I’m a bit late to the game on The Pitt, the new HBOMax medical drama that combines the storytelling structure of 24 with the complex, fast-paced world of the emergency department – the first of many connections the series has to the long-running NBC medical drama ER. We join the medical professionals of the Pitt – a urban ER in, you guessed it, Pittsburgh – at the start of the morning shift and then follow them over the course of the following 15 hours, with each episode covering one hour of that shift. See, 24 meets ER. And, yes, the series comes from the minds of several ER veterans – R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells, and star Noah Wyle (who played Doctor John Carter on ER and writes, stars, and executive produces on The Pitt) – which compelled a lawsuit from the estate of John Crichton over scuttled plans for an ER reboot prior to the launch of this series.
But I’m here to tell you that The Pitt is excellent. Really. From the hour-long installment structure – which means we gets to spend multiple episodes with various patients (and get to see how potential patients stuck in the waiting room deal with the purgatory of that space), we get to see and understand the pressure faced by the medical staff on a minute by minute basis (yes, characters do get a chance to run to the bathroom and eat, but only rarely), and we get to know our cast of characters slowly, as personal details drip out like IV meds over the hours. Unlike shows more focused on the personal lives of the medical staff, The Pitt cares more about how the different personalities of the doctors, nurses, and other support staff (one great thing about the series – there are a host of supporting staff members who flit in and out of the narrative, making this feel like an actual workplace) clash and meld, and how they can work together to treat the patients that come their way.
What makes the show truly exceptional, however, is the writing. Over the course of the ten episodes that have aired thus far, we’ve met a host of characters, learned key traits, backstory, and additional information seamlessly, and gotten a handle on who aligns with who, who looks up to who, and just who might be trouble – and that goes for patients, doctors, nurses, and all the other characters in the series. This isn’t an easy task for a writing staff. They have to serve the show’s central characters each episode, providing key information, allowing them to slowly travel their season arc (while still not allowing an unreasonable amount of growth, seeing as this is only 15 hours out of their collective lives), and making sure we, the audience, can develop an attachment and a greater understanding of each of them. All of that while still presenting interesting medical cases each episode, checking in on patients over the course of multiple episodes, and making it all feel fresh and new. And they absolutely hit it out of the park.
I’ve often written about how the best shows have an indelible link between the holy trinity of writing, directing, and acting, where each element serves to lift the other two. The Pitt is one of those shows. The writing lifts the acting and the acting make the direction appear seamless and smooth (which is crucial in a series set in a bustling ER). Joining Wyle, who plays the ER attending Doctor Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (who, on more than one occasion, I’ve mentally referred to as Carter), is a great line-up of actors. Key players include Katherine LaNass as Dana Evans, the ER’s charge nurse and, for my money, the show’s best character; Fiona Dourif as Dr. Cassie McKay, a late-in-life career change doc who reminds me a lot of ER’s Abby Lockhart; Taylor Dearden as Dr. Melissa “Mel” King, an awkward second-year resident; Isa Briones as Dr. Trinity Santos, the cocky intern who wants to do it all perhaps a bit too much; Gerran Howell as Dennis Whitaker, a third-year medical student in the vein of a young, idealistic Dr. Carter from ER; Shabana Azeez as Victoria Javadi, a second-year med student with the weight of parental expectations and a child genius rep to boot; Patrick Ball as Dr. Frank Langdon, a senior resident who clashes a bunch with Santos; and Tracy Ifeachor as Dr. Heather Collins, who is having a pretty rough day. And that’s just the main cast (see, I told you the fabric of the series was deep and complex).
Watching these characters interact, win and lose, take some serious hits and keep on churning, and clash with one another time and again over the hours of their shift is pretty interesting to see. But what makes it all work is that the writing serves the characters, the acting serves the writing, and the direction makes it all come together into a story that engages, excites, saddens, and makes you want to press that “next episode” button over and over. I haven’t been this taken in by what is, essentially, a procedural drama with a storytelling twist in, well, decades. And one of the best parts? No one is running around and sleeping in on call rooms, we don’t have complex dating histories to navigate, and we aren’t expected to start shipping characters left and right. The series cares about the patients in that we get to spend a lot of time learning who they are, where they come from, and what they need. And we get to see, in “real” time, how the medical professionals deal with the cases that come their way. Sure, occasionally things get a bit too on-the-nose or narratively cute (like when two women fight over wearing a mask while sick or when a character’s ex comes into the ER injured), but, on the whole, this is a tight show from top to bottom.
If you’re in the market for a new series – especially if you’re one of the folks who have just discovered ER or who really want to see something like that again – The Pitt is well worth your time. Be warned: this is an HBO series, so it’s able to show a lot more than a traditional network series would be able to – there’s nudity (of the medical kind), some gnarly bloody sequences, and language. So, this probably isn’t a family show. But if you’re the right age to remember Wyle’s last stint as a doctor, this one is for you. And it’s the best show you aren’t watching.
The Pitt is currently airing weekly on Max. Ten of the season’s fifteen episodes have aired.
