User Reviews

Alongside the creator, Shore, series producer. Lawrence Kaplow, contributed with his pen some of the most intriguing episodes for House and his team. Once more, House is reluctant to take on any but the most intriguing of cases, and only does so here due to the initiative and subterfuge of Cameron when tasked to answering his mail. Thus, he is visited by the concerned parents of a normally fit and active teenager who, after suffering double vision and collapsing on a lacrosse pitch, has since suffered 'night terrors' and hallucinations. What convinces House that this no mere case of concussion and to admit the young man to his team's care is his observation of the adolescent's 'myoclonic jerk' - to us laymen, the involuntary twitching of his leg muscles, usually common in sleep as the brain's reaction when confronted by slower respiration, sending a pulse to ensure the body is not dying. Here, it is occurring when the adolescent is wide awake.

Ruling out infection, House notices from the MRI scan that there is a bowing of one of the hemispheres indicating some sort of blockage between both hemispheres of the patient's brain. The best diagnosis they can propose is that the young man could be suffering from fast onset multiple sclerosis. Yet, the sudden disappearance of this young patient from his bed leads to brave and quick reactions from Chase on the hospital rooftop to prevent the delusional patient from falling to his death. This acute conscious, confusional state, suggests the immune system is overworking, disproving all possible explanations aside from a deepening infection.

A recurring theme from the pilot, and hence the alternate title for that opening episode, is House's dictum that medical treatment and diagnosis should always take into account that 'Everybody lies.' In this case, House becomes convinced that the father of the patient is not the biological father, and therefore, any diagnosis would not be based on an accurate medical history. The show's creator and writers bravely and wisely do not flinch from revealing not just House's astonishing perspicacity and medical expertise, but also his preparedness to flout what are commonly accepted conventions of social behaviour. In this instance, running a book on his claims concerning his patient's paternity, and breaking ethical guidelines in running a genetic test without first gaining consent.

In addition, another recurring theme, it is becoming clear that despite his stated reluctance to see clinic patients, House relishes any opportunity to pour scorn on their ignorance. In this instance, we are treated to his mordacity in gaining oneupmanship of a patient with a track record of bringing lawsuits against medical practitioners. Secondly, we witness his cutting commentary on a young mother's spurning of vaccination, thereby risking her child's health, to avoid lining the coffers of pharmaceutcal companies. As he admonishes her: 'They think that you'll spend whatever they ask to keep your kid alive. Want to change things? Prove them wrong. A few hundred parents like you decide they'd rather let their kid die than cough up 40 bucks for a vaccination, believe me, prices will drop really fast.'

It is inconceivable that either Patrick Dempsey or Rob Morrow, who were considered for the role, could capture this acerbic yet enlightened individual as does Laurie. The 'black comedy' surrounding his behaviour is territory Laurie can explore confidently given his comedic background, and chastens this reviewer who so readily ridiculed this actor's move into a dramatic role.

This episode begins to feel like a sermon to parents on the unmitigated benefits of vaccination. Having established the teen was adopted, and guessing that the biological mother was never vaccinated, House posits a diagnosis of an extremely rare medical condition caused by the mutation of a measles virus acting like a veritable time-bomb. The dangers of the procedure to cure their adopted son, comprising an injection of interferon directly into the brain, are summed up neatly by Dr Foreman: 'it's dangerous...it could kill him...You should do it.'

It turns out that their son is perfectly aware he is adopted due to an internet search on a cleft chin he has noticed neither of his parents possesses. After his return to full health, House watches from the side of the pitch as our teenage patient proves a match-winner on the lacrosse field. This leads to a moment of sad reflection by House over his handicap, to the soundtrack of Rickie Lee Jones' wonderful 'On Saturday Afternoons in 1963', with its powerful refrain of 'Years may go by'.

As a final note, it is apt that the medical technical adviser for this episode, Dr Lisa Sanders, a professor of internal medicine at Yale, is the author of the 'New York Times' column, 'Diagnosis', which was one of the inspirations behind the series.

Episode 2 (or basically episode 1) of season 1 has a decent mystery surrounding a teen who collapses during a lacrosse match. Get ready because the intro medical stingers turn into a bountiful and joyous way to kick off each episode of House.

The plot really starts with Cameron forging House's signature trying to get him to take a case, because the team of extraordinary and very expensive doctors has been sitting around playing scrabble and billing to "no sick people."

This will be the first obstacle for many episodes. House just isn't interested in your cancer or eczema. So for people like you and me who get those types of great value bulk diseases any doctor with google could diagnose, we will never get to see House (probably a good thing).

So luckily for the patient he's having night-terrors at 16. At first they think its a symptom of a concussion but as he starts to get worse its revealed to be a measles virus the teenager contracted when he was a baby due to his biological mother (not the paid actors on screen) not being vaccinated/not getting the kid vaccinated.

Overall its a solid episode. There's lot of lovely horror inspired camera work and editing that sets House apart. If the episode starts to stall you can count on something disgusting or grizzly happening (thanks fox). The ending also showcases House watching the cured young man play lacrosse. A warm and poignant scene giving you a whiff of something a deeper in his character.

This episode should also get an extra point for a fantastic deconstruction of the brain rot infecting antivaxxers. A woman and her infant visit House in the clinic. The woman stubbornly refuses to get her child vaccinated (see measles man) to which House simply reminds her of the cruel cold reality that without this modern miracle of vaccines, the kid has a great shot at missing its first birthday, and every following birthday. Its not an ironclad defense against the type of venomous rhetoric that's poisoning society today but a simple example of how trying to bypass hundreds of years of empirical medicine in favour of some deft crusade will probably lead you into a nice wooden box 6ft under ground. A strong clip that should be reposted to antivaxxers until the superbug mercifully wipes them all out.

"Paternity" is the second episode of the first season from the successful long-running hospital series "House M. D.", which means that this one here that runs the usual slightly under 45 minutes was the immediate follow-up to the pilot episode. I would still say the pilot episode was slightly superior, but as you can see from my rating, I also think that this episode here was quite a success and the series stayed very strong right away. From my perspective, it took a little while until the central medical case in here really totally caught my attention, so this episode became better the longer it went, but was maybe not at its best right away at the very beginning. There the highlight was perhaps the female doctor (Cameron) from House's team faking his signature and how one of her letters looked a certain way. Another doctor from the team (Chase) guessing incorrectly once and correctly immediately after was also one of the better moments. Like several other times, the brief inclusions of other patients approaching House with their medical issues or the medical issues of the ones close to them were another highlight and of course I am rather referring to the comedic perspective here. This is often the case that all the drama comes with the central medical case.

I already mentioned two of the doctors from House's team, so let's go with number three now as well and one who is still missing from the trio is Foreman and his best moment here and probably also one of the best moments from the episode were his words towards the parents about how a certain surgery is dangerous and could kill him, but that it is still the right choice to perform said surgery. In a scene before that we had a piece of medical equipment entering the sick boy's eye, which was fairly scary to watch as well honestly. What else can there be said about this one? Oh yeah, gambling seems to be nothing unusual at the hospital and House here makes a lot of money before losing it all again. The concept of an illusion, of something being there, but not really being there is something we also see when the boy has hallucinations and hears stuff that is not really said or of course dreams about House cutting of one of his toes. A bit of a horror film moment there with this series. I am sure Hugh Laurie enjoyed it, even if his character is also fairly macabre at times in reality. But he can actually be compassionate as well if he wants to as you see during the scene when he talks to the boy's angry parents. Of course, he has his very own agenda there and actual compassion is obviously not a part of that.

What I was wondering a bit about was the solution then and how the fact that the boy was adopted was really crucial to solving the case. I mean I guess they asked the non-biological parents as well if they were vaccinated and we just didn't see it, but still. I am glad nonetheless that they did not use the scene with the woman and the unvaccinated baby to give House the idea and solution. It would have been a bit too much for the sake of it maybe. By the way, on a completely unrelated note, I also really like the main theme from this show. Nice composition. That is it. A big thumbs-up for this episode where you will certainly smile a couple times, maybe even laugh, and definitely feel with the protagonist or maybe rather with the protagonist's parents. It was never really about the young actor's performance I would say. This episode is close to being a must-see. However, it can also be said from the opposing perspective that if episodes like this cannot manage to win you over, then maybe this show is not for you because you can make a point that "House M. D." started in a way that could be considered the best the show had to offer. For me, it definitely is. I highly recommend "Paternity" and I will keep (re)watching now that the show is almost 20 years old.

I enjoyed this episode. It's a good followup to the Series Premiere, but it's not the best episode. It is still worth a watch, though.

In this episode, a lacrosse player is brought in to be looked at by Dr. House, because he's been suffering from double vision, hallucinations, and night terrors. That must be a fun way to live. Dr. House, and his team must figure out what is causing these neurological symptoms, before it reaches the fatal stage. Meanwhile, Dr. House is being threatened with a lawsuit, and he tries to convince a Mother that her baby needs a vaccination. Who doesn't get vaccinations? Stupid people, that's who.

Overall, I give this episode a 6 out of 10, which in my ratings book is: Good.