After a good episode last week, "House M.D." finished out the first half of the season with a lackluster stumble across the finish line.

The show started with some good legal battling, before one of the lawyers was rushed to the hospital complaining of chest pains. Foreman(Omar Epps) lied to the to the patient to rule out an anxiety disorder, and to convince House(Hugh Laurie) to agree to take the case.

But that's not all folks. Case aside, there were several other storylines weaving in and out, although none of them were really that interesting.

First, we had House and Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) prank war. I wasn't expecting it to be Wilson's moment of revenge, but I was hoping it would be a fun and entertaining jaunt. In reality it served mostly as a distraction, and never really escalated. A few small fry pranks on both sides, and it ended with Wilson continuing to be a shortsighted and easily fooled ass. Really, now? How long has he known House and he still doesn't know not to trust him?

In the inter-office politics sector, House had his kicks by pitting Park (Charlyne Yi) and Adams(Odette Annable) against each other. It was a very forced cat fight that didn't end in jello wrestling, and seemed odd given that both Park and Adams had no real problems working with each other prior to any of this. I know House is an ass and crawls under people's skin, but it was a shock to see how easily the two leading ladies danced to the beat of his drum. I get that the show seemed hell-bent on casting Park as the outsider, but even Adams seemed a little too quick to fall for House's quips.

The third, and most useless of the side plots revolved around Foreman and his lack of a social life, and you know it's bad when Taub(Peter Jacobson) told him to get a girl. Now, I've said it before, but I've never really liked Foreman, and him being dean of medicine hasn't changed that. But now that he is, it's almost like the show wanted me to feel sorry for the guy who is choosing to let his personal life wash away in favor of becoming a workaholic. So what? He wanted to be in charge, and now I have to feel sorry that he has work to do and isn't having fun down in the bull pen with his old teammates? I'm just not buying it, and frankly could care less that he is deciding to date a married women. Maybe he'll take some cheating advice from Taub at least.

Now, even with all of the above going on there was still a poor dying sick person to save. As with everything else this episode, he originally was quite interesting: Parks and Adams found a hidden compartment in his house filled with enough ammo to wage war a few times over. The pair dawdled over if the patient was paranoid or if his gun hording was a symptom, but as his condition deteriorated House eventually swept in and deducted that it was diphtheria caused by the patient's lack of getting shots. How trifle and boring.

I'll give props to the show for trying to spice things up, and having several side plots at a time is one way to do that. The problem is that the plots have to be interesting, or at least the case should be, and if none of the above are then House needs to blow something up to create some pseudo-entertainment. Even the paranoia and gun holding discussions failed to come together or amount to anything, almost making me lament when the show tries too hard to have everything come together. At least they were trying then.

The minor cliffhangers at the end of the episode don't really have me holding my breath until the show returns after the holidays: Park asked Chase out(who will end up with Adams regardless, I'm sure), House waxed nostalgically over his father's sword, and Foreman continued to date a married women. As trivial as any of the points were, given House's policy of little plot, less development, most of them will probably be forgotten come the New Year anyways.