House is a medical drama series that centres on the irreverent Dr. House, a brilliant diagnostician whose unconventional thinking and flawless instincts have earned him a great deal of respect. Join House and his elite team of dedicated doctors and nurses as they race against time to treat patients with strange illnesses before it's too late. In the sixth season House finds himself in an uncomfortable position - away from the examination room. As he works to regain his license and his life, his co-workers deal with staff shakeups, moral dilemmas and their own tricky relationships with House...

The sixth season of House was originally broadcast in the US between 21 September 2009 and 17 May 2010. The series opens with a two-part special that sees House at the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, where he was checked in at the end of season five because of his addiction to Vicodin. Now free of the drug, House has to make the first steps in his recovery so that he can rejoin the human race without going back to his addiction. Of course, this he does over the course of this two-parter, allowing him to return to the hospital.

A lot of the comedy moments in this episode are in House and Wilson's Odd Couple style relationship. With highlights including House discovering that Wilson has appeared in a porn movie... by accident; the escalating pranks between the two... that may not actually have been started by them at all; House attempting to break up Wilson and his ex-wife, who is back on the scene; and House pretending that he and Wilson are gay so that he can hit on their new female neighbour.

Highlights in this collection include:

The Tyrant, which sees the team having to treat an African dictator named Dibala (played by James Earl Jones) for a mystery condition. The episode plays out a lot like that old question: "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he rose to power would you?" - in that certain members of the team have problems with treating him, and are tempted to just let him die.

Ignorance is Bliss, which sees a delivery driver admitted into House's care. It soon transpires that he has been drugging himself to dumb down his brain as he was once a super intelligent professor, but being smart made him miserable.

Remorse is an interesting episode as it deals with a psychopath. House is also forced to meet up with an old classmate who he pranked years before. In order to prove that their lecturer was biased he switched papers with this classmate who always scored well. He now discovers that he is bagging groceries for a living. House feels guilty for ruining his life... but did he?

5 to 9 follows the day in the life of Cuddy. Everything that goes wrong does... but on reflection everything looks a lot better at the end of the day.

Lockdown: This episode was directed by Laurie and is one this season's most enjoyable. It's got everything. There's comedy (in 13 and Wilson's Truth or Dare game and Foreman and Taub's adventures in the file room) and it also has one of this season's most moving scenes between House and a dying patient.

Baggage, which sees House visit Dr. Nolan after a particularly stressful week. The chemistry between the two actors builds well over the episode. The writers have fun writing Nolan into House's flashbacks, which works incredibly well.

Help Me: The final episode in the season sees House at the scene of a major incident in which a large crane has collapsed. He spends time helping a woman whose is trapped underground as her leg is pinned under the rubble.

Extras include audio commentaries (for Broken - Part 1; Wilson; and 5 to 9); Before "Broken" - The Concept Reel (9 min, 51 sec which represents half a days worth of footage with Laurie in the grounds of the mental institution which was used in the final episode of season five. This was meant to show House in his new surroundings before the start of season six); A New House For House (22 min, 39 sec behind the scenes look at the new sets for the hospital House is in at the start of season six); A Crazy Cool Episode: Epic Fail (22 min, 27 sec look at the process of creating the CGI effects in the Epic Fail episode); New Faces for a New House (8 min, 44 sec look at the new characters that appear in the opening two-part episode); and A Different POV: Hugh Laurie Directs (7 min, 21 sec look at Laurie directing the episode Lock Down.

There are several story arcs that unfold over the course of this season and, to be honest, there isn't a duff episode here. Well worth adding to your DVD collection.

9

Darren Rea