Can this 'House' be saved?

THE SHOW "House," Monday night at 9 on Fox/5

REASON TO WATCH The eighth and maybe final season begins.

CATCHING UP House (Hugh Laurie) drove a car -- fast -- into Cuddy's (Lisa Edelstein) dining room while she was entertaining friends and family. Fortunately, they'd moved into the other room. She pressed charges, but not before he fled the country. When he returns, the hammer comes down.

WHAT THIS EPISODE'S ABOUT House has gone to prison . . . OK, I can't resist . . . House is in the Big House. However, with overcrowding in New Jersey prisons, he's getting an early parole. He'll get it in five days if -- a massive if -- he can behave himself. House has made some friends, and enemies, on the inside, and there's a medical mystery to be solved.

MY SAY Embittered and splenetic as ever, prison has done nothing to reform House, not that anyone ever expected it would. "Me and humanity," he quips sourly to a jailhouse doc. "We got together too young." Yeah, him and humanity got together too young. Now, in his twilight years -- and they do feel crepuscular -- the savage indignation of his life has come to this. He shares a 10-by-10 cell with a muscled mute, who raises pet crickets. He's forced to pay tax in the form of Vicodin to skinheads as a condition of survival. House has, of course, sunk almost this low before, like the time he was packed into an asylum.

But after he gets out this time, there will be no one waiting for him. Cuddy will be gone, and who knows whether there's a job waiting for him at Princeton-Plainsboro, either (and if there is, why?).

In other words, this does feel like the beginning of the end. As such, Monday's entertaining if over-the-top launch sets up a whole bunch of questions, with this one at the top of the pile: Will House ever find peace? Fox has 22 episodes to answer that, but, because House will never change, this classic series right now feels like it's cruising toward a tragic conclusion.

BOTTOM LINE Prison suits Dr. Gregory House well -- almost too well.

GRADE B+