Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I saw a few episodes of a later season of House, but only just sat down and began watching it a few days ago.

While it was interesting to see House as being far from a people person, I didn’t get the impression that he didn’t care about the patients. I thought it was good to see a character who was willing to make the tough decisions… and also to push for what he could see was the best option, even when the others didn’t think that.

I liked being able to see the conflict between House and his team members. One element I found quite interesting was how he viewed Cameron. His comments to her at the beginning bordered on cruelty… but as the episodes progressed, I felt that he did care about her. It was certainly good to see that he did his best not to have to make the decision and protect the team when he was given the order to fire one of them, for instance.

There were some quite emotional moments in the series, especially with the lady who had been diabetic and who Foreman treated badly at first. While I did like Foreman’s character (in spite of his attitude at times), he went down a lot in my estimation during that episode… but I felt he redeemed himself by the end.

In this first season, I felt drawn more to Chase than the others. I did think that he made some bad choices… whether understandable or not. I enjoyed seeing him and Foreman play off against each other and I thought it was good to see how the different characters had different things they specialised in. While I didn’t understand half of what they were saying in the medical terms, it was obvious a lot of research had gone into the series.

While there were some really good moments of tension and mystery in many of the episodes, most of them did seem to follow the same pattern. Vogler’s arc was interesting, since he introduced a whole new type of conflict. I actually started out liking him… and then felt he became petty and vindictive. It would have been good to see more of the personalities of the different board members, though.

I enjoyed seeing House’s friendship with Wilson and it was nice to see someone who put himself out to save patients. There were also amusing aspects when House had to interact with patients in the clinic… something it was completely obvious he hated doing.

I liked being able to get to know more of House’s character by the end of season one… and I hope to learn more of him and the others in the later seasons.