this might be one of my favorite shows of all time

So, I finally found it. After digging around Epinions and Shopping.com for a few minutes, it finally occured to me to include "season one" into my search. No wonder I had a hard time finding a place to write my review.

I just finished watching the entire DVD set. I also feel like you should know that I bought this four days ago. I loved it that much. This wasn't even my first time watching it either. I was first tipped off about this show over a year ago by a friend, was interested, and I was hooked ever since. Season two (currently airing) is even better than season one as well. But season one was just that good to begin with.

Basic synopsis. Hugh Laurie (who is actually British yet pulls off an American accent flawlessly) plays a disabled, misanthropic and incredibly sarcastic doctor at the Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. With his team of three doctors (an immunologist, a neurologist and a... something I can't remember) and occasionally with the help of the Chief of Medicine and House's best friend, an oncologist, they all work together to solve the medical cases that all the other departments weren't able to figure out. Each week/episode presents with a new case that stumps everyone and they must figure out what's wrong before their typically quickly deteriorating patient dies.

That's pretty much it. Think CSI in a hospital with a time limit and you will roughly get the idea of what this show is about.

I really think, however, that Hugh Laurie's portrayl of Dr. House is really what keeps me watching. It's interesting to watch a doctor, who hates patients, work. He cracks jokes towards dying people. He consistently breaks hospital, legal and ethical rules in his effort to make his patient better. He is bitterly sarcrastic and extremely misanthropic. Yet he is a doctor. The thing is that when most people enter a hospital, we all have certain expectations as to what our doctor should be like. Nice, caring, believes everything we tell them. House is the exact opposite of that and it's quite interesting to watch him berate his patients just as much as he berates his co-workers.

The cases that this show presents us with are also just as interesting. Now, I don't want to really spoil any potential viewers by saying what each case is and how they end, but as someone outside the medical field, I still feel as if I understand fully what's going on with the patient and these are incredibly interesting cases that I would never have thought of. The writing is also incredible as I have yet to see a person who has watched this show and not genuinely cared about how House, his patient, their family and his team are affected by each case. It's very catchy as a viewer.

Now, I must warn, you must take in this show as you would any Fox show. Fox has a tendency to push the envelope a little. 24, Prison Break and Bones are three of their shows that instantly come to mind which all fall under this warning. But in order to fully appreciate how great the show is, you must take a small leap of faith. Some of the things they do, even if you aren't a doctor, you can flat out tell don't really seem all that possible. But the thing here is that when you are watching the show, you are so engaged in the people and their fight to make the patient get better, that you don't really care. It's written so you care about them. So you're too busy watching the show to really notice. It took me a second view to being to notice the leaps of faith I had to make in order to make the show seem real, but even after that, the show was not any less enjoyable to watch.

The supporting cast also does an incredible job. Jennifer Morrison, Jesse Spencer and Omar Epps all play their roles convincingly to make the team seem more real. Robert Sean Leonard (whose main claim to fame was playing Neil Perry in Dead Poets Society) also does a great job as House's best friend, and the one person that House confides in. Which is important as one of the main aspects about House is that because of his previous relationship as well as his disability, there is a tremendous vulnerability behind his glib and sarcastic remarks.

Which plays into his team with their need for order, sensibility and decourm. It conflicts often with House's ability to solve basically any puzzle, medical or not, and creates a kind of spontaniety when these two worlds collide. When this happens, nobody can really know what is going to happen next and this is what keeps a lot of viewers watching. Even some doctors I know who typically hate medical dramas.

But enough about that. The bottom line is that I would recommend this show extremely highly to anyone who is a fan of television shows. It was pretty much a hit from episode one in my opinion. This is one of the few shows I honestly feel like you cannot go wrong with. I feel that it should have won way more Emmys than the one it won.

As for the DVD set itself, I did find that to be a little lacking. The box itself is pretty bare bones. Three double sided DVDs, and the chapter listing inside the box is pretty minimal for a TV show DVD set. The menus are no-nonsense. There were only five or six extras on the B side of the last disc. While enjoyable, I watched all of them in an hour, I believe. It was a couple days ago so I don't really remember. All I remember is that they were pretty short. It does have interviews with Hugh Laurie sporting his native British accent, and personally it amazes me to watch that next to an episode where his accent is flat American. The DVD set itself was kind of disappointing.

But when the show itself is this incredible, who cares?