TV Pick of the week: Monroe

James Nesbitt says of House: 'It's wonderful but I think it's very, very different.' Photo / Supplied

James Nesbitt has a distinct advantage when playing brilliant neurosurgeon Gabriel Monroe. Aside from his gift for playing characters who are charmingly acerbic, as he has in the past, those huge eyebrows certainly help when a surgical mask obscures much of his facial expression.

Inevitably, his role in the first season of the British drama has brought comparisons with Hugh Laurie's role in House. After all, it's his name in the title and Monroe also unwinds by playing music. And he's also seen as something of a smart-ass by his colleagues. As rival heart surgeon Jenny Bremner (Sarah Parish) says in the first episode after a scrap over a patient: "I'm just indifferent to your twinkly self-regard."

And whereas House pops pills, Monroe's addiction problems seem to be cigarettes and a penchant for gambling - in the opening scene he takes bets on whether he will insert a catheter into the right spot in a patient's skull.

He does have a family at home, too, even if there are signs of domestic upheaval with a son away at university and a wife who is packing her suitcase.

It seems that like House, Monroe's work and life balance makes him a very hard person to live with, but a brilliant doctor nevertheless.

Nesbitt, now in New Zealand playing a dwarf in The Hobbit movies, says he didn't see Laurie's show until he got here.

"I've only just started watching it here in New Zealand.

"It's wonderful but I think it's very, very different. I can understand people making the comparison but I think the lives are different, the characters are very, very different.

"I just think it's a different set-up and I think when you start watching Monroe ... you don't really think of House at all. I hope not.

"But if people like it half as much as they like House we'll be doing all right."

The series was written by Peter Bowker, who started out on medical soap Casualty in the early 1990s before penning more ambitious dramas that included Blackpool and Occupation (which also starred Nesbitt).

Monroe, says Nesbitt, was partly inspired by Bowker's trauma of having his own 4-year-old daughter undergo brain surgery for a tumour.

"I think he was fascinated by this notion of handing over the love of his life to someone who was going to open up her brain to try to remove this thing."

When: Tuesday, 8.35pm
Where: Prime
What: Meet the House surgeon?

- TimeOut