Thursday, January 19, 2006

some meanderings about the Pilot

Don’t worry. I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. Real life sometimes prevents me from doing my favorite hobby (which is, of course, ignoring real life whenever possible). LOL

A set-up of the rules for my mailing list is sort of preoccupying my free time (whenever I find that illusive object), but I will toss out a few interesting observations that I made while watching the Pilot before Christmas break.

So we shall thus start my inspection of Dr. Allison Cameron during the Pilot episode of “House, M.D.”:

Cameron’s first words on the screen were whispered. Foreman, whom she was responding to, thus responds to her in a regular speaking voice. Now, they might have been trying to show Foreman’s likeness to House – a topic they approached later in the first season – but this might also have been the start of a characterization of Cameron. She’s being polite but standing between two arrogant men (House and Foreman). Granted, she didn’t know Foreman that well yet. I will also grant this is but a very short (and possibly dismissive) observation, but it is still there and makes me ponder.

I talked to my sister about this first viewing of Cameron, and she told me that, if she remembers correctly, in the unaired version of the Pilot, this scene was not our introduction to Cameron (she thinks that it was the mail-opening scene that was shown in the next episode). My sister lent me her copy of the unaired pilot, so I will be watching that as well. I’ll report my findings later. (If you remember how it went in the unaired Pilot, feel free to say something.)

Soon after our Cameron whispering moment, we get House’s soon-famous line: “Humanity’s overrated”. Now, this I suddenly found fasinating when in relation to Cameron. Here is what I wrote before Christmas break:

“This, upon my current inspection of this episode, should have been our first clue that something might go wrong with Cameron. House says “Humanity’s overrated” and Cameron looks up – almost as if in surprise. But don’t we get hints every episode that Cameron thinks she knows House oh-so-well? This statement should not have surprised her! However, this is too early on in the season for me to be very critical. Writers, directors, and actors have to know characters better before they can avoid this kind of mistake. One episode isn’t enough for them to know the characters that well.”

I still sit behind this comment, so I will pretty leave that as is.

Our first view of Dr. Cameron with a patient shows us that Cameron is ever-so-caring about the patients. It also shows her defending House – something we will see a number of times. (Until House blows her off.) We also, during our second view of Cameron with a patient, see her do something that every patient wishes – using laymen’s terms. Dr. Foreman tells the patient that they are injecting blah, blah, blah into her system to do blah, blah, blah. Dr. Cameron smiles and says, “Basically, whatever’s in your head lights up like a Christmas tree.” Not only laymen’s terms but pleasant, utopian terms.


I tend to be a little anal when I get down to analyzing, so forgive me. LOL What do others think? Am I completely off my mark? Why do you think that? Or do you agree with me? Have something else to add?


I will be adding my observations about the Pilot later (but hopefully sooner than before).


Later!
Laura

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