The popular Fox TV series House, M.D. implied major changes at the end of the last season when each of the three members of the eponymous, eccentric, tortured genius doctor’s team left his employ either voluntarily or otherwise.

Since then, the producers of the series have announced the hiring of several new cast members who are reportedly trying out for spots on House’s depleted team. However, as E! News reports, the previous members will in fact return to the show at some point and in some capacity:

Season three ended in May with both doctors [played by Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer] seemingly leaving Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital for less curmudgeonly pastures, after Chase was fired and Cameron resigned. But both Morrison and Spencer, as well as Omar Epps, whose Dr. Eric Foreman also supposedly split, are returning to House in the fall, so show runner Dave Shore must have something else in mind for Hugh Laurie’s resident trio of consciences.

Nevertheless, when the Emmy-nominated series’ fourth season kicks off, the diagnostic wing will be more crowded than usual. Kal Penn, Olivia Wilde, Anne Dudek, Peter Jacobson and Edi Gathegi are all joining the cast as young doctors in competition to join House’s team.

It’s the mark of a good TV series that, one, the producers have continually tried to keep the show fresh by incorporating new ideas and plotlines (even though most of the latter have been largely annoying and stupid) and, two, that anybody cares who’s leaving and who’s staying.