Less Olivia Wilde this season on 'House'

Get ready to see a lot less of Olivia Wilde on "House."

The actress, whose big screen career has exploded lately ("Tron: Legacy," "Cowboys and Aliens"), "will be in very few episodes this year," "House" creator/executive producer David Shore told reporters on a conference call Monday.

"Very, very few episodes... not because of particular creative reasons on our part but because she’s got a very thriving movie career and has asked us to allow her to do that," Shore said. "We had a great association with her and we do have an episode planned which is kind of the goodbye episode - Not just planned, we’ve got it shot. I think it’s very nice."

To fill the void of Wilde's character "Thirteen" and another character who won't be returning, Lisa Edelstein's Cuddy, new cast members Odette Annable and Charlyne Yi were announced last month.

The new season, starting on Monday, finds Dr. House in prison, months after driving his car into Cuddy's (Edelstein) house in the finale. Shore said that the fact House served time doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a changed man once he returns to the hospital in the October 10 episode.

"One of House’s mantras is nobody changes. I think that’s largely true," Shore said. "I think the show has been about a guy who’s striving to change and failing for the most part and that is human nature. I think what happened was last year he tried to change, and I think this year he’s going to say that was stupid on a certain level. I’m not saying last year was stupid. I’m not even saying that the relationship [with Cuddy] was stupid. I think the relationship was great but I think it didn’t work out, and so House’s reaction to that is to not go down that path again so fast."

House first encounters Annable's character, a prison doctor, while behind bars.

"I think she’s used to being really the smartest person in the room, and now she will be the second smartest person in the room, and she knows that when she meets House," said Annable. "She doesn’t have his experience or wisdom or knowledge yet but she’s truly fascinated by him as a doctor. The interesting thing about her is that she’s fortunate enough to be in a financial situation that she doesn’t have to work but she wants to."

As for her other series, "Breaking In," Annable joked, "Fox is killing me. I’m very excited that 'Breaking In' got picked up but my number one priority right now is 'House.' So I will be doing double duty at some point. I don’t know when that will be yet. I do think 'Breaking In' will start [shooting] early in the new year so we'll see how that goes.'