David Shore (born July 3, 1959) is a Canadian television writer. Shore worked on ''
Family Law'', ''
NYPD Blue
''NYPD Blue'' is an American police procedural television series set in New York City, exploring the struggles of the fictional 15th Precinct detective squad in Manhattan. Each episode typically intertwines several plots involving an ensemble ca ...
'' and ''
Due South'', also producing many episodes of the latter. He created the critically acclaimed series ''
House
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...
'' and more recently, ''
Battle Creek'' and
''The Good Doctor''.
Early life
Shore was born in
London, Ontario
London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...
, Canada to Cecile Shore and
Marvin Shore, a politician. His younger twin brothers, Ephraim Shore and
Raphael Shore, are
Aish HaTorah rabbis. David is the only member of his family involved in television, although his younger brother Raphael Shore made three political documentaries about the Middle East conflict.
After graduating from
A. B. Lucas Secondary School with distinction, he subsequently attended the
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...
for an undergraduate degree, and the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
for his law degree in 1982.
Following his education he initially worked as a municipal and corporate lawyer in his native Canada before he moved to Los Angeles to break into television.
On June 20, 2018, Shore received an honorary degree in law from the University of Western Ontario.
Career
Television

Shore wrote for the television series ''Due South'' — about another Canadian transplanted in America, albeit a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — before he became a producer on the ABC drama ''
NYPD Blue
''NYPD Blue'' is an American police procedural television series set in New York City, exploring the struggles of the fictional 15th Precinct detective squad in Manhattan. Each episode typically intertwines several plots involving an ensemble ca ...
''. His work on that series was nominated for two
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
s.
Shore then moved on to the series ''
Family Law'', ''
Hack'', and ''
Century City'', but these were not commercial successes.
''House''
In 2003, producer
Paul Attanasio — who had previously worked with
NBC on such shows as ''
Homicide: Life on the Street'' and ''
Gideon's Crossing'' — approached Shore to request a
procedural, as he knew the network was looking for another one to follow up on the success of ''
Law & Order'' and to imitate CBS's success with ''
CSI'' and ''
NCIS''. Attanasio's idea was to apply the police procedural genre to a show about medicine. While in most procedurals the characters are secondary to the mystery, Shore decided that a medical procedural should place the mystery secondary to the
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...
. He therefore conceived of a hero similar to the iconic detective
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...
.
That hero was
Dr. Gregory House, the main character of ''
House
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...
'', played (with an American accent) by the British actor, comedian, and musician
Hugh Laurie. Although NBC took a pass on the series,
Fox picked it up, and by the end of the first season, it was their biggest new hit of 2004–05. Shore wrote or co-wrote five episodes of that first season, including
its pilot and the Season One pre-finale, "
Three Stories", in which he intricately wove the stories of three patients, while also revealing the reason for Dr. House's limp and
Vicodin addiction. The latter of these won the 2005 Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Shore made his directorial debut on the series ''House'' directing the Season Two finale "No Reason". Due to the success of ''House'', Shore was granted a generous contract for fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons. The sixth season began with a two-hour season premiere titled "
Broken", which he co-wrote. Shore and his co-writers won the
Writers Guild of America Award for episodic drama at the
February 2010 ceremony for the premiere.
''House'' was renewed for a seventh season, which began airing on September 20, 2010, as well as an eighth and final season.
After ''House''
In 2009, Shore finished production of the short-lived police TV show ''Winters'' starring
Famke Janssen.
In February 2013, ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' reported that Shore would write for an upcoming
ABC television show titled ''Doubt'', about "a 'charming low-rent' lawyer battling his demons" starring
Steve Coogan.
In August, 2015,
Amazon Video released a pilot episode for ''
Sneaky Pete'', a show Shore and
Bryan Cranston created. The first season of ''Sneaky Pete'' was exclusively released in its entirety on Amazon Video on January 13, 2017.
In 2019, as WGA Co-chair, Shore joined other WGA members in firing their agents as part of the
WGA's stand against the
ATA and the practice of
packaging
Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a coo ...
. In May 2021, he and his Shore Z Productions company renewed his first look deal with Sony.
Personal life
He lived in
Encino Hills,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, with his wife Judy and their three children until 2010, when the family moved to a larger home in nearby
Pacific Palisades.
Filmography
The numbers in directing and writing credits refer to the number of episodes.
Awards and nominations
References
External links
"House creator David Shore and Katie Jacobs interview", ''media pundit'', Paul William Tenny*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100812150428/http://movies.nytimes.com/person/1179805/David-Shore "David Shore", ''The New York Times''br>
"The House That Dave Built ", profile of Shore in ''U of T Magazine''*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shore, David
1959 births
20th-century Canadian male writers
20th-century Canadian screenwriters
21st-century Canadian male writers
21st-century Canadian screenwriters
Living people
Screenwriters from Ontario
Canadian expatriate writers in the United States
Canadian male screenwriters
Canadian television producers
Canadian male television writers
Canadian television writers
Jewish Canadian screenwriters
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Showrunners
University of Toronto Faculty of Law alumni
University of Western Ontario alumni
Writers from London, Ontario
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Canadian Screen Award winning writers