Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Morrison, who is returning to the series for a one-off guest appearance, praises the series but also makes it very clear that the decision to leave was not her own. “I love the show, and I love (Cameron),” Morrison was quoted as saying. “Under no circumstances would I ever decide on my own to leave.” The actress’ comments appear to directly contradict one of the series’ executive producers, Katie Jacobs, who barely a fortnight ago suggested to the press both that Morrison’s absence may be temporary, and was at the actress’ own request in order to do a play. It would seem both those statements were falsehoods – Morrison did indeed request time off to do a play… but only after producers had already told her that she was being axed from the series. Although Morrison still has a contract for next year’s season as well, the actress says “I don’t believe they have plans to pick up my option.”

The revelation is unlikely to calm the anger of many fans, who believe that the actress, one of the original cast who helped to make the show a success in the first place, has been shoddily treated, first by being reduced to little more than an extra for the past two seasons, and then, just as it seemed the character was to be reintegrated (as producers had been promising for two years), unceremoniously dumped. Comments on the EW.com site reveal that most fans now regard the producers as outright liars. One poster, Kutner’s Ghost, did however find room for a little humour in the situation, noting, “I heard she wanted to stay, but Jay Leno wanted to take over the role of Cameron.”

In an interview with April McIntyre of monstersandcritics.com, Jones said that while his busy schedule will keep him from appearing in any more “House” episodes this season, it looks likely that he will return to the series in the fall. “I am just getting out of prison,” Jones reveals, “and House gives me a job at the hospital, so I start working for him.” The relationship between him and Epps’ character gets “a little dicey”, Jones admits. “I think it’s a tough situation for both Omar’s character and my character as we’re sort of trapped in the middle, but I think that is the bulk of what we’re seeing in the episode and in future episodes… House is always in the middle of everything.”

Although he acknowledges that it is a one-shot turn this year, he says that looks likely to change next season. “I’m actually on location shooting a movie right now, so I’m sort of out of pocket for the rest of their shooting schedule. But, hopefully, I’ll rejoin them next season, and we’ll see what happens from there… It was an amazing opportunity to work on this show… I think it will be collectively exciting for everybody, and I’ll look forward being back on “House” again.”

The fourth season threw the show’s line-up into disarray, with House’s original team replaced, and while Morrison and Spencer remained on the show, they did so in a massively reduced capacity that increasingly confused and irritated viewers. The production team continued to assure fans that the characters would be featured more prominently again eventually, but just as that appeared to be the case early in season 6, Morrison was announced as leaving the show, a move that caused a massive split in the series’ fanbase, many of whom felt they had been blatantly lied to by the producers. This weekend, however, executive producer Katie Jacobs told eonline.com that Morrison “might be back. She is doing a play. She asked if she could do this play, and she’s really excited about it, and we’re really excited for her… I would love to see her again too.”

Earlier today, a “House” insider confirmed that “You will see Cameron again on “House” before the end of the season”.  The news has bemused many, with it still uncertain whether she is returning permanently, and whether leaving was the actress’ own choice – but if so, why was this not confirmed at the time? If the exit was temporary, and/or at the actress’ own bequest, stating this might well have alleviated a lot of the bad feeling generated toward the production team. As it is, strange illnesses are the least of the mysteries surrounding “House” at present.

Actress Jennifer Morrison, who has played Dr. Alison Cameron since the series started in 2003, is leaving – and not by choice. Morrison will leave the series in the first half of the sixth season, which has just begun airing in the US, as part of what the producers call a “creative decision”.

The move has shocked and angered many fans, with Morrison’s character having taken a back seat for the last two years, since Cameron and her now husband Dr Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) quit their jobs as House’s interns to work in other areas of the hospital, and producers had been promising that the new season would see the pair reintegrated into the team. While that seems to be the case with Chase, Cameron is instead being written out in a seemingly permanent manner.

Producer Katie Jacobs is denying that Morrison has been fired altogether and not ruling out the character’s return at some point in the future. “The fact is, we still don’t know how the season is going to end for Cameron or for Jennifer.”

But Morrison is definitely leaving after episode nine of the sixth season and many fans are unconvinced and unhappy, feeling that she has been ill-treated by a show she helped to make a success in the first place, having been reduced to little more than an extra for the last two seasons and now dumped just when it appeared she was starting to gain more screen time.

On Fox, the new – sixth – season of “House” kicked off with a two hour opener that drew in an impressive sixteen million, while the biggest result was undeniably that of the seventh season return of “NCIS” over on CBS pulled in a simply stunning twenty million viewers. The quietly successful “The Big Bang Theory” has now been moved to after the popular “Two and a Half Men” and looks like benefiting hugely from the shift.

In terms of new series, the “NCIS: Los Angeles” spin off did huge numbers (eighteen million) on its premiere, while ABC looks like it may have cracked the comedy drought of recent years with big numbers for two of its new efforts, “Modern Family” and “Cougar Town” (with “Friends” star Courtney Cox Arquette). It’s not all good news, of course: The much vaunted prime time chat show experiment “The Jay Leno Show” came crashing down to Earth for NBC last week, from an eighteen million premiere to a low of around five or six, and they will no doubt be praying that the numbers don’t continue to slip.

Returning reality series such as “Survivor” and “Dancing With The Stars” are also starting to noticeably slip, prompting concerns that the reality TV craze may be coming to an end. All things being equal, however, the results will be giving hope that the rumours of the impending death of prime time free to air television may have been rather premature.

There was good news for “How I Met Your Mother”, whose new season premiere took in over nine million, while “The Big Bang Theory”, tipped to be this year’s breakout comedy hit in a plum new timeslot, earned just under thirteen million. The news was less good for NBC, with its prime time chat show “experiment”, “The Jay Leno Show”, which debuted to over eighteen million last week, sliding down to an astonishingly low figure of under six million.

Likewise, the network’s new season premiere of “Heroes” continued that show’s downward slide with just under seven million, down more than forty percent from last season’s first episode, while over on late night, President Barack Obama’s appearance on “The David Letterman Show” gave that show its first nightly victory over rival “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien”.

At the end of the fifth season, House, already seriously addicted to Vicodin (a hardcore painkiller), began suffering hallucinations, gradually becoming so severe that he could no longer even differentiate fantasy from reality, and was last seen checking himself into a psychiatric institution as a new patient.

The two hour premiere picks up that story, with few of the other regular characters participating in the episode. Executive producer Katie Jacobs says the season kicks off with House “off the Vicodin, but he’s also sort of being an ass or child or both.” He will of course be heading back to work before too long (would be a very odd – and short – series if he didn’t), but as Jacobs says, “Could it be a different House? If House went into that hospital with a big, fat hole in his centre, he doesn’t come out full. Maybe one piece is there that wasn’t there before.” As Jacobs points out, any changes to House will also affect other characters, such as Foreman (Omar Epps). “If Foreman runs the team, what will it look like?” Likewise, oncologist Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), House’s closest friend, has his own problems after years of treating “patients he can’t cure”, Jacobs notes.