I don’t watch a lot of TV. But I do watch House. I don’t have a medical background, but find the problems that House’s team solves to be interesting and, at times, magical. We like how Gregory House (played by Hugh Laurie) is such a difficult character and wonder how his friend(s) continue to be friends with all the brashness he displays, and why his colleagues love him and their jobs despite his sarcastism, rudeness, etc. And we love the sexual tension between House and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) and wonder about what that’s all about. And we see these brainy people who may be doctors, saving people, but have pretty messed up lives.

But things are getting too strange since the airing of the season opener of House on Monday night. Kutner (Kal Penn) is dead, either by suicide or murdered, which is a big shocker cause to all of us sitting in our living rooms, he’s the guy with the head screwed on best. He doesn’t take things too hard, he’s a roller with the punches. He even let Taub (Peter Jacobson) take the credit for something he discovered in the episode before this one, and when House asked him about it, he shrugged it off. And we believed him.

It’s not the death that is so disturbing, however. It’s the fact that Fox, at the end of the show, broadcast a URL for a memorial to Kutner. And if you went there, you’d think the guy had been real. And then there’s the Facebook version too.

I didn’t go to the Fox site after the credits had finished rolling. But today in the In the News section on Google News, I saw the name “Laurence Kutner” and couldn’t believe my eyes. This tv character has become real and now Laurence (we didn’t even really know he had a first name) Kutner is one of the most searched for/talked about “people” on the net.

Don’t we need a reality check here? Since when does pretend become reality? Well it has with House. And I think this is crossing the line.