House M.D.: Season 1 (6 Discs)

House is one of the best shows on TV right now. Mixing medical procedural with humour, drama and mystery, this show has it all. While not like the other medical procedurals on TV this show uses the patients as the setting of the drama and not the focus. Hugh Laurie is exceptional as Gregory House, and you cant imagine anyone could play this role besides him. He can blend the serious character with side splitting witty humour which is consitently sharp. The thing that stands out to me on this show is the dialogue. Every scene has a great pace and ever word which leaves House`s lips is fantastic. His worker bees, or "young guns" do all the work as House limps about behind the scenes like a general marshalling his troops. His bizarre outlook on rules, ethics and life are strangely aggreable as his sole focus is to diagnose the patient. He revels in arguing and while most medical terms may fly over your head, you never feel lost. The show deals with the characters and gradually reveals about their pasts and provides some great drama. Likened to Sherlock Holmes in the fact that House=Holmes, Wilson(House`s best (only?) friend who is an oncologist)=watson and House solves the unsolvable gives you a basis for what to expect. You will immediately fall in love with this show and unable to stop watching!

Despite the fact that this programme it shot and transmitted in widescreen, for some stupid reason, only known to the studio, the DVD is NOT, and is formatted in 4:3 full screen crap-o-viosion. What a way to spoil a fantastic show.
Do not buy this if you are a fan of the show, unless you don't mind poor quality stretched images. Seek a widescreen version elsewhere.

Imagine a hospital doctor who is a crippled, drug addicted, anti social & bad tempered guy. Add a terrible bedside manner & a genius mind & you have House.
One of the best things on TV in years.

Hugh Laurie plays the horrible but wonderful Gregory House in this superior medical drama series. He's a sort of Sherlock Holmes of rare and terrible diseases, an apparent misanthrope with a heart of fools' gold. He and his team get all the most interesting and mysterious cases to work on. Each case starts with frowning and puzzling, educated guesses are scrawled on a whiteboard, then medicines and procedures are administered that almost kill the patient, then further head-scratching and brow-furrowing, more near-lethal treatments and then, finally, eureka: the true cause of the illness is discovered and (usually) the timely cure administered. And House limps off glowing with satisfaction and throwing a handful of Vicodin (a pain-killer to which he's addicted) down this throat.

I bought this series only because Hugh Laurie is in it and I've never seen him yet in anything I didn't thoroughly enjoy. As expected, I enjoyed this too. The stories are good and the acting is good. I have only one criticism and it's not of the show itself. These DVDs are crying out for subtitles. My sense of hearing is not excellent, the dialogue is full of medical terminology, the accents involve a certain amount of slurring of speech. I was constantly rewinding, attempting to lip-read and often just having to give up and hope it would become clear as the story unfolded. The series deserves 5 stars but I give the DVDs only 4, because they are incomplete without the subtitles.

Very nice show but it would have been much better if it had subtitles especially when it comes to medical terminology...