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House:
The Series Premiere
A Techtite
Series Premiere Review
first
posted: November 15th, 2004.
What's a "Series
Premiere Review"...? It's the latest fad of cyberspace, to review the
first episode of a series scene by scene, for those who never got to see
it. Sometimes the "review" is more satire than word-for-word
script narration, but we have to keep it interesting, right? Right!
Note this isn't the
review of the series; that is here. People
who Google their way to this Premiere Review may retort "You can't
judge a series by its premiere." Agreed. But when a series is begun
this...bad, we can't help but have a little fun. Enjoy...
-------------------------------------------------------
A young kindergarten
teacher enters her
class, only to start mumbling as if she lost her powers of speech. Oddly,
she still has her writing faculties, as she eerily scribbles on the board "Call the
Nurse," then falls to the ground. Admittedly, this is an
attention grabbing opening, to a highly promoted new drama on FOX. Too bad
it doesn't last.
After some credits, we
jump to the hospital. In
wobbles Dr. House (Hugh Laurie); a man too pompous to wear a white coat, because he doesn't want
anyone to know he's a doctor...in a hospital, no less. We then see House's
three-person "team." One of their newest members, Eric (Omar
Epps), is annoyed because they haven't done jack
squat in three days. This is about the time it becomes apparent that this
series has no medical consultant. It would be sub
moronic idiocy to believe a trio of young doctors could be in a
hospital for three full days and not get either an actual patient, an
emergency situation, or just plain ordered around by their superiors to do
various menial tasks. But hey; they get to work with Dr. House as
their "leader." He's soooooo brilliant, don't you know?
Jump back to the brilliant House's chat with a younger doc. House rambles
some one-liner that the writers probably got from the title page of Web-MD.com:
the teacher's case can't involve cancer, if nobody's scheduled a biopsy.
The doctor he tells this to drops his jaw in amazement at this
"brilliant" revelation, while anyone who's had a cancer victim
in their family is left shouting at the screen: "Um....DUH?!?"
No sooner can you say
"CSI rip-off", then we see the patient on her bed, as we get a
fly-through into her brain through her nose. Yes; her nose.
The camera FX go into her nostril, hairs and all, only to approach the
brain as if it was not in a human skull, but more like a brain-like alien
creature floating in outer space. We then go through a been-there,
done-that blood vessel, and...that's it. Excuse me: huh? Guys, if you are
going to use your 1999 blueberry iMacs to try to make internal fly-bys like
those on CSI, could you show us something
worth seeing about her medical condition? What a waste of cheesy special FX.
Luckily, Dr. House
doesn't need effects to "know" it's a lesion; apparently, he has
Jedi Powers of The Force™
that help him "know" this is so. Dr. House's
team of young doctors want to tell the teacher House's Harebrained
Prognosis v1.0 immediately; House does not. House explains that he doesn't
really like talking to patients much: they lie, he
can't, no fair! Whatever, dude.
We are then introduced to
House's boss. Yeah, that's right; his boss, and before you can say
"I'm no First Lady; I'm a Senator!" you get the
idea: this is another post-millennium, reverse-sexist show, where the lead
male is a total schlep, and the lead female is the brilliant boss he works
under. Of course, a "schlep" is what House is, because anyone
with half a wit would ditch bossy shrew Lisa, and start their own
practice.
Maybe House just likes the romantic prattle he shares
with her, in a "It won't be long until a sweeps week when they sleep together" sort of way.
The school teacher gets
an MRI; a brain scan, through a narrow tunnel her body is slid into. This
series' lack of a medical consultant is even more evident here, as the
person on duty slides the teacher's body into the small, confining test
tunnel, only to tell her then that she may
feel a bit claustrophobic. This is something she'd tell the patient long
before the MRI. What's more; if the patient was actually claustrophobic,
they would've given her enough drugs to stun a water buffalo. Yet these
folks have no medical consultant, so freaking out is exactly what she
does, with a spasm that closes her windpipe and nearly kills her. Was this
because of claustrophobia, or a rare allergy to the medicine they gave to
better "photograph" her brain? No difference; either case
would've been discovered long before. The reason for such unreality is
just so the young docs can perform a daring tracheotomy right in the MRI
room. Not likely, but maybe the junior high demographic thought the scene
was cool.
House is unfazed at his
team's first big boo-boo in this series...but he
does decide it's time for his staff to talk to the patient. Chimes
in Eric: didn't you say that you don't like talking to patients, because they
"all" lie? Smugly responds House, "Truth begins with lies...think about
it." Um, yeah, okay, I thought about it. Conclusion: STU-PID!
You're saying a person who just lied has begun to tell the
truth. That's just dumb.
Suddenly, one-third into the
story, the focus jumps to another patient
altogether...and another. Why? Maybe the actress playing
the teacher won one of those three-day vacations on Disney Cruise Line; how should I know? All we "know"
with these two other patients is that House's bedside manner sucks. A man with orange
skin is told he eats too many carrots (I'm not kidding!). The mother of a boy with
asthma must be told like she's six years old that asthma
medicine for kids is not dangerous. Didn't this mother ever see The
Goonies? I'm just asking.
House then has a
brainstorm: asthma patients are given steroid medications, so why couldn't
they help the
teacher? There's no way to know if he's right without a biopsy. Insists
House; they don't need one of those! If he's wrong, "then we've
learned something else." Man; don't you want to go to this hospital
if you're sick? It's not often that a bunch of quacks inject you with
medicines just to see if you die or not. We're led to presume the
good teacher gets injected with the potential Wonder Steroids That May
Kill Her But No Cry No Foul. On to the next scene.
We next see Eric smelling the floor of the teacher's classroom. What is he doing, asks the
little girl nearby. Yeah; good question kid. Keep thinking hard like that,
and you could be a doctor someday! "I'm checking for molds,"
answers Eric. The girl
suggests he may like smelling the pets in the room too. Ha! You go girl.
But hey; the pet is a parrot. They carry disease. Cue a red herring! Nope;
false alarm. House
insists "it's not the bird," if not a single kid has the same
symptoms of illness. Elementary, dear Eric. It ain't the stupid bird. Oh,
and next time you find a red herring, be sure it lasts longer than two
minutes.
Clearly, Eric isn't being very useful. House recommends he break into the teacher's
house to find more clues. Here's my guess; the series' lead writer just
saw this great show called CSI...and another one in Miami...and
another, in New York! They all have
the ability to enter homes and search for clues, and while that's because they work for the
police idiot,
House feels that Eric is black and has a crime record, so hey;
breaking and entering should be easy for a man with such "street
smarts." Yeah; we get it. House is Archie Bunker,
M.D.; a racist pig. He's also a moron if he thinks Eric would break into a home just because House asked him. No,
really. He's not that dumb...yet.
Next scene: House is
sitting...wherever, and in walks Boss Lisa. Oh goodie;
more prattle. She just found out House is giving the teacher steroid
medications. "You don't prescribe medicines based on guesses,"
insists Lisa. I guess that piece of "duh"-level knowledge was on
a page of Web-MD that House missed. Lisa then compares House to a Nazi for
such actions. House counters by insisting there's "never" any
proof of a doctor's prognosis. If you say so. Should we
break down all the medical testing labs and put in miniature golf courses
and arcades, then?
Jump over to Boss Lisa,
talking one-on-one with the teacher. The teacher actually looks better!
Huzzah! For one shining moment, the reverse
sexism seems to be obliterated, making House look like some sort of brilliant Jedi
Padawan, with Lisa his dimwitted master. Lisa leaves the room with a final message from the
teacher to
thank House for her. I have never seen a patient so insistent that her
life was saved by a doctor she never even met, ignoring all the doctors
who talked to her up to this point, yet demanding that sole
unseen doctor is thanked. What...Ever.
House awaits outside to gloat during this fleeting moment of apparent
brilliance. "You got lucky," says Lisa. Very lucky, I would say.
We then see the patient
is now with that young doctor from the first scene. He's checking her
breathing while she asks if she ever gets to meet Dr. House. Man, girl;
could you get a clue any faster? The young
doctor explains that House is a good doctor, even if not a good person.
"Can you be one without the other...Can't you care about
people?" asks the patient. Get it yet? This is one of those series
that wants to be unique by having a total jerk as the lead character.
Critics everywhere are comparing this idea to George from Seinfeld.
I'm sorry; I seem to have missed the episode of Seinfeld where
George gives someone prescription drugs on a mere whim. Speaking of which;
no sooner can you say "Oopsie!" when the teacher has another spasm and
her heart stops. House's guesswork was total bunk. So much for the miracle cure.
Cut back from fade-out
(or commercial, if you wish) to see the patient didn't die. That's the
good news. It's revealed her brain's functions are blinking on and off.
These moments of brain lapse will
become permanent, to the point where she is blind, or even
worse. Time out for a second while I ask: um...guys? Dr. House nearly
killed a patient. Isn't someone going to yell at him about that? I guess
not; they're too busy listening to House's Harebrained Prognosis v.2.0: they
should just wait to see how fast she deteriorates, and then they can
better determine what illness she has. "By then maybe there's nothing
we can do"..."There's gotta be something better we can
do...than to watch her die," insist his medical team. In other words,
friends: they're learning. They aren't smacking this fool quack upside the head
yet, but they're learning.
Dr. House goes off to
another idiotic story-arc patient. House implies the man's troubles are
because he's read too much about medicine on the internet. Strange, Dr. House; I
made that prognosis about you, 14 paragraphs ago. House gets white candies
to give the guy as a placebo. Sure; all pills have a frosty mint flavor.
The guy will never suspect! Where does
House get these brilliant plans?
Eric
decides that House's suggestion
to break into the teacher's home is actually a constructive plan. Yeah; maybe he can sniff
her floor! Jump to the teacher's house,
where Eric and his chosen sidekick have broken in, without a single
nosey neighbor nor a single cop. What a great neighborhood! Sidekick
finds a children's drawing; Eric decides to raid the fridge and make
himself a sandwich. I'm not kidding! Sidekick takes this moment to wonder
if the only reason she was chosen by House is because she's
hot. That's why the series hired her, after all, but you're
not supposed to think that deeply.
Eric returns to the
hospital to reveal his findings. Well, he had a ham sandwich,
and...wait! She can't be Jewish if she had ham in the fridge! Before you
can shout "B.F.D," House concocts Harebrained Prognosis, v.3.0;
ham could mean she has a tapeworm. We then have House recite some grade
school quality essay about tapeworms, which is supposed to be
"the right prognosis," because the special FX team spent so much
money to show us a CGI tapeworm. Excuse me; am I actually sitting through
this whole one hour premiere to have the lead case be some stupid tapeworm? I'm not impressed.
Neither is the patient,
who's tired of the harebrained schemes. Man; slow reflexes this chick has.
Just half an hour ago they had to shock her back to life after
her heart went kaput. Now; she's had enough and just wants to go home and
die. Cue Emmy scene! House decides to meet the
patient, for no reason than it's the last minutes of the episode and
viewers' eyes are rolling. House talks about a misdiagnosis that led to his
needing a cane and he's now a pessimist jerk and pretty please with sugar
on top for a happy ending, trust me one last time.
Two guesses how well this speech works. The answer is no. Nice try though.
On to House's Harebrained
Prognosis, version 3.5: take an X-ray of her leg, and maybe the tapeworm in her brain had
babies who love a woman's thighs, and she can see she has worms. The cool
CGI shows us a little X-rayed worm larvae close up, which the patient
must've seen too, because the X-ray only shows a little dot.
A doctor gives her the treatment for tapeworm: two pills. "Two
pills?!?" inquires the patient. "Ditto...?!?" yells the
home viewing audience. Maybe House could've sold her on Harebrained
Prognosis v3.0 if he had simply said with his kindly bedside manner: "Two
stupid pills." I'm just saying.
Jump to that sidekick
Eric used for the apartment break-in. Hey; did anyone tell the patient yet
that some quack ruffled through her underwear drawer? Whatever; Sidekick is concerned that House may have hired her simply because she's a
hot chick. "I'm a jerk...it doesn't matter what I
think," offers House. I knew there was some line that
would make this hour worth watching. House confesses he hired her because she's "extremely
pretty....it's like having a nice piece of art in the lobby!" Hey;
look at the bright side, girlfriend. At least he didn't offer a racist
comment that you'd be "best" at breaking into a home...not that
you didn't help.
One last thought; the
Last Big Prognosis was that all the problems were
due to a tapeworm that entered the patient's brain, and is now dying,
causing a foreign substance in her cranium. So, how could giving her a pill that kills tapeworms "cure" her
of an already dying tapeworm? Don't tell me these two pills are filled
with Martin Short and Dennis Quaid from Innerspace, and they're
going to remove the tapeworm corpse from her brain...? I'm just
saying; get a medical consultant, guys. Get one now.
Jump to The
Big Finish. The teacher is okay! Lots of kindergarteners rush
to greet her in her hospital bed. As if. All these kids' parents would
probably keep them home at fear of getting the teacher's tapeworm from a
toilet seat or something. But hey; great finish. Cute, too. I just loved
the inside of the card reading, "We're so glad you're not dead!"
Cut to a final joke where
the guy with the mint flavored placebos needs a "refill."
Har-de-har-har...End of premiere. Yes, it's been a bumpy ride, but lots of
people seem to want this show to succeed, so I'll tell you what; I'll give
the show two more chances to impress me, until I give my full review on
this tripe. One, two, three strikes and it's out...fair enough? See you at
Techtite's TV Review page in two weeks to
see the full review, and this critic's final opinion...but the prognosis
isn't good.
---Techtite
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