It looks like House M.D. might've diagnosed its last case of lupus, with FOX declining to pick the show up for a ninth season. There's been enough turmoil on the show over the past couple of seasons to make any network wary, with significant cast members being asked to take payroll cuts and one (the actress who plays Cuddy) refusing, opting to leave the show instead. When you get into the seventh or eighth season of a show, salaries become so high that you need to maintain awfully high ratings to continue to make a show a good financial bet, and House hit its peak in seasons three and four, having slid quite a bit in the ratings since then. Eventually there comes a point where syndication will make you more money than actually making new episodes of a series, especially with Hugh Laurie's contract up at the end of the season; he'd likely want a fair amount of cash to come back for another two or three years.
Deadline indicates that it's possible that Universal, which actually produces the show (they license it to FOX) may bring it back on another network, but it'd be a likewise expensive show for any other network to pick up. Regardless, the decision has apparently been made early enough for House to actually get a real finale, rather than simply ending on a cliffhanger. [Edit: According to an open letter from David Shore, producer Katie Jacobs, and Hugh Laurie, they are not going to attempt to move the show to another network, and this will definitely be its last.]
If you've been following House all these years, how do you think it has to end? Obviously House and Cuddy aren't going to get together (barring an amazingly gracious cameo on the part of Lisa Edelstein), so maybe he'll lose his leg? Or kill someone while high on vicodin and get sent back to jail for real, forever? It'll be curious to see how it all resolves, even if I'm not too likely to tune in until the last episode, this season being less than remarkable.
