House, M.D. - Season One

I love this series!!!! I know that a lot of people when they first heared about it, thought that it was going to be a knock off of E.R. But House, M.D. takes it one step further. There is no other show like it. Though a lot of people find Hugh Laurie's character rude and abrassive, it's what brings the show to life.

Not many shows get my attention -- especially shows which are still in production. I got hooked on House during its second season, and I had never seen the first five shows before I got the first season on DVD as a gift. If you are unfamiliar with the show, I will warn you the main character, House (played by Hugh Laurie), comes off as a jerk. What Laurie brings to the table is his own interpretation of House. Without his excellent talent, this show would not have appealed to me. Somehow, he can play a jerk but still be appealing. The medical aspect of the show always leaves me guessing, and I'm the type to solve mysteries within the first five minutes of a show. It certainly makes this series more enjoyable for me that I am kept guessing until the end. Great cast, great scripts, just a fabulous series.

This show is wonderful. Hugh Laurie does a perfect job playing the character we all love to hate. The interaction among cast members is believable, side stories/character development is great, and the cases are interesting. I can't vouch for the medical accuracy but as an entertainment tool it's worth the money.

The DVD formatting:

Season 1 won't work intuitively with your widescreen TV, so you will have to zoom, stretch, or otherwise adjust your TV or DVD player to limited avail; you'll likely never get it to show in the nice, intuitive way as the other Seasons' DVDs. Hopefully Universal will re-release a fixed version. There are many other reviewers here whose experience is the same.

That's especially sad because this is, from a content perspective, one of the best TV DVD's ever. And that's why I gave it a 5 star rating regardless of the DVD formatting issues.


The Content:

"House" is play on words for Sherlock "Holmes". Something I learned recently. His sidekick "Wilson" is named after, well you guessed it.

In case you've not seen the show:

Gregory House is super-doctor as detective, who can cure and mentally straighten everyone else out but himself. His imperfect while honest personality is as addictive as his Vicodin pain medication. Crippled with a leg infarction, hobbling about on a cane, he takes the bedside manner challenged physician to a new level. He's brutally honest, and politically incorrect to the point of being any corporate human resource person's worst nightmare.

The setting is not the U.K., or actor Hugh Laurie's native Australia, but contemporary (if there is such a thing) Princeton. And the actor's accent and performance are completely New Jersey.

The Content is Emmy award winning - some of the stories are heart rendering, serving as morality plays, and at other times there are moments that are completely hilarious. Unlike most other medical shows or sitcoms, it has an opposite effect than draining away your humor as well as intelligence.

My wife and I were a year or so late to catch onto House. Now we are huge fans. This boxed set was a great way to find out about the back story lines we had missed.

We have already purchased seasons two and three for our collection.