Comparing Hugh Laurie and David Tennant
Two British TV Doctors and Their Similarities/Differences
Jun 15, 2009
Hugh Laurie, the sardonic and antisocial Dr. Gregory House, and David Tennant, the manic two-hearted Time Lord, are both popular British-based doctors of primetime television.
Most fans would assume that the similarities end there. After all, Brit-born Laurie recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday and now resides in Los Angeles, CA, while the Scotland-born Tennant celebrated his thirty-seventh and bounces between homes in Cardiff and north London. Even Tennant’s trademark brown eyes are diametrical to Laurie’s intense blue ones.
The two programs they work for are worlds apart, with Laurie’s House being a true-to-life American medical drama and Tennant’s Doctor Who being a British sci-fi adventure series. Still, as different as Laurie and Tennant and the characters they play might be, House and the Doctor have a great deal in common.
Always Up for a Challenge
Though their personalities are polar opposites, House and the Doctor are at different ends of the same spectrum (think of them as the Malcolm X and MLK, Jr. of primetime television). Both House and the Doctor ultimately fight in different ways towards the same goal: preserving life.
“Fight” is certainly the most appropriate word for the two of them. For House, a battle inevitably ensues between himself and Dean of Medicine Lisa Cuddy. The struggle can range anywhere from House wanting permission to run an unorthodox medical test for diagnosing a patient, all the way to trying to deceive a medical board into giving his patient a new organ.
Whatever the conflict of the episode, House’s objective is always the same: save the life of his patient at any cost.
Similarly, the Doctor travels the universe in his bigger-on-the-inside time machine the TARDIS, hopping to different times and planets (and the occasional parallel world) to save the masses and unavoidably lands himself in the middle of WWIII, a Christmas invasion of London, or a parallel universe being attacked by Cybermen.
Fortunately, he does not suffer from House’s gimp leg, because the Doctor spends a portion of every episode running from adversaries in an attempt to outrun – and meanwhile outwit – them.
A Means and a Faith of Their Own
Also, both men use the most powerful weapon at their disposal to win. Not medical technology or a sonic screwdriver, but their minds.
House, who worships the world of the rational and reason, uses a blend of intellect and sarcasm (with a frequent dash of dishonesty) to find a means to his end. In the season two episode "House vs. God," House grapples with the concept of faith, keeping tally of his medical success versus supposed miracles. In the end, with a tally of 3-3, House proclaimed that "tie goes to the mortal."
Likewise, the Doctor places his faith in science and the rational, using words rather than weapons to face his adversaries. In the second season's two-parter "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit," the Doctor faces a beast who calls himself Satan. When forced to face his beliefs, the Doctor declared that if he believed in one thing, he believed in his companion, Rose.
Neither man believes in God or deity, relying instead upon his own ingenuity and an unshakeable belief in logic.
Dependence on Supporting Characters
Perhaps the most striking similarity, though, is not in their mission or their methods but rather in their personal lives. Both men are self-proclaimed loners, with House rabidly adamant that he is beholden to no one and nothing and the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords. However, both characters are dependent on companions.
House needs fellow doctor and closest friend Wilson to serve as a moral compass. Moreover, in season four he discovered he needed his medical team, despite claims to the opposite effect. At one point he even "deputized" a janitor to serve as a member of the medical team to bounce ideas and think out loud.
The Doctor, too, needs companionship. Whether it's Martha Jones at his side as he pines the loss of former companion Rose Tyler or it's Donna Noble telling him to stop in his annihilation of an alien race called the Racnoss, he needs others to prevent him from losing himself and going too far.
Both House and the Doctor suffer from a sense of utter aloneness, and without the presence of others, both would succumb to themselves.
Characters in Their Own Rite
Nevertheless, similarities fail to strip either character of a highly individual identity. Both stand out as unparalleled personalities, whether it is the wisecracking and sometimes mean-spirited doctor of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital or the angsty yet overexcitable Time Lord of Gallifrey.
Still, despite their various dissimilarities, such as the fact that the Doctor is not strictly a medical doctor nor even human, both characters are out to save the world and spare lives in their own way. And fans adore them as they do it.
