House - Season 8 - David Shore Talks

Thanks to HFAN1982 for the heads up.

As House makes what could be its final rounds on television, series creator David Shore is determined to get the heart of the show beating again. That means putting the focus back on the weekly medical cases and, more importantly, Dr. Crankypants himself. But first, there’s fallout from events both onscreen (carmageddon) and off (farewell, Lisa Edelstein) that must be dealt with. In the following Q&A, Shore reveals why he’s sending House directly to jail, previews the new blood coming to Princeton-Plainsboro, and answers the question that’s been bugging me since May: Will Cuddy check back in before House checks out for good.

TVLINE | Word has leaked [via TVLine] that you will be replacing the now-vacant Dean of Medicine post with a character familiar to House fans, as opposed to foisting someone new on the audience. Is this your way of acknowledging that those are some mighty big shoes to fill?
It is. We had a very interesting hiatus. It was not our plan [to lose Lisa]. It is not what we had in our mind. Certain stuff got thrust upon us that I was not pleased with. But we sat down in the writers room and dealt with the challenges we’d been presented with and I think came up with a really interesting way to go into this season, and it’s turned out to be very exciting. The [Dean position] is a tricky role, and it has been since Day One. Lisa did a fantastic job with it and we didn’t want to simply recreate that. And we didn’t want to simply come up with a Colonel Klink. [Laughs] There was a nice balance to that character, so we decided to [go with someone in House's orbit] instead of trying to recreate Cuddy and put [an actor or actress] in the unenviable position of being compared to her, which will happen anyway. This allows us to put a character the audience has seen before in a new situation and to have House judge them on that. It changes the whole dynamic between the characters.

Source: Full Interview@TV Line