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Hugh Laurie, right, and series creator, executive producer and series finale director David Shore, centre, during filming of the House series finale.Ray Mickshaw

The sharpest mind on House has always been its Canadian creator, David Shore.

Born and raised in London, Ont., Shore was the driving force behind the Fox drama starring Hugh Laurie as a misanthropic medical diagnostician with a nasty bedside manner and, quite often, an intense dislike for his own staff. Shore has said that the inspiration for the title character stemmed in part from his lifelong fascination with Sherlock Holmes – hence the pun.

House signs off Monday night following an eight-season run and, true to form, Shore co-wrote and directed the final episode, thereby bringing the story full circle from the original pilot he wrote in 2004.

Shore reflected upon the show in a phone interview last week.

Had you envisioned an eight-season run for House ?

No, in my mind that would have been incredibly pompous. The idea that this would last more than 12 episodes and I could plan an ending for it was way too arrogant. It's American network TV.

Was the show's success entirely contingent on Hugh Laurie morphing into this curmudgeonly character?

Hugh and I shared the same vision of this character from day one. We met with a lot of actors and nobody seemed to get it, and then he came in and he was House. If you watch his audition tape, he was doing the same thing then that he's doing now, without any direction, without any coaching. It's been a wonderful collaboration.

It seems the ongoing challenge of House was keeping the lead character likeable despite his caustic nature.

My words of wisdom in the writers room was that the punishment doesn't have to fit the crime, but there has to be a crime. As long as there was a House-like motivation, not just self-aggrandizement, and he was always solving that puzzle, which in turn meant getting somebody better, pretty much anything went.

Was that rule stretched slightly last season when House plowed his car into his ex-lover's living room?

There was a real hue and cry when he drove his car through Cuddy's wall, which was never intended to cause her harm; it was meant to cause her home harm. That was an irrational act from a rational man. It got more of a viewer reaction than any of the other reprehensible things he did.

Any regrets about pairing up House and Cuddy?

I'm not big on regrets. A lot of people thought it could have been done better, a lot of people thought we should have kept them together. It was a bit of a lightning rod. But the sexual tension was there from the beginning, and at a certain point we had to put them together.

Over eight seasons you made several wholesale cast changes.

I was aware some people would be disappointed, but you have to make changes before people are clamouring for changes. If people are asking for changes, it's too late. The death of a show is to be driven by those considerations. You have to be driven by the stories you want to tell, or there won't be any real heart to those stories any more.

What is the TV legacy left behind by House?

That the main character stood for the pursuit of truth. He wasn't just blindly following rules, but worked toward the reality of each situation and the right thing to do. That search for an objective truth was throughout the life of the show.

House has consistently focused on deconstructing the human condition. Has overseeing the show taught you anything about yourself?

I should have been learning a lot of stuff, right? Nobody learns anything. You reach your emotional peak at 18.

The first episode of House was titled Everybody Lies . The final show is titled Everybody Dies . Should viewers expect the worst?

It's definitely an ending. I don't want to say more than that. We never do happy endings, but we also try not to do miserable endings. Bittersweet is the most you can hope for.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The House finale airs Monday at 8 p.m. on Fox and Global.

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