The first episode of House M.D. was titled “Pilot.”
“Pilot” introduced Gregory House, his diagnostic team, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and the series’ central medical-mystery format. The episode follows House and his colleagues as they investigate the illness of a kindergarten teacher whose symptoms become increasingly difficult to explain.
The episode was written by series creator David Shore and directed by Peter O’Fallon. It established House’s abrasive bedside manner, his reliance on deductive reasoning, and his physical disability caused by an infarction in his right quadriceps muscle.
“Pilot” is sometimes confused with “Everybody Lies,” the phrase associated with the series and the title of its unaired pilot script. It is also distinct from “Three Stories,” a later first-season episode that explores House’s leg injury through a teaching lecture. The broadcast premiere was “Pilot.”