Why was it never lupus? “House” creator answers burning questions about the series 20 years later

"Lupus was the perfect disease for us!" showrunner David Shore says with a laugh ahead of the 20th anniversary.

The doctor is back in. Well, sort of.

It's been 20 years since House first premiered on Fox on Nov. 16, 2004, and the man behind it all — creator David Shore — is revisiting his iconic medical drama for its milestone anniversary by answering all of Entertainment Weekly's lingering burning questions about the series.

And unlike Hugh Laurie's brilliant but misanthropic doc, the showrunner fielded every question, from the silly to the serious, with irreverent, good-natured humor. "I have not grown tired of talking about House, and I don't think I ever will," Shore tells EW. "But I can't believe it's been 20 years. I'm thinking of getting an auditor to come in and make sure it's actually been 20 years."

In the 12 years since House ended with its critically-lauded series finale, Shore always gets a thrill whenever someone brings up the show to him in his daily life. "I hear people referencing Dr. House in the zeitgeist still to this day, and it's surreal," he says. "It's bizarre. I'm incredibly grateful. I can't believe it is still seemingly as relevant to so many people today as it was then. And that's amazing, and I'm thrilled and I'm grateful."

Below, Shore answers all of EW's lingering questions about the series, from why House's cases were (almost) never lupus to what House is up to now.

Related: I'm Still Not Over... House and Cuddy's terrible relationship

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Dr. House often diagnosed a case as lupus first, but it was only ever lupus once in the entire run of the show. Why did he almost always think it was lupus first?

DAVID SHORE: [Laughs] It's funny, actually — I downloaded some papers from early on in the show to the Writers Guild Foundation Library, and I happened to be in there, and somebody happened to be going through them, so I said hi to the person. And I looked at the papers and it was an early script, and there's a reference to lupus in it, and I'd written in the margin, my notes to the writer, "We're running out of diseases already," or something like that. Because apparently it was the second or third or fourth time we'd mentioned lupus.

The fact was we were looking for diseases that could be serious but could manifest in a lot of different ways. And unfortunately for many — for us, it was fortunate, lupus was the perfect disease for us! It was a disease that manifested in a lot of ways, and so it could be the wrong diagnosis many times. And so we just kind of embraced that and ran with that.

But it was never lupus! Except for once.

[Laughs] It's never lupus. We had a t-shirt that said, "It's never lupus."

Did you consider never making it lupus, or did you know you eventually had to make it lupus at least once?

This is when I realized it is 20 years ago, and I can't recall the details. I suspect yes, we had an internal discussion about that, "Yeah, I guess we have to do it once." We set up, "it's never lupus, it's never lupus," now we have to make it lupus.

There's a popular fan theory that Wilson hallucinated the series ending, and that House actually died in that fire. What did you think of that theory, and could it be true?

Look, you make a show, you put it out there, and people are entitled to enjoy it how they want to enjoy it, and interpret it how they want to interpret it. There's certain things I wanted to say with the show, and I would hate people interpreting it in some way that was completely contrary to what I intended. Enjoy it however you want to enjoy it, have fun with it. I think that's one of the most wonderful things about it is that people have taken it to heart and it's living on for them. But that was an interpretation that I did not have in mind, but it's not inconsistent with anything.

We wanted that form of a happy ending. The show was never about simple happy endings, but it was about finding moments of it here and there. I used two songs in the finale and both of them were kind of contrary messages as he drove off, and I think that says a lot about what we were trying to do with the show.

Related: 'House': Inside the series finale

What did you think of the response to the series finale when it first aired?

The whole thing was a dream. I was very pleased with how it went out, and that hasn't faded. It feels like the right ending — it felt right to watch House and Wilson drive off into the sunset, and it was the end of the show. It wasn't the end of them, but the end of them was near. There was so much bittersweet about it, but it was a wonderful eight years.

Did Foreman realize House was still alive at the end of the series finale?

I'll say this, that was my intended message with that. Yes, that little grin on his face was, "Holy s---, the guy did it."

You were reluctant to answer this question back when the finale first aired, but I'm curious to hear if you'll answer it now: What is House up to now all these years later?

I don't want to pin myself down, weirdly. Because, I mean, every now and again, it does cross my mind that I would like to explore that, and so I'd have to figure out how I'd explore that. But also — and this relates to the last question you asked — I like the idea that other people are thinking of that too. And I hate to tell them, "No, he's doing something else." He's out there doing something House-like. Which I love that House-like became a bit of a phrase.

Have you ever considered doing a special reunion episode or something that explored House and Wilson's life on the road together?

Not really. I wouldn't say no to it, but those things are very, very difficult to do. You don't want to spoil anything. As Hugh said at the time, Dr. House is the type of guy who leaves the party early rather than late. People are going, "Where'd House go?" Rather than, "Why is House still here?" You don't want to spoil your legacy. But at the same time, yeah, we had fun with it, and I could see it being fun. But you'd have to have the right story, a great story that we were really happy with, and schedules would have to align, which is in a weird way the much more difficult task.

Speaking of schedules aligning being a difficult task, who do you wish you could have gotten back for the series finale that didn't work out?

I missed Lisa at the end. That was too bad. That really was. I would've loved to have had her there. I would've loved to have had Lisa Cuddy there, and I would've loved to have Lisa Edelstein there.

Related: I'm Still Not Over... the heartbreaking House season 4 finale

If she had come back, what would we have seen from her in the finale?

At the time I had ideas. I don't remember them, so I can't be specific on that.

Have you ever considered making a spinoff centered on any of the other characters?

We did talk about it at some point. Even after all this time, I hate to single out any of these characters, because I liked them all, and I don't want anybody to feel damned by not being the one named. But especially at the end, we could have done, like, Foreman was running the hospital, and Chase had taken over House's department, and Cameron was off with a family. They all live on, and so could I have done a show with any of them, and I would've enjoyed it. But there's also a danger in a show going too long. And so again, no complaints.

How would House be different if you made it today vs. 20 years ago?

That's a really good question, and that's one that we can all speculate on. I don't have any magic answer. It's highly unlikely we would've done 24 episodes. I don't regret anything — everything worked out fantastic, but boy, doing 24 episodes a year is exponentially harder than doing 10 episodes a year, doing 8 episodes a year, doing 12 episodes a year. I'm particularly proud that we managed to pull off a show that I'm proud of while doing 24 episodes a year.

It was a network show, and personally, I don't think there's enough network shows. I don't want to badmouth network TV, but the home for edgy, for people trying new things, seems to be cable. We seem to think that that's a niche goal, but there's no reason we can't do really great shows on network TV. There's no reason we can't do them anywhere. TV is TV. There's not a big difference. Doing one-hour storytelling is doing one-hour storytelling. I don't think it makes a huge difference where you're doing it.

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