I used to say I didn't have a TV, and it sort of had that snotty "and if I did I'd only watch PBS" tone. After five months of living alone, however, I've spent so much time watching "television" - thanks Hulu and uTorrent - that it would be kind of pathetic if I didn't have anything to show for it.

1. Gregory House
Don't get me wrong, Hugh Laurie does fantastic things with this character. But it's a pretty phenomenal character to start with: a cranky, ruthlessly logical drug-addict diagnostician with a limp and a chronic case of misanthropy. Unless he's solving a medical mystery, every step he takes is a psychological or social misstep. Self-loathing golden boys/geniuses always make for good watching (paging Hank Moody and Don Draper), but House's outright animosity and the ironic nature of being a doctor who detests those he saves is a whole new level of character breadth.

2. Cuddy and House and Wilson
Sometimes an episode focuses on just these three characters (aside from the patient of the week and the occasional run-in with supporting cast), and nothing is more pleasurable. The manship between the irreverent House and the subversively earnest Wilson is unparalleled in television, and the piquant antagonism/longing between House and Cuddy is subtly played but endlessly watchable (thank goodness, since it's been will-they-or-won't-they for five seasons now). If you want to observe deeply flawed relationships that are much more dramatic and interesting than your own yet seem lived-in and real, this could be your crack.

3. The cleverness
Sure, it's a medical drama. It also involves puzzle-solving and microscopes and hypotheses. The whole premise is to determine the cure at whatever cost, and 99% of the cases are (metaphysically, if not physically) neatly resolved by the end by some unpredictable flash of brilliance on House's part that's still based on science and reason. Even though I'm absolutely unable to find the solution, I still feel a little smarter after the episode's answer has been revealed, and any show that has me putting a freaking medical dictionary on my Amazon wishlist is doing something right.