PLOT: A realistic examination of the challenges facing healthcare workers in today’s America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a modern-day hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Each episode follows an hour of Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch’s 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room.
REVIEW: Back in the 1990s, two competing medical dramas debuted on network television the same year. CBS series Chicago Hope hailed from David E. Kelley and lasted for six seasons, while NBC’s ER, from creator and medical doctor Michael Crichton, stayed on for fifteen years. ER launched the careers of Juliana Marguiles, George Clooney, and newcomer Noah Wyle. Fifteen years after its series finale, ER veteran Noah Wyle is back in scrubs in a similar yet unique medical drama. The Pitt, from ER showrunner John Wells. Shifting away from the relationship melodrama to focus on the actual emergency room cases faced by the frontline heroes at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital, The Pitt is told in an almost real-time format, with each hour-long episode set in a single hour of a fifteen-hour shift in the emergency room nicknamed “The Pitt.” With minimal forays into the personal lives of doctors and nurses, The Pitt is a harrowing and powerfully realistic look into the frontlines of emergency medicine in the post-COVID-19 world.
The first episode of The Pitt begins at seven in the morning on an average day at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. As Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch (Noah Wyle) arrives for the start of his shift, the waiting room of the ER is packed with dozens waiting to be seen. As the supervising doctor for the emergency room, Dr. Robby is still reeling from PTSD surrounding the death of his mentor, Dr. Aaronson, to COVID four years ago this day. As the shift begins, the team of doctors and nurses at The Pitt take on patients handled by the previous medical experts and take on incoming emergencies along with those in the waiting room. Unlike ER and similar medical shows, which focus on patients within an hour, The Pitt has some patients seen and addressed within an hour. In contrast, others span multiple episodes due to the severity and complexity of their diagnoses. The first episode introduces the viewer to the staff of The Pitt, namely, Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor), who is handling her unannounced pregnancy, Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), a cocky and experienced doctor, as well as second and third-year residents Dr. McKay (Chucky’s Fiona Dourif), Dr. Santos (Star Trek Picard‘s Isa Briones) and Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh), recent transfer Dr. King (Taylor Dearden), and brand new residents Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and Dr. Javad (Shabana Azeez).
While we get moments that provide character development for each supporting character, the insights are quick and peppered between cases. On ER, each episode would see one or two main patients with a handful of minor ones but there was still plenty of time for romantic entanglements, hospital politics, and conflict between doctors. The Pitt still has elements of those subplots, but the focus is on realistic medical situations that never stop coming. Over the ten episodes made available for this review, the doctors of The Pitt treat dozens of patients, with the total nearing a hundred, with some successfully handled and others ending in tragedy and loss. There are recognizable faces in the patients and their next of kin, including actors Joana Going (House of Cards), Drew Powell (Gotham), and Samatha Sloyan (Midnight Mass). Most of these characters are organically woven into the heightened tension and anxiety of an overloaded emergency room suffering from understaffing and lack of resources. There is plenty of blood and lots of grisly injuries, but not much we have not seen on network medical shows. The biggest shift I noticed in this series airing on Max is the profanity, which is not overused but enhances the events’ realism.
What works in The Pitt outweighs what does not. Because of the focus being on the medical emergencies, none of which are as crazy as some of the stunt events seen on Grey’s Anatomy or Chicago Med, when a case comes into the emergency room, the doctors spout technobabble which sounds realistic but is likely beyond vetting by anyone who did not go to medical school. When the series shifts to the interactions between the doctors, we get hints of the melodrama that boosted ER and Chicago Hope. There are complaints from the nurses about the lack of support for frontline workers and discussions about the financial challenges coming from the top down. While COVID is referenced as a key event for many doctors, it is not as in your face as it could have been. Yes, there are a couple of blunt moments involving the vaccine debate, with the writers’ beliefs coming through loudly and clearly. Noah Wyle navigates most of these moments with aplomb from his prior medical show experience, and the rest of the cast is also solid.
Created by R. Scott Gemmill, a veteran of series including JAG, ER, and NCIS: Los Angeles, the fifteen episodes of The Pitt include entries written by Joe Sachs, Simran Baidwan, Cynthia Adarkwa, Valerie Chu, and star Noah Wyle, amongst others. Directing duties on the premiere fell to John Wells with Damien Marcaro, John Cameron, Silver Tree, and others, with Amanda Marsalis helming four episodes. The series has minimal music accompaniment, with non-stop action and movement, an impressive balance of handheld cinematography, and guerilla editing. Some of the heavier-handed elements did not work either for me, including the theft of an ambulance from outside the ER doors and how much screentime that takes up. There is also an ongoing narrative involving a doctor suspecting another, a pregnancy mystery, and a patient who may be a potential school shooter. Because of the real-time element of The Pitt, I get why these stories keep coming up episode after episode, but where some plots wrap up well, others linger too long.
A medical drama with significantly less soap opera tendencies and an increase in the gritty, medical focus of the story has been missing from television for a long time. The intensity of this series will likely give a new generation of future doctors and nurses the boost they will need to take care of those in need. If you like fast-paced drama without the frills of a standard formula procedural, The Pitt will be right up your alley. I found myself binging episode after episode without losing interest a single bit. This is a solid reinvention of the medical drama series and one I hope continues for future seasons. Noah Wyle may not deviate far from his tried-and-true experience on ER, and his return to the genre is a welcome one. I would have loved it if this series had been a true sequel to ER, but I will take this as the next best thing. I am writing you all a prescription for fifteen episodes of The Pitt to be taken stat.
The Pitt premieres on January 9th on Max.
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