Pilot
- Episode aired Nov 16, 2004
- TV-14
- 43m
IMDb RATING
8.5/10
6.3K
YOUR RATING
Young kindergarten teacher Rebecca Adler collapses in her classroom after losing intelligible speech while teaching students.Young kindergarten teacher Rebecca Adler collapses in her classroom after losing intelligible speech while teaching students.Young kindergarten teacher Rebecca Adler collapses in her classroom after losing intelligible speech while teaching students.
Rekha Sharma
- Melanie Landon
- (as Reika Sharma)
Ava Hughes
- Sydney
- (as Ava Rebecca Hughes)
Ethan Kyle Gross
- Molnar
- (as Eitan Kyle Gross)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAt the beginning of the series, a woman has the name of Rebecca Adler. The female antagonist in the Sherlock Holmes is named Irene Adler. House is based on Holmes.
- GoofsIt is shown that steroids initially relieve symptoms of neurocysticerocis followed by worsening. House says that it is due to dead worms causing inflammation for which he gives albendazole (which is in fact used to kill the worm). In reality, what happens is when albendazole is administered it causes death of worms which may worsen symptoms and needs steroids to relieve symptoms. Here it is shown exactly opposite.
- Quotes
Rebecca Adler: I just want to die with a little dignity.
Dr. Gregory House: There's no such thing! Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're 90, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it! I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass... it's always ugly - ALWAYS! You can live with dignity; we can't die with it!
- Alternate versionsA slightly longer version of this episode (with about 4 minutes of extra material) was distributed free with various magazines as a promo for the series.
- ConnectionsFeatured in House: Swan Song (2012)
- SoundtracksYou Can't Always Get What You Want
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Performed by The Rolling Stones
Featured review
You can't always get what you want...
Is it really possible to replicate CSI's case-of-the-week structure inside a hospital setting à la ER? David Shore believed it to be no problem at all. In fact, he threw a little Sherlock Holmes into the mix as well as basis for the main character, and along came House M.D., one of the most intelligent postmodern serials of the 21st century.
Much like the pilot of CSI, the series starts with no need to introduce the various characters and explain the motivation. Instead, we get a teaser where a school teacher (Robin Tunney) starts speaking gibberish before having a seizure, and only then are we allowed to get our first glimpse of Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), head of the Diagnostics Department at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital in New Jersey. At first sight, one would never guess he's a doctor, and not just because he refuses to wear a lab coat: he's rude, acerbic and refuses to shave, plus he walks with a cane because of chronic leg pain to which he responds with far too many pills. In addition, he diagnoses patients without ever seeing them, since he believes total detachment is necessary to crack the "case".
Not that he does any of this alone: he has a team of assistants, which includes neurologist Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), immunologist Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer). Apart from being regularly insulted by their boss, they run all the tests and occasionally break into people's homes to find out what might be wrong. Not exactly part of the team, but important nonetheless, are oncologist James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), House's best (and only?) friend, and Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), the misanthropic physician's boss.
This opening episode is a practically perfect combination of three separate efforts (the only defect is the purple-ish cinematography that doesn't occur in the rest of the show): firstly, there's Shore's script, which manages to do to medicine what Aaron Sorkin did to politics, namely make the subject interesting with the assistance of fast-paced, smart dialogue and none of the sloppy sentimentality that characterizes Grey's Anatomy; then there's the director (and executive producer) Bryan Singer, who took a break from superhero films to concentrate on a smaller, character-driven mini-movie, albeit one where his familiarity with special effects does come in handy sometimes (one sequence in particular, where the mysterious disease is headed towards the patient's brain, reminds of the opening credits of the first X-Men).
And last but not least, there's the essential ingredient of quality TV: a good ensemble cast. Everyone pulls it off admirably, with a special mention for Leonard who hadn't been in anything this relevant since Dead Poets Society, but in every scene it is clear that House would only be half as good as it is if it weren't for Laurie, who does the best job of his career: throwing away the flamboyant insanity of his British television roles (Blackadder etc), he nails the required American accent perfectly and infuses his postmodern Holmes-like role with a healthy does of sarcasm that goes along well with the cynical seriousness, most notably when he quotes the "philosopher" Jagger: "You can't always get what you want". A neat summation of his view on life, and one of the countless reasons to watch the show.
Much like the pilot of CSI, the series starts with no need to introduce the various characters and explain the motivation. Instead, we get a teaser where a school teacher (Robin Tunney) starts speaking gibberish before having a seizure, and only then are we allowed to get our first glimpse of Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), head of the Diagnostics Department at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital in New Jersey. At first sight, one would never guess he's a doctor, and not just because he refuses to wear a lab coat: he's rude, acerbic and refuses to shave, plus he walks with a cane because of chronic leg pain to which he responds with far too many pills. In addition, he diagnoses patients without ever seeing them, since he believes total detachment is necessary to crack the "case".
Not that he does any of this alone: he has a team of assistants, which includes neurologist Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), immunologist Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer). Apart from being regularly insulted by their boss, they run all the tests and occasionally break into people's homes to find out what might be wrong. Not exactly part of the team, but important nonetheless, are oncologist James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), House's best (and only?) friend, and Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), the misanthropic physician's boss.
This opening episode is a practically perfect combination of three separate efforts (the only defect is the purple-ish cinematography that doesn't occur in the rest of the show): firstly, there's Shore's script, which manages to do to medicine what Aaron Sorkin did to politics, namely make the subject interesting with the assistance of fast-paced, smart dialogue and none of the sloppy sentimentality that characterizes Grey's Anatomy; then there's the director (and executive producer) Bryan Singer, who took a break from superhero films to concentrate on a smaller, character-driven mini-movie, albeit one where his familiarity with special effects does come in handy sometimes (one sequence in particular, where the mysterious disease is headed towards the patient's brain, reminds of the opening credits of the first X-Men).
And last but not least, there's the essential ingredient of quality TV: a good ensemble cast. Everyone pulls it off admirably, with a special mention for Leonard who hadn't been in anything this relevant since Dead Poets Society, but in every scene it is clear that House would only be half as good as it is if it weren't for Laurie, who does the best job of his career: throwing away the flamboyant insanity of his British television roles (Blackadder etc), he nails the required American accent perfectly and infuses his postmodern Holmes-like role with a healthy does of sarcasm that goes along well with the cynical seriousness, most notably when he quotes the "philosopher" Jagger: "You can't always get what you want". A neat summation of his view on life, and one of the countless reasons to watch the show.
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- MaxBorg89
- Sep 16, 2008
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