After the commercial break Foreman is doing some -*test*-('")s with Rebecca and then he goes to explain the symptoms to the others. There's this exchange: Foreman: She couldn’t put them in order. Chase: Could the damage have been caused by a lack of oxygen during her seizure? Foreman: No, I gave her the same -*test*-('") 5 minutes later and she did just fine. The altered mental status is intermittent, just like the verbal skills. Cameron: So, what now? Foreman: Given the la-*test*-('") symptoms it’s clearly growing deeper into the brain stem. Soon she won’t be able to walk, she’ll go blind permanently, and then the respiratory center will fail. House: How long do we have? Foreman: If it’s a tumor we’re talking a month, maybe two, if it’s infectious a few weeks, if it’s vascular that’ll probably be fas-*test*-('") of all, maybe a week. I always presumed that her blindness was, at that point, also intermittent and her vision returned when she recovered the conscience.

Okay. I'll buy that. I just suddenly thought they'd forgotten about a fairly major symptom.

Foreman: No, I gave her the same -*test*-('") 5 minutes later and she did just fine. That always bugged me. In intellectual -*test*-('")ing, you don't give a person the same -*test*-('") five minutes later (or five months later either). You have to give an alternate form, otherwise the results are subject to practice effects. I would think that a neurological -*test*-('") would also be subject to practice effects since it was the exact same kind of problem as on some intelligence -*test*-('")s.

OK, the thing that bugs me most about the pilot ... the thing that almost stopped me from watching in the first place ... is not the orange filter, but Robin Tunney as the POTW. For some reason, the actress gets on my last nerve. I cannot stand her, and cannot stand any of the characters she's ever played. Maybe that's a lingering response to seeing here in the mountaineering movie some years ago in which there's a big rescue mission mounted to save her (and a couple other people on her team) and seven rescuers end up dying, she lives and all I can think is: Am I supposed to be happy about this resolution? So as a result, the pilot gets off on the wrong foot for me because the whole time I'm thinking: I'm supposed to care if she dies? So her whole spiel about dying at home, at peace left me thinking: "Please do." But it was only House that brought me back, with his speech smacking down her attitude, that death is always ugly. It was such the thing I wanted to hear, and so different from what I'd expected from the typical "saintly" type of doctor show, that I had to see more.

Namaste, had this been the first episode of House that you had seen, would you have continued to watch it then? Because I know on many levels it has a different feel to it than the rest of the series. There are some shows now who are able to get away with using an episode filmed later as its pilot, and characterization and other key elements are more cohesive by that point (well, more British shows). And I don't think I cared for Tunney either. And for me it's more that the character lacked depth and the symptoms were almost too extreme for me to care. She's a kindergarten teacher who talked like a baby after spending a night at her special friend's house. From a professional aspect, you don't tell your students about your one-night stand and because of it, her character was instantly someone I did not like. While there were some grittier aspects to the illness that did hit me a bit (I actually liked the "I want to die at home" speech to House as it seemed to be the first humble moment of truth for her character), her parts of the episode seemed rough while the rest was just not as fine-tuned as the other episodes. Had this been the first episode I had seen I probably would have not continued to watch. Although, as for the orange guy, I didn't mind the filter as you could already see HL acing his performance with him in those scenes. The House we know now was already in that clinic in that episode.

It was the first episode I saw, arizonamyrie. I'm one of those people who watched it from the pilot on. (I actually was one of those people who got the early DVD in "Entertainment Weekly," so I saw it before it aired.) So yeah, it was enough to bring me back. I VCRd the episodes on my backup TV however, which only had an antenna and fuzzy reception, until "DNR" aired (I used the good TV to watch "The Amazing Race," and due to the crappy cable system at that time I couldn't use the good TV for more than one channel at a time). To me, by the time "DNR" aired, the show had finally hit its stride -- the one first promised in the pilot that kept bringing me back -- and it's been at the top of the list for me ever since.

Oh cool. I didn't have a TV at that point in my life, so I first saw "Damned if You Do" when I came home from college for Christmas and my mom had me watch it (it was cheaper to go sans TV than it was for the increasing cost of bad cable that rarely worked - and I got better grades that semester). Seeing that you got the early DVD, what changes did they make between that release and the network premier (if any)?

I was checking Hugh Laurie in the IMDB and saw he had a new series. I kept meaning to watch but, because I avoid supporting Murdoch and don't watch much Fox, I didn't see any promos and kept forgetting when it was on. On USA I accidentally caught The Socratic Method -- and didn't like it. Someone told me to watch it again. The next episode I saw was DNR and I haven't missed one since. Would the Pilot have made me keep watching? Probably. I think Hugh Laurie and Lisa Edelstein nailed their parts. Parts of the script were there, especially the Dying is Ugly speech. I wish they continued to write Cuddy as well as they did then. Parts of the episode are almost anachronistic in retrospect -- House in dress slacks, paying for the mints he gave to the patient or offering to give Orange Guy one of his Vicodin. Other than that generosity, I thought his interaction with Orange Guy was very House. And if I had received t he advance DVD I still wouldn't have watched it. I owned a DVD player but didn't get around to setting it up until I bought the S1 set.

You guys were perceptive to have caught on so early. For me, it took a while. I had taped the show and watched it off and on after catching bits of it on USA summer reruns. I liked it, but it grew on me slowly. The thing that brought me to attention? HL's golden globe acceptance speech, the first one. That utterly floored me as I had no idea he was British, that he was THAT Hugh Laurie and once I figured out that he had starred in some of my favorites (J&W, BA, etc.) I watched more carefully, rented the S1 dvds to catch up, discovered ABoF&L, and have been on House watch ever since. It's far and away my favorite tv show ever. And the pilot? I truly love it, though the orange cast + the orange guy I can only attribute to Brian Singer's sense of humor. Odd. But the death with dignity speech was one of the bravest, most powerful things I had (have) ever seen and so far from what I expected to see that I was hooked. And to this day, I don't think I've seen HL or the writers back off from who House is intended to be and that gets more impressive as time goes by.

In the fall of '04 I remember reading, so improbably, that Hugh Laurie was going to anchor a new show on Fox. (And given that I'm a huge X-Phile, I do actually have a love for Fox despite its news division and otherwise unsavory Murdoch elements.) I was excited--and fairly bewildered--at this turn of events because I had pretty much stopped tracking the guy a couple years earlier despite my long standing love for ABOFL, Blackadder and Jeeves & Wooster and the various Gunseller, Moab type books. (The Stuart Little movies held no appeal for me. At that point I figured Hugh was probably washed up as an actor. Ha.) I had always been more of a Stephen fan than a Hugh fan. Hugh always struck me as the quiet younger brother, kind of cute, in an undefinably dorky way. Regardless of how much I enjoyed him, I always felt him overshadowed by Stephen. But still, Hugh on American TV was an interesting prospect that I was certainly going to tune in for. Then in the fall my dad died and the election went so badly that I went into a pretty substantial free fall. I canceled my cable the day after election day which made my television viewing fairly unpleasant. Needless to say, I was in no mood for television and actually forgot about this show "House" coming on until it had aired 2-3 episodes. Fortunately, a friend of mine at work had just gotten his first DVR with burning capabilities and was recording anything and everything. He hooked me up with the first three episodes which I watched in rapid succession and got me on track to catch up with the rest of the show as it progressed. (To this day, I'm not sure why my friend had that recorded because he's never been a fan of the show and years later I've never been able to convert him. Oh well.) It didn't occur to me to go online with respect to the show until after season two. Other than the X-Files, it's the only show I've ever wanted to post anything about, good, bad or indifferent. Was I pulled in by the pilot? Absolutely. I really didn't know anything about it beyond the fact that it was Hugh. I didn't pay attention to any other cast members. Of the 6, Hugh was the only one that I knew really well and had seen in a billion other projects. I kept scratching my head and wondering where I'd seen Robert Sean Leonard before until it dawned on me that that was Neil! And then it further dawned on me that I'd seen him in several projects (Much Ado About Nothing, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge) but he had totally fallen out of my view for over a decade at that point. Lisa E. I had vaguely recognized in an unplaceable way---the person you see but never bother to know their names. Omar I wouldn't have recognized although I did see his eps on E.R. and remember the character's tragic end but I never would have linked him if I hadn't been told. Jesse and Jennifer I had never seen before in anything. Not even in retrospect could I say I'd seen them and just not recognized them. I loved the entire cast immediately. (Wait. I thought Jesse had disastrous hair in the pilot. Like some sort of weird helmet.) I think the fact that I couldn't associated JM, JS, OE and LE with any other project helped me appreciate them more in House because they just all clicked together pretty magically with no other baggage behind them. Did I like the pilot? Yes, I did. After my mouth was hanging open at Hugh's utter transformation into something I'd never seen from him before, nor imagined him capable of. (How on earth did Hugh Laurie get sexy?) Would I watch more based on the pilot? Most definitely. But the episode that sealed it for me was "Paternity" about the kid with night terrors. That episode to me is still so perfect. House's interactions with his team in this episode absolutely roped me in. It's also the first episode that broke my heart for House---when he was annoyed at being called into the hospital to search for the missing kid when he knew he was useless on the stairs and physically tracking someone down. I also thought it was the first, best use of music with Ricki Lee Jones at the end with House watching the lacrosse game / imagining memory. (Better, even, than the first usage of the Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in the pilot which to my mind was a bit forced at that point. I've never been able to accept that fact that Cuddy had to actually miss that obvious reference and then come back with having to look up Mick Jagger.) In "Paternity" I laughed harder at House's reaction to the kid coming up with animal "B" names like "Baby Elephant" than I did at all the antics of the Survivor mess. (Subtle, to me, has always been better.) And, of course, I loved the clinic scenes with the young mother that won't vaccinate her kid and House taunts her with "little baby coffins." Season 1, to me, was perfection. I don't think there's a single episode I don't enjoy of the entire season.

Baily, it never occured to me that Cuddy didn't get the "philospher Jagger" joke. I assumed that she either didn't have a comeback ready or, even more probably, she needed to organize her "what you need" list before she used the comeback. Namaste, there are lots of things that we know were written or filmed in other episodes that never made it to the screen. And they're not canon either. But it is obvious that Foreman is the new guy from the questions he asks in the canon version. We just don't know absolutely that Chase was there before Cameron or how long each had been working for House when the show began.

Oh, I realize the "one year" and "six months" thing isn't canon. My problem is that I always watched the EW DVD, and keep forgetting that those points aren't in the aired episode.

The two unaired Pilot scenes Namaste mentions can be seen on You Tube. I certainly regard them as part of my personal canon, if only because the episode makes more sense with them. Cuddy refers to the cane grabbing, for example, which makes a lot more sense if you've seen Wilson grab House's cane (as it were).