The first episode of House M.D. is titled “Pilot.”
“Pilot” introduced Gregory House, his diagnostic team, James Wilson, Lisa Cuddy, and the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. The episode follows House’s investigation of a kindergarten teacher who develops severe symptoms, establishing the series’ pattern of differential diagnosis, testing, reversals, and a final explanation.
The episode aired on November 16, 2004, on Fox. It also established the show’s distinctive balance of medical mystery and character conflict: House’s diagnostic instincts are impressive, but his conduct creates friction with patients, colleagues, and administrators.
“Pilot” is sometimes casually called the first House episode, but “Pilot” is its canonical title. Later episodes, including “Three Stories,” expanded the show’s structure by using unusual narrative formats, while the pilot introduced the basic hospital and team framework on which those experiments were built.