A prestige streaming series with a fifteen episode season? How can this be? The new Max medical drama looks like "ER" at first glance, and apparently was originally conceived of as a sequel series until rights issues quashed it. Showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, executive producer John Wells, and star Noah Wyle are all "ER" alums. However, "The Pitt" is a different beast. For one thing, it takes place in real time, like "24," with each episode covering an hour of a marathon shift at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital ER, from 7:00 AM all the way until 10:00 PM.
Much has been said about how much more realistic "The Pitt" is than other medical shows. We get to hear curse words! Sensitive body parts and medical gore are uncensored! I can't attest to the accuracy of the medical procedures being performed. However, it is nice to see a much more realistically diverse group of doctors, nurses, and social workers, plus acknowledgement of long wait times, administrative pressures, and the still lingering trauma of the COVID pandemic. "The Pitt" is not a documentary, and there's plenty of played-up drama. Nobody is wearing a surgical mask. Morally and emotionally difficult situations seem to arise every few minutes. The writers tackle every current hot-button issue affecting medical practice, from abortion to anti-vaxxers. However, I appreciate that the focus stays on the medicine. We stay in and around the hospital the whole way through, and whatever information we learn about the characters we learn in the course of their day at work. No flashbacks or cutaways are deployed.
There are a lot of characters to keep track of - Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch (Wyle) is the senior attending physician, and the man in charge of the doctors. Under him are the senior residents, Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor) and Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), and residents Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh), and Dr. McKay (Fiona Dourif). New to the hospital and working their first shift are a newly transferred resident, Dr. King (Taylor Dearden), an intern, Dr. Santos (Isa Briones), and a pair of medical students, Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and Javadi (Shabana Azeez). Nurses are sparse in the cast, because of the focus on the doctors, but the most important are the ER's charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) and everyone's secret crush, Mateo (Jalen Thomas Brooks). And just when you think you have everyone sorted out, the night shift starts showing up, led by Dr. Abbott (Shawn Hatosy).
The real-time storytelling format is a big plus, because it allows stories to unfold in a more realistic way from episode to episode. We see the ER workers dealing with cases that are ongoing from previous shifts, and eventually have to hand off their work to others. Some situations drag on over multiple hours, including a patient named Doug (Drew Powell) who is stuck in the waiting room. You can spot him in episode after episode, his frustrations building as the hours pass. There's also an emphasis on how so much of the doctors' work is complicated by other issues - language barriers, patient combativeness, cultural differences, and thorny domestic situations. One patient may be a trafficking victim. Another may be plotting something terrible. Kiara (Krystel V. McNeil), the department social worker, frequently has to be called on.
Watching The Pitt's newbies learning how to navigate this world is the main driver of the show's excellent character drama. Noah Wyle's great as Dr. Robby, trying to stave off emotional and spiritual exhaustion as he struggles to lead during one of the worst shifts of his career. However, I was far more invested in Drs. Javadi, Whitaker, Santos, and King. Part of the fun of "The Pitt" is the competence porn, where we're watching smart, capable, dedicated people doing good work. However, at the same time it's about watching people at major inflection points in their lives and careers - learning, maturing, and facing new challenges with every new patient. Everyone loves Dr. King, who is hinted to be on the spectrum, and blossoms quickly as she gains more confidence under pressure. However, it's also fascinating to chart the progress of overconfident, pain-in-the-ass Dr. Santos, who shows up with a slew of bad impulses and a troublemaking streak.
All the teaching and learning does mean that the writing sometimes gets awfully didactic. All the characters are fallible, but they do get self-righteous at times without much pushback. My biggest criticism of the show is that it allows the doctors to get away with some very risky behavior without enough consequences. There's some self-awareness of this, especially with Santos's and Langdon's storylines, and all the really touchy subject matter is generally handled well, but I think the show could do better.
Frankly, I like "The Pitt" so much that I'm really excited that it has the opportunity to do better. For the few things that rub me the wrong way, there are so many more that delight me. You don't see many shows this dense with new characters and new information, week after week. The cinematography and editing do a great job of showing more than you'd expect without showing too much. There's no backing score and all the music is diegetic. And there are gossipping Filipino nurses!
Fifteen hours were over too quick. Pay off Crichton and get the next season into production ASAP.
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