Juan Alvarez (House)

This page is a comprehensive listing and detailing of the various characters who appear, from time to time, in the television series House. The list is divided episode-wise, as well as character-wise, and includes recurring characters, such as Rachel Taub, and Dominika, as well as characters who appear in only a few episodes, such as Juan Alvarez (House) and Steve McQueen (the rat).

The original diagnostic team consisted of Dr. Cameron, Dr. Chase and Dr. Foreman. While both of their tenures had brief interruptions, Chase and Cameron still appeared semi-regularly on the show. They advise the newer fellows in the Diagnostic Department in seasons 4–5, or participate in cases directly when appropriate.

Following the events of the season 3 finale, House began a long-running competition to select a new diagnostic team, progressively eliminating "contestants" from an original pool of 40 applicants. This story arc ran throughout the first half of season 4, from "The Right Stuff" through "Games". His final team consists of Dr. Foreman and the three successful "contestants": Dr. Taub, Dr. Kutner, and "Thirteen".

Edward Vogler (Chi McBride) is the billionaire owner of a pharmaceutical firm and, in a season 1 story arc, became the new chairman of the board of PPTH, a position he gained through a $100 million donation to the hospital. Vogler sought to reshape PPTH into a testing facility for his firm's new drugs and saw House's maverick ways and blatant disregard for rules and authority figures as a substantial legal and financial liability. When House refused to kowtow, so to speak, to Vogler's increasingly capricious demands (including an order for House to fire one of his fellows) and made a mockery of Vogler's company at a press banquet, Vogler gave the board an ultimatum: fire House, or lose Vogler's grant. After an impassioned motion from Cuddy for the board members to put the hospital's independence ahead of Vogler's donation, the board voted to retain House, as well as voting Vogler off the board of directors and therefore losing his $100 million.

Fox demanded a bad guy to be added to the show, a few months before House went on a Christmas hiatus. Shore opposed Fox's request, because he thought adding such a character would be a bad idea. Although Shore thought he managed to convince the producers not to add the character, during his vacation in Israel, he was informed that Jeff Zucker, the head of the Universal studio, had threatened to cut the season short by six episodes unless the character was added. To prevent this from happening, Shore created the character. McBride was hired to film five episodes. However the producers decided not to extend the character's story arc. In a video David Shore said: "Chi McBride is so larger than life. He’s literally just a physically imposing person, and we just wanted someone who could really clash with House, somebody who could be emotionally and physically and psychologically imposing as he is and could go head to head with him."

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