'House, M.D.' Pilot

I was browsing through Netflix to find a new TV series to watch.  When I saw House, M.D. it was an easy choice to pick, when I noticed it nearly has a 5/5 Star rating on Netflix.  I also saw a few episodes of this show when it used to be on TV, and I remember it being one of the most popular shows to watch during its run.  All I remembered from this show is that "House" is the main character and he walks with a cane, so I wanted to see why this show was so popular.
House, M.D. stars Hugh Laurie as House. Working along side House is Dr. James Wilson [Robert Sean Leonard], Dr. Eric Foreman [Omar Epps], Dr. Robert Chase [Jesse Spencer], and Dr. Allsion Cameron [Jennifer Morrison]

This pilot starts out with guest-actor/patient [Robin Tunney] playing a kindergarden teacher. She is talking to her students when she starts to mumble and can't make out any words. During this part the music slowly increased, got louder and the beat would get faster.  The camera shots were extreme close ups of her eyes and mouth. Then all we hear is her gasping for air and her heart beat.  With all of these things working together I could feel how distraught the teacher was and how serious her condition is.
There were not many establishing shots; when there where they were of this red brick establishment, which is supposed to be the hospital they work in.  The doctors and patients shot inside the hospital all have a warm color look on them.  It seems like there is an orange light on the actors, it does do a good job of separating the actors from the background. Since the background is mostly windows with sun light coming in, I would almost expect a cooler color than a warm one on the actors, it was a bit distracting visually.
The character House isn't as nice as I would expect him to be.
 With doctors you usually think of them as caring for the paients and building some sort of trust and connection; with House he is a bit of a rebel.  He cares about helping his patients but it seems like he cares more about solving what is wrong with them over anything else.  He doesn't really interact with the patient played by Robin Tunney, until after he figures out what is wrong with her.
This show does a good job of grabbing and keeping my attention. House, M.D. has become one of my new favorite shows.  I would recommend this series to anyone who likes drama, mild comedy, and doctors.  I give the pilot a 8.5/10 and I would recommend this show to my friends. I plan on continuing to watch this series!

The Arrested Development Pilot: One of the best pilots EVER

Arrested Development aired it's pilot on FOX on November 2nd, 2003. Since then, throughout its four seasons, the show has received 6 Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and recognition for being one of the funniest shows aired on television.

In my personal opinion, the pilot of this show is one of the strongest pilots for a television series I have ever seen. Typically, pilots are ruled out to not be considered the best, but this show breaks that rule. In this episode, you are introduced to every important character in the series. The main character, Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman, narrates the episode and gives a detailed description of his highly dysfunctional family members. The fast paced editing and highly saturated coloring make the episode even more intriguing to watch. Lower thirds are used as well as many graphics to point to certain things and create different vectors.

Another aspect that I found interesting is that when they go from one setting to another, they don't just cut it, they create two different boxes on the screen and then bring the next scene into full. I have never seen that done on a TV sitcom before. The dialogue that is used is absolutely hysterical and the conflicts that arrive are so coincidental and unrealistic that they make you laugh out loud. The killer cast of Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, and many more add hilarious antics with each of their lines. Overall, this pilot was incredible and really set a high standard for situational comedies.

How To Make It In America

Last night, I watched the pilot episode of the HBO series, How To Make It In America. It is a series starring Bryan Greenberg as Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon, played by Victor Rasuk, focused in Brooklyn. Along with their friends, the two are trying to jumpstart their road to the American dream by fulfilling their entrepreneurship ambition.

Within the first episode, we met the main characters and learned a little bit about their life style and how they are all connected, just like a typical pilot episode. But, from there, we also saw the plot greatly develop with Cam’s cousin, Rene, returning home from jail. Cam secretly took a loan out from Rene in order to help Ben try and start a company, but lied to Ben and told him that he received it from an investor. As a result, they need to find ways to pay the money back, so the plot has begun. There is also development between Ben and Rachel, Ben’s ex-girlfriend who he has not been able to get over. During the pilot episode, he ran into her for the first time with her new boyfriend, causing jealousy and relationship insecurity for Ben.

Overall, I was not blown away by this pilot episode, but I did enjoy it because it was very interesting. I am not a big fan of pilot episodes to begin with because they normally just establish the characters and do not have any development, but this pilot had more to it than that. I also really enjoyed the artistic aspect of the show, which was the photography. In order to establish a new scene, they used photographs from that scene in order to establish what is going on. It was also used in the opening sequence, which was one of my favorite opening sequences for any show I have ever seen. This whole idea added a very cool aspect that really drew me in. I will definitely continue to watch this show to see how it develops, both character wise and plot wise.