The first season of House premiered on November 16, 2004 and ended on May 24, 2005.
The season followed Dr. House and his team as they solve a medical case each episode. The season's sub-plot revolved around billionaire Edward Vogler making a $100 million donation to the hospital. Through this donation, Vogler became the new chairman of the board of PPTH, however, seeing House and his team as a waste of time and resources, he decreases their payment, eventually forcing House to fire one of his team members.
Chi McBride joined the cast as Vogler in five episodes of the show. His character was brought in after Universal Studios president Jeff Zucker threatened that the season would be cut short by six episodes if a boss-character would not be added. While there were possibilities of the character returning, he was generally disliked by viewers and critics and therefore not brought back into the show. Sela Ward, who would return as the main recurring character of Season 2, appeared in the final two episodes as Stacy Warner, House's former girlfriend.
Season 1 gained high Nielsen ratings, averaging 13.3 million viewers an episode. It was 24th most-watched television show of the 2004–2005 television season.
Hugh Laurie submitted the episode "Detox" for consideration of his work for the 57th Primetime Emmy Award in 2005. This resulted in his first Emmy Award nomination for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" for his role as Gregory House.
Production[]
The series House (also known as House, M.D.) began its first season on November 16, 2004 in the United States and was picked up for a full run of 22 episodes.
House, M.D. - Season One was initially released to DVD in Region 1 on August 30, 2005. Region 2 DVDs were released on February 27, 2006, and Region 4 DVDs were released on November 28, 2006. Season One was re-released in the anamorphic widescreen format on February 10, 2009.
Overview[]
We are introduced to the brilliant, famous but extremely exasperating Gregory House. We learn that despite his considerable intellect and talents as a physician, he does next to no work at the hospital, merely coming in from 9 to 5 to oversee his three teaching fellows. This infuriates his boss, Dean of Medicine Lisa Cuddy. However she keeps him on because when the rest of the doctors are stumped, House swings into action.
House's best (and only) friend is the hospital's Head of Oncology, James Wilson, who, unlike House, is conscientious and considerate, but also extremely loyal to House.
He has recently hired Eric Foreman, who, despite his considerable academic background, appears to have been hired because he was a juvenile delinquent. House plans on using him to break into patients' homes to look for diagnostic clues. Foreman joins the two fellows on staff, Robert Chase, the longest serving (and suffering) fellow, a rich kid whose dad appears to have gotten him this job, and Allison Cameron, who apparently got her job because of her looks.
Things go well until a new chairman arrives at the hospital, billionaire businessman Edward Vogler. Vogler immediately takes a dislike to House and, after forcing out Cameron, tries to fire House because Vogler claims that House is a danger to the hospital. Instead, after forcing out Wilson too, Vogler finds himself and his $100 million donation out on the street instead.
With things back to normal, Cameron starts to let her feelings for House become known, but it is for no avail. She thinks he is totally unfeeling until House's ex-girlfriend Stacy Warner shows up, begging House to treat her husband. House successfully does so and finds himself in a position of letting his ex-girlfriend work at the hospital.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Hugh Laurie as Gregory House (22/22)
- Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy (22/22)
- Omar Epps as Eric Foreman (22/22)
- Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson (22/22)
- Jennifer Morrison as Allison Cameron (21/22) (episodes 1-17, 19-22)
- Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase (22/22)
Recurring Characters[]
- Chi McBride as Edward Vogler (5/22) (episodes 14-18)
- Marco Pelaez as Marco the Pharmacist (3/22) (episodes 3, 13, 20)
- Kenneth Choi as Lim (2/22) (episodes 4, 18)
- Sela Ward as Stacy Warner (2/22) (episodes 21-22)
- Stephanie Venditto as Brenda Previn (3 episodes) (episodes 19-21)
- Ron Perkins as Ron Simpson (2 episodes) (episodes 14, 18)
- Currie Graham as Mark Warner (1 episode) (episode 22)
- Maurice Godin as Lawrence Hourani (1 episode) (episode 11)
Notable Guest Stars[]
- Robin Tunney as Rebecca Adler (1/22) (episode 1)
- Elizabeth Mitchell as Mary Augustine (1/22) (episode 5)
- Harry J. Lennix as John Henry Giles (1/22) (episode 9)
- Brandy Norwood as herself (1/22) (episode 9)
- Amanda Seyfried as Pam (1/22) (episode 11)
- Daryl Sabara as Gabriel Reilich (1/22) (episode 9)
- Nestor Carbonell as Jeffrey Reilich (1/22) (episode 12)
- Sarah Clarke as Carly Forlano (1/22) (episode 14)
- Joe Morton as Gary H. Wright (1/22) (episode 17)
- Marin Hinkle as Naomi Randolph (1/22) (episode 18)
- John Cho as Harvey Park (1/22) (episode 20)
- Peter Graves as Myron (1/22) (episode 20)
- Carmen Electra in various roles (1/22) (episode 21)
Major Events[]
- House hires Eric Foreman as his newest fellow. However, Foreman learns that he wasn't hired because of his impeccable credentials, but because of his history as a juvenile delinquent.
- We learn that House hasn't performed any clinic duty since he was hired. Cuddy cuts off his hospital privileges until he agrees to make up the time.
- House reveals that his disability was due to an undiagnosed infarction in his leg.
- Cameron shocks Chase with a detailed description of the effects of sexual activity on human physiology.
- Cameron refuses to be upfront with a couple whose newborn baby is sick. When the baby soon dies, she can't bring herself to tell them about it and Wilson has to step in to do it.
- Chase reveals he originally entered the seminary intending to become a priest, but lost a test of faith and decided to become a doctor instead.
- We find out House likes cold Reuben sandwiches.
- We find out Cameron got married at 21 to a man she knew was about to die of cancer.
- We find out Foreman did his residency in Los Angeles with Marty Hamilton.
- Wilson reveals that one of his brothers (later revealed to be Danny Wilson) has been homeless since Wilson was in medical school.
- Foreman reveals his parents are still alive and have been married for almost 40 years.
- After going a week without Vicodin to win a bet, House admits he's addicted, but goes into denial that the addiction affects his life.
- Foreman has a short relationship with Sharon, a pharmaceutical representative.
- House gets all-access tickets to a monster truck show. He asks Wilson, who says he's busy with a conference and can't get out of it. House gets Cameron to go with him, but she lets it slip that Wilson isn't attending the conference. House confronts Wilson about it, and he admits he is going to dinner with House's ex-girlfriend Stacy Warner.
- To get out of clinic early, House diagnoses the remaining four patients in 1 minute and 15 seconds.
- Chase's father Rowan Chase comes to the hospital to visit. House figures that Rowan is there to consult with Wilson over lung cancer. Rowan admits it, but asks House not to tell Chase.
- Princeton-Plainsboro gets a new Chairman of the Board, Edward Vogler, a billionaire owner of a pharmaceutical company. He takes an immediate dislike to House.
- Fearing for his job after X-raying the wrong leg, Chase discovers House has lied about his patient's condition to allow her to get a heart transplant. He starts spying for Vogler to get leverage.
- On Vogler's direction, House is told he has to fire one of his fellows.
- Cameron admits to Chase that she finds House attractive.
- Vogler tries to turn Foreman and Cameron against House so he can pump them for information, however, Chase remains his only source of information.
- Cameron comes up with a solution to save money - cut everyone's salary. House takes the suggestion to Vogler who rejects it out of hand. Cuddy realizes Vogler's issue is not about money, but power.
- House finally decides to fire Chase. Vogler realizes that if this happens, he will lose most of his leverage and tells House to pick someone else. House refuses.
- Vogler tells House he can keep his staff if he shills for the new drug Vogler's company is trying to sell. House agrees to give a talk on the drug's effectiveness.
- House figures out Chase is the one ratting him out to Vogler. Chase admits it, but tells House that there's nothing he can do about it.
- House finds out the new drug is nothing but a new formulation of an inexpensive old drug. When he goes to give his talk, he essentially tells the audience that the expensive new drug is no better.
- Cameron agrees to quit so that House doesn't have to choose who to fire.
- Vogler works to get unanimous board approval to revoke House's tenure so he can fire him.
- At the first vote, Wilson is the only dissenter. As a result, the rest of the board agrees to remove Wilson. Wilson resigns from his position as head of oncology to save his reputation. Another vote on House's tenure is scheduled for the next day.
- Before the second vote, House saves the life of a newborn baby and figures out another infant was not malnourished but had an underlying condition. As a result, at the second vote to revoke House's tenure, Cuddy dissents. When Vogler tries to remove Cuddy from the board, he fails and instead the board turfs out Vogler and gives up his donation.
- House tries to hire back Cameron. She finally agrees on the condition that House go out on a date with her.
- For betraying him, House assigns Chase a lot of trivial work, such as doing internet research.
- House and Cameron go out on a date. House tells Cameron she's only interested in him because he's so damaged.
- House's ex-girlfriend Stacy Warner comes to House to ask for help in figuring out why Stacy's husband is ill. House tells her he's not interested.
- House gives a lecture to students on diagnostics. During the lecture, he reveals the circumstances that led to his disability. It is revealed that while House was in an induced coma, Stacy went against his wishes and had all the dead muscle surgically removed.
- House changes his mind and tells Stacy to bring in her husband Mark Warner so he can try to diagnose him.
- Stacy talks to Cameron about her relationship with House. We are told that his personality was the same before he was disabled. House and Stacy lived together for five years.
- House manages to diagnose Mark Warner, but he will need rehabilitation. House agrees to let Cuddy hire Stacy as the hospital's General Counsel.
Episodes[]
Image | Title | Original Airdate | U.S. Viewers (in millions) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. "Pilot" | November 16, 2004 | 7.05 | |||||||
Plot: A young kindergarten teacher is brought to the hospital and diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer by Wilson. However, when she doesn't improve with treatment, Wilson seeks out House for another opinion. When House fumbles the initial diagnosis, the patient tires of being a guinea pig just as House feels he has found the right answer. Meanwhile, new hire Eric Foreman tries to get used to working with the world's most difficult diagnostician. Cuddy, frustrated with House's lack of a work ethic, decides to go to extreme measures to get House back into the habit of working in the clinic. | |||||||||
2. "Paternity" | November 23, 2004 | 6.09 | |||||||
Plot: A 16-year-old boy comes to the hospital complaining of double vision and night terrors after being hit in the head by a lacrosse stick. House is dismissive until he notices a myoclonic jerk in the boy's foot. After a near-fatal hallucination and several faulty diagnoses, House is mystified until he learns the boy's true paternity. | |||||||||
3. "Occam's Razor" | November 30, 2004 | 6.33 | |||||||
Plot: After a spirited sexual intercourse with his fiancee, Brandon collapses, suffering from abdominal pain, nausea, fever, and low blood pressure. House and his team cannot pinpoint Brandon's problem since there is no illness with this many symptoms. But then, Brandon complains of pain in his fingers and House suddenly zeroes in on the cause. | |||||||||
4. "Maternity" | December 7, 2004 | 6.74 | |||||||
Plot: When a newborn has a seizure and another newborn becomes ill, House believes an epidemic is spreading through the hospital. Cuddy dismisses the suggestion until other babies show up with the same symptoms. House and his team race against time to diagnose the illness, but the choices they have to make may be lethal to some of the newborns if their diagnosis is incorrect. | |||||||||
5. "Damned If You Do" | December 14, 2004 | 6.91 | |||||||
Plot: When a nun comes in to the clinic with bleeding hands, House gives her an antihistamine which appears to set off an allergic attack. However, when the nun gets tachycardia from the epinephrine House gives her to treat it, Cuddy concludes he gave her ten times the appropriate dose. When House insists he gave her the proper dose, Cuddy gives him 24 hours to prove the nun has another condition before she calls the malpractice lawyers. Although House finally vindicates himself, the answer doesn't help the patient, who continues to get worse no matter what steps they take. | |||||||||
6. "The Socratic Method" | December 21, 2004 | 6.73 | |||||||
Plot: While dodging Cuddy in the emergency room, House runs into the son of a schizophrenic woman who has been diagnosed with alcoholism. Intrigued by her schizophrenia and the fact she has a condition she's too young to get, he takes her case and finds multiple problems. However, when the patient does something unexpected, House starts to wonder if she's really mentally ill at all. | |||||||||
7. "Fidelity" | December 28, 2004 | 6.91 | |||||||
Plot: The cause of a woman's hypersomnia turns out to be obvious, but with no way to explain how she could get ill, the only way the patient's husband can save her is by admitting he can't trust her. | |||||||||
8. "Poison" | January 25, 2005 | 12.37 | |||||||
Plot: House tries to blow off a case of a sick teenager, but when the obvious explanations are ruled out he gets interested. He soon figures out the correct diagnosis, but when the patient takes a turn for the worse, pinning down the exact cause of the patient's illness soon becomes vital. Just when House figures he's got it right, another patient shows up who seems to have no connection to the original patient. When House thinks he's found the right answer, he finds that the patient's mother has lost all faith in him and won't allow treatment. | |||||||||
9. "DNR" | February 1, 2005 | 12.75 | |||||||
Plot: A famous musician with ALS loses all hope when he realizes he can no longer play his trumpet. However, House doubts the ALS diagnosis is correct and encourages Foreman to pursue an aggressive course of treatment. When House defies the patient's "Do Not Resuscitate" order and is kept away from the patient, he still won't let the matter drop. | |||||||||
10. "Histories" | February 8, 2005 | 14.97 | |||||||
Plot: Wilson is convinced a homeless Jane Doe in the emergency room has a real illness, but Foreman is convinced she's faking symptoms to stay in the hospital. House takes the case just to spite Foreman, but even when they find who she is and what's wrong with her, the treatment makes her worse. | |||||||||
11. "Detox" | February 15, 2005 | 14.22 | |||||||
Plot: A teenage boy is admitted when he starts coughing up blood. He gets worse in the hospital, which seems to rule out an environmental cause, or does it? Meanwhile, House tries to prove he isn't addicted to Vicodin by betting a week without Vicodin against a month without clinic duty, but when he suffers withdrawal symptoms, his team starts to lose confidence in his judgment. | |||||||||
12. "Sports Medicine" | February 22, 2005 | 15.53 | |||||||
Plot: A famous baseball player coming off a drug suspension breaks his arm merely by pitching. Tests show that his bones are deteriorating and when a solution is proposed that will mean the death of the patient's unborn child, House must scramble to find another treatment. | |||||||||
13. "Cursed" | March 1, 2005 | 15.53 | |||||||
Plot: A Ouija board tells a young boy he will die, and he soon comes down with a serious illness. As his father is a major donor to the hospital, he insists on the best they have and Cuddy presses House to take the case. As they work through the possible solutions, House wonders why the father is so familiar with certain rare diseases. Meanwhile, a visitor to the hospital allows House to put Chase under the microscope. | |||||||||
14. "Control" | March 15, 2005 | 17.33 | |||||||
Plot: A young, high powered CEO of a cosmetic company starts to suffer intense pain. House quickly diagnoses the problem, but realizes revealing the truth about it will mean the patient's certain death. Instead, he risks his own career to hide the truth and get her the treatment she needs. During all this, Princeton-Plainsboro takes on a rich new chairman of the board who has just offered a $100,000,000 donation. He immediately sees House as dead weight and decides to infiltrate House's team to get ammunition against him. | |||||||||
15. "Mob Rules" | March 22, 2005 | 17.34 | |||||||
Plot: A judge orders House to treat a mob informant. House does so under protest, but even when the patient recovers, he figures something is wrong with him and wants to keep treating him. When he butts heads with Vogler over the treatment of the patient, Vogler spends two days fighting with Cuddy over House's continued employment, resulting in Cuddy having to make a terrible compromise in order to keep House at the hospital. Meanwhile, House figures out someone on his team is keeping Vogler informed and takes steps to try to confirm who it is. | |||||||||
16. "Heavy" | March 29, 2005 | 18.28 | |||||||
Plot: A morbidly obese 10-year-old girl has a heart attack. House is intrigued, but the obvious cause of her problems seems to be her weight, and Chase won't stop mentioning it. Can the team look through her appearance to see the real cause? | |||||||||
17. "Role Model" | April 12, 2005 | 15.04 | |||||||
Plot: When a politician friend of Vogler's collapses at a rally, he demands House at least examine the man. House soon takes an interest in the case, but his conclusions seem to end any chance the patient has of pursuing his political career. In addition, Vogler's demands on House increase to the point where he wants House to shill for his new pharmaceutical. | |||||||||
18. "Babies & Bathwater" | April 19, 2005 | 17.48 | |||||||
Plot: House quickly diagnoses a pregnant woman, but she resists treatment because of the risk to her unborn baby. When House tries to bend the rules to get her the best treatment available, he finds Vogler standing in his way. Finally, the dispute between them comes down to a showdown before the Board and Wilson gets caught in the crossfire. However, when House once again pulls off the impossible, Cuddy has to decide whether to risk her own career. | |||||||||
19. "Kids" | May 3, 2005 | 17.14 | |||||||
Plot: House is drawn away from trying to get Cameron to return to PPTH when a meningitis epidemic overwhelms the Princeton area hospitals. When he comes across a 12-year-old diver with symptoms that don't quite fit meningitis, Cuddy figures he's just trying to get out of the boredom of screening dozens of people. However, when the diver gets worse, House finds the hospital's resources stretched to the breaking point. | |||||||||
20. "Love Hurts" | May 10, 2005 | 18.80 | |||||||
Plot: When House snaps at a patient in the clinic, the patient appears to suffer a stroke as a result of the confrontation. To avoid legal trouble, he agrees to take the patient's case. However, when none of the easy answers are right and the patient soon gets worse, House has to push past the patient's lies to find the right diagnosis. | |||||||||
21. "Three Stories" | May 17, 2005 | 17.68 | |||||||
Plot: Cuddy wants House to deliver a lecture to the medical students on diagnostics, and House finally agrees when she lets him off of clinic duty for a couple of hours. On the way to the lecture, he finds his ex-girlfriend coming to see him to ask him to treat her husband. After refusing, he heads to the lecture where one of the cases he presents starts to look very familiar. | |||||||||
22. "Honeymoon" | May 24, 2005 | 19.52 | |||||||
Plot: House's ex-girlfriend Stacy Warner's husband Mark is reluctant to be treated by House, but they eventually corral him and get him into the hospital. Although Mark insists he is fine and the initial tests bear him out, it is soon clear that there is something seriously wrong with him. House is torn emotionally between wanting to please Stacy by curing Mark and letting Mark die: either so she might come back to him or to hurt her for the way she hurt him. The matter only gets worse when the only way to confirm House's diagnosis is to risk Mark's life. |