Michael Tritter - Reception

Reception

Initial responses to the character were mostly positive. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune declared Tritter the best male villain of the fall of 2006. Lisa Edelstein, who portrays Lisa Cuddy on House, named David Morse as one of her favorite House guest stars, saying that he did a great job portraying the character. Barbara Barnett from Blog Critics Magazine and Charles McGrath of The New York Times compared Tritter to Inspector Javert of Les Misérables, and Alynda Wheat from Entertainment Weekly stated that Tritter annoyed House more than any other character, surpassing other antagonists such as Amber Volakis (Anne Dudek), Stacy Warner (Sela Ward) and Lucas Douglas (Michael Weston). Variety's Stuart Levine considered Tritter a "worthy foe" for House.

". . . However, after about the fourth episode and the many troubles he was causing the people in House's life, we were bored. This story seemed to drag on forever and, in the meantime, there weren't that many great medical cases to fill in the gap."

However, the continued character arc increasingly bored critics. Staci Krause of IGN found the first few episodes of Season 3, in which House recovers from being shot, more interesting. In a review of "Que Sera Sera," Entertainment Weekly's Michelle Kung noted that while David Morse is a fine actor, "his cop is so ridiculously one-note and revenge-bent that his scenes are often just excruciating to sit through." In a review for "Fools for Love," Sara Morrison of Television Without Pity doubted that Tritter's revenge on House was worth his time and aggravation, and later called the Tritter arc an "insane quest for ass-thermometer justice." The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall stated that "pitting House against a comedy-impaired cop was both dull and not a fair fight."

The show's fans had shown dislike for other antagonists with multi-episode guest-starring arcs, and critics suspected that Tritter's character would receive similar disdain. The conclusion of the storyline, and Tritter's departure from the show, were described by USA Today critic Robert Bianco as a Christmas gift for fans of the show. Morse jokingly stated after his departure that various fans had told him of their hate for Tritter after what the character had done to Dr. House.

Morse, however, gained mainly positive responses to his portrayal of Tritter. The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall called Morse a "superb actor," and Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune stated that Morse's "understated performance" made Tritter all the more scary. Zap2it's Daniel Fienberg regarded Morse as "one of our very best character actors." Cynthia Littleton of Variety, who already considered Morse's work in St. Elsewhere Emmy-worthy, was glad that Morse's submission of the episode "Finding Judas" for a 2007 Emmy Awards consideration was accepted in the category of "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series." The award eventually went to John Goodman for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.