REAL life mirrored the drama on “House” this week, when Dr. Cranky finally chose his new team of assistants.
Like the show, there was originally room for only two new doctors in the cast of the hit medical drama.
The show’s producers hired five actors before the season began to be the five finalists in a season-opening story about Dr. House trying out a small army of young assistants eager to join his unit.
“But we didn’t have the guts to let three of them go,” “House” creator David Shore told The Post yesterday.
“If we could have, we would have kept all five,” he said. “But we thought that wouldn’t be intellectually honest with our viewers.”
In the show that aired Tuesday night, the bosses made a last-minute decision as well to hire three doctors instead of two.
Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson) and “Thirteen” (Olivia Wilde) are permanently joining the medical show for, at least, the remainder of the season.
Although “House” is a scripted drama, the actors who were hired to play the new recruits didn’t know if they would be picked to be regulars on the show.
Producers based their final decision on which characters showed the best potential to provide interesting relationships with star Hugh Laurie’s main character.
“We really didn’t know who we were going to choose in the end,” Shore said.