Yesterday I broke down a typical episode of House to examine its parts.  When you look at those beats (12 in an eleven-minute act!) one by one, there's nothing outstandingly special or dramatic about them -- they're just television.  There is soap and there are fake crises and dramatic standoffs and stern confrontations and passionate advocations, just like in any other show.

And yet House blazes like a, well, like a house (sorry) afire compared to every other detective show or medical drama currently on television.  Why?

After watching thirty or so episodes (some more than once) I have some theories.

I've been watching a lot of detective shows lately, and nothing comes close to House.  In the future I will try to specify why this show, while containing all the formula, devices and cliches of every detective show and every medical drama manages to be more than the sum of its parts.  But for now I'd like to analyze a single episode to parse the dense, intricate twists and turns that make it electrifying television.

I could have chosen any episode at random but I was taken by the extra-twisty structure of an episode from Season 2, "Sex Kills."