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ARTICLE
DVD Review: House, M.D. - Season One
by R.J. Carter Published: September 8, 2005
From an idiot Prince Regent in Blackadder the Third to a super-genius doctor, Hugh Laurie has covered a lot of acting ground.
Scruffy, acerbic, sarcastic, and seemingly misanthropic, Dr. Gregory House is an unlikely hero. But he doesn't want to be liked. He doesn't even need respect. All he wants to do is look into medical cases that interest him -- and that doesn't include runny noses, pulled muscles, or accidents of rectal insertions. Come in with something sexy, something impossible to explain, or something that everyone else is so obviously missing, and you'll find yourself with the sharpest medical mind on the planet -- and his team of equally super-competent doctors -- working your case.
The foil for Dr. House is the hospital administrator, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, who respects House's reputation but nonetheless insists that he put in his regular hours in the hospital's clinic, treating the more mundane cases, providing some hilarious filler sequences as House ridicules the cases and applies his Holmesian deductive reasoning skills to the patient's lives more than to their symptoms. These sequences also serve to provide the viewer an opportunity to see glimpses into House's personality as well. When a patient comes in because of symptoms she had days ago that have disappeared, House deduces she's about to be fired from her job, noting the new glasses and other clues that denote she's using every benefit available to her. Taken aback, she admits that she may be out of work soon and is taking comfort in this small amount of revenge: "I don't like being told what to do." Pausing a beat, House schedules her for a very expensive full body scan.
Clockwise from center: Hugh Laurie, Jesse Spencer,
Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps, Robert Sean Leonard,
Jennifer Morrison
House's associates are equally interesting, if more human. They actually take time to see the patients and talk to them, as opposed to their boss who really couldn't care to talk with them because, as he commonly asserts, "People lie." But it's not just their medical brilliance that caused House to select them for his team. Dr. Foreman has an expunged record for an offense committed in his teenage years -- making him the ideal breaking-and-entering man when House wants to gather evidence from a patient's locked dwelling. And Dr. Allison Cameron... well, he admits he hired her not because she was in the top of her class (she was, but she wasn't the top) but because she was "hot." Hot enough to marry rich and not need a career, but chose to anyway. So she had a mindset that interested him. And, of course, she's hot (although the sexual tension exists more thickly between House and Cuddy, in a sort of David and Maddie Moonlighting way.)
I missed this series on television. I don't know why, I can't explain the miss. So seeing these episodes on DVD is my first exposure to House, M.D. However, before the pilot had finished playing out, I was already kicking myself for not having tuned in earlier, and before the third disc was even loaded, House had become one of my favorite television shows.
House is just what the doctor ordered to resuscitate interest in the television medical drama genre.
This DVD set is comprised of three double-sided discs in a tri-fold case that slides vertically into a wraparound cardboard slipcover. The Bonus Features, all of which are on the flip side of the third disc, include discussions with executive producers David Shore, Katie Jacobs, and X-Men's Bryan Singer (whose signature is all over the magnified cellular camera shots) regarding the early developmental stages of House. There's also a short audition reading with Hugh Laurie (which may take some viewers by surprise when they hear his natural British accent -- even Singer was fooled into thinking he was an American) and a rather lengthy tour of the set by actors Jennifer Morrison and Lisa Edelstein. While each of the bonus features includes cutaway clips from the show, they aren't overloaded with them as many other sets are prone to do, providing more information than they do reruns (the exception being House-isms, which still manages to interject new dialogue between shots.)
Previews on this DVD set include Revelations, Northern Exposure, and The Interpreter.
Grade:
Content: A+
Bonus Features: B+
House, M.D. Season One Episode List
1A
Pilot
Paternity
Occam's Razor
Maternity
1B
Damned If You Do
The Socratic Method
Fidelity
Poison
2A
DNR
Histories
Detox
Sports Medicine
2B
Cursed
Control
Mob Rules
Heavy
3A
Role Model
Babies & Bathwater
Kids
Love Hurts
3B
Three Stories
Honeymoon Bonus Features:
The Concept (4:45)
Casting Session w/ Hugh Laurie (1:25)
Medical Cases (4:20)
Set Tour (5:35) House-isms (4:00)
Dr. House (6:30)
