FINE 'HOUSE,' BUT DON'T GET TOO COMFY.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

FOX'S ACERBIC new medical series ``House'' is the best new series of the 2004-05 season, but alas, that's not much reason for celebration.

For one thing, its lead character, Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), is an imperious medical genius who delights in lording his superior intelligence over everyone else - clearly not the sort that audiences warm to easily. More crucially, Fox has not successfully launched a scripted series in more than a year. The last was ``The O.C.,'' whose sudsy sex and silliness is about as far removed from ``House'' as TV can get. Fox has willingly sullied its reputation on a slew of reality series (one low-rated example, in fact, precedes ``House'' on the network's schedule). Although the network should certainly be encouraged to support shows like ``House'' and the equally vivaciously intelligent ``Arrested Development,'' it should not be surprised if the traditional Fox audience doesn't opt in.

All this to say, enjoy ``House'' while you can. At least it's very easy to enjoy if you have a tolerance for cranks. Laurie's House makes your average curmudgeon seem as sunny as old St. Nick; as one of his crack team of research assistants observes, he would ``eliminate humanity from the practice of medicine.'' House makes it a point to avoid meeting those he treats, for a plethora of reasons thinly veiling his own Vicodin-popping self-loathing, though of course that rule looks to be routinely broken.

Tonight, in an episode directed by Brian Singer (``The Usual Suspects,'' the ``X-Men'' movies), House and his charges treat a kindergarten teacher whose apparent brain tumor has her sputtering gibberish; in a future episode, they aid a young man whose immune system crashed after some vigorous sex. Each case plays approximately like a horror movie, with the patient plunging deeper into danger just as he or she seems to stabilize.

House is also forced against his will by his boss, Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), to put in time at the hospital's clinic, where he whimsically treats patients with maladies he considers beneath his gifts. There, he makes insightful albeit imprudent diagnoses - a man's wife is unfaithful, a woman's job is imperiled - and dispenses placebos to the plebes.

Creator David Shore has put in time on some of TV's most respected shows (``NYPD Blue,'' ``The Practice''), but he's also labored on middling shows (``Hack,'' ``Family Law'') as well; the elegant hand of executive producer Paul Attanasio (``Homicide: Life on the Street,'' the Oscar-nominated film ``Quiz Show'') is deeply felt here. (Attanasio had an earlier series, ``Gideon's Crossing,'' which was essentially ``House'' only with a very earnest protagonist.)

The cast, which includes film actors Omar Epps and Robert Sean Leonard, is appealing if vaguely interchangeable.

House himself would find it ironic that this Fox series comes courtesy of NBC Productions, given that NBC has a similar show about a talented if abrasive doctor who solves clinical mysteries (``Medical Investigation'') that is nowhere near as engaging as ``House'' yet has already been picked up for the full season. This show, meanwhile, would probably do much better on NBC, but will have to wait until ``American Idol'' returns to Fox before it sees any sort of ratings spike. If, that is, the network hasn't allowed it to flatline by then.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

HOUSE - Three and one half stars

What: Hugh Laurie stars as a brilliant, if anti-social, doctor.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Smart, well-scripted - does that mean on Fox that the patient is terminal?

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Photo:

Hugh Laurie stars in the title role on Fox's ``House.''