Los Angeles


IN his last week as the irreverent, idiosyncratic, inimitable television doctor Gregory House, Hugh Laurie acknowledged that he had yet to process fully that he would soon be shedding a character who had inspired him, obsessed him and unnerved him for 177 hours of drama.


On Monday Fox will broadcast the final episode of the eight-year run of “House,” an end that was not forced by ratings (which have only recently dropped from hit levels to more modest territory) but comes willingly after the show’s originator, David Shore, figured out how to wrap up the series.


Though Mr. Laurie has acknowledged that there were seasons in the middle of the run that some critics considered formulaic, that was all behind him as he sat in a director’s chair bearing his name on the sprawling, startlingly hospital-like “House” set. “I don’t know if I’m going to break down in a quivering heap or whether I’m just going to drive off the lot without a look back.” He had scenes left, so he still spoke in the American accent that has fooled millions of viewers who never knew he was British.


One thing he said was certain: “I will miss him a lot.”


He won’t be the only one. Beyond the viewers who came to embrace the weekly dissections of arcane cases, diagnoses led by the most brilliant riddle-solver since Sherlock Holmes (who inspired the character in the first place), “House” proved to have astonishingly wide appeal.


It says so in Guinness World Records, 2012 edition, which lists “House” as the world’s most popular television show, with 81.8 million viewers in 66 countries.


“That is absolutely amazing to me,” Mr. Laurie said, “only because I think the character and the stories have been so intensely verbal. I don’t mean just technical, but it’s very idiomatic, it’s very metaphorical. Some of the ideas that have been played with, how they translate into Turkish, I don’t really know.”


But they do, and many other languages as well. Omar Epps, who played the tightly wound but vulnerable Dr. Foreman, often at odds with House’s rule-shattering methods, said he had the experience of being on a “remote little island off Italy with people calling out to me, ‘Hey, Dr. Foreman.’ ” He added, “Something like that just wows you.”


Mr. Shore, who created Mr. Laurie’s character and remained on the show for its full run, also directed the series finale. Some of the secret elements have leaked, including a roster of familiar guest stars, as well as the episode’s title, “Everybody Dies,” which echoes the axiom that House has lived by: “everybody lies.”


Mr. Shore acknowledged the emotion of letting go, saying the sense of achievement he felt as his creation wrapped up was accompanied by two elements of disbelief: that the show lasted this long and that it was really coming to an end.


“It’s very surreal,” Mr. Shore said, taking a break from an intense scene that required no fewer than 16 takes, rarer in TV than in movies, one sign of the care that the show has always taken. “Part of me is going: we’ve just started. Aren’t we on Episode 6?”


But, he said, another part is amazed that a show built around a damaged, supremely cynical character who violated virtually every network rule about centering shows on likable people, lasted so long and did so well. “I never dreamt it would have this kind of success,” Mr. Shore said.


What distinguished “House,” beyond its production values, writing and acting talent, headed by the career-defining performance of Mr. Laurie, was the arresting figure at its core (one who was arrested at the end of last season.) House, the character, emerged at a time when television drama was just beginning to embrace the idea that a protagonist could be judged by the content of his flaws, as much as or more than his strengths.