has Amber transferred to the Princeton-Plainsboro so that House and the team can try to figure out what has caused her heart to race. House's memory of events preceding the bus crash is still confused, though a series of bizarre dreams help him to uncover more clues as to Amber's underlying condition. Wilson, meanwhile, is allowing emotion to cloud his medical judgement - and he's not the only one.