Alien Vs. Predator

I have been getting into some immoderate habits lately.


For one thing, I have become addicted to the show House. I know, it has been on the air for years, and I managed to successfully avoid it, but there is apparently now a broadcasting law that says that House must be showing on some cable network at all times, and I just kept stumbling over it.


So, I have been watching it up to three times a night - yes, that is three hours of television.


Back in the bad old days, I would have submitted myself for a public flogging in the marketplace for such behavior; but now, I can castigate myself just as publicly on the Internet.


The appeal of the show House lies mostly in the character House, as fascinating a male stew of complexity as has ever been cooked up by diabolical writers. Getting to know House better as a character has brought to mind the idea of a matchup between him and another incredibly compelling fictive male.


You know the one I mean. Mad Men's Don Draper.


House and Don Draper. There's a terrible testosterone-filled twosome for you.


This thought came to me in the middle of the night, last night when I couldn't sleep. Of course, some people would use this valuable time to fret over the collapsing economy, or whether or not that suspicious mole is cancerous. I, on the other hand, am obsessing over fictional characters and how they would fare in a fight.


Imagine House and Don Draper inhabiting the same universe.


Draper with his brilliantined hair, bespoke suits, air of repressed, opaque masculine charm. He exudes mystery, angst, depth, all with flickers of his stolid, handsome face. House with his permastubble, perpetual bedhead, clothing no doubt scrounged off of the floor of his closet, and his popeyed, facetious, angry, exposed persona - he is a walking irritated nerve ending.


Both, as far as I can tell, besides being brilliant beyond comprehension, completely and utterly posessed by the urge to copulate with whatever reasonably comely female wanders into their presence (Granted that Don Draper seems to take better advantage of this).


Let's just suppose that some space-time continuum rupture placed them in the same vicinity at the same time. What if both of them needed to get their mojo on? What if they both coveted the same nubile lass?


Would House start swinging his cane? Claim that she was suffering from some horrible disease, just not Lupus? Or would he simply give Don the evil eye and limp off with a final malediction, pills popping, to soothe his ego by tormenting Wilson?


Would Don take off his jacket and come out duking, slickery dark hair dislodged like Superman when he gets in a lather, big shoulders hunched, a veritable Rocky Marciano? Or would he saunter away, disdainful and cool as a panther, to work his charm on another available femme?

Would they get down and dirty, rolling over and over on the floor, a DraperHouseDraperHouse gyration?

I think such a matchup would be simply inspired programming.


Hollywood, are you listening?