Max‘s new series, The Pitt, feels like home. What do I mean by that? Well, I’ve never liked a medical drama series as much as I did ER, which was from 1994 through 2009. With its rotating cast of characters, every set number of years keeping the storylines fresh even if they could repeat in some ways, the story of that Chicago Emergency Room in a teaching hospital grabbed hold of me at 14 and never let go. Over the years, other medical dramas have dominated, like Grey’s Anatomy or Chicago Med, plus plenty of shows like HOUSE, where you have a super genius doctor solving medical mysteries. For me, most of these shows focused on either the workplace soap opera parts of the stories or the mystery, essentially becoming a Detective show more than a Doctor show. ER was unique in its focus on the doctors treating the patients coming into the ER, and the workplace stresses as they work to help people and teach another generation of doctors. On top of all that, all the rest of the hospital staff were important. That show felt like being in a hospital, and with all that preamble done, this is what The Pitt brought back to me.
The Pitt follows Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch, starting his 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room. The season is told in fifteen episodes, of which I’ve seen ten, and each hour episode is an hour of the shift. So this show is like a Ben & Jerry’s pint mixing ER with 24 (another show I loved unconditionally) for a show that feels nostalgic yet fresh because there isn’t any show like this on air or streaming that is being made right now. Also adding to the nostalgia is Noah Wylie, who plays an ER doctor character like the one that made him famous. This character isn’t John Carter; Robby is different; he plays this man as a guy who’s always exasperated but is totally focused on helping people and improving the working conditions of those under him. He respects his nursing staff to the utmost. He has a constant adversarial relationship with the management of the hospital, played by Michael Hyatt, who constantly cares more about satisfaction numbers than the lack of resources that cause the numbers to be low.
Robby takes his teaching seriously as he leads the residents, interns, and newly starting teaching students on a typical day in the ER. Tracey Ifeachor, who plays Dr. Collins, is an early stand-out character who we can see has a good working relationship with Dr. Robby but differs in many ways with how they treat and interact with patients and the younger doctors. Ifeachor and Wyle are good together on screen, and while the show stays away from overt romance in the first two-thirds of the season, I’ve seen there is chemistry there that you feel makes it a character dynamic that you want to want to see more of from week to week. Most of the interns and residents are played by fairly fresh faces, acting-wise. Patrick Ball plays Dr. Langdon, who fits the handsome young male doctor, but he does have an interesting adversarial dynamic with Isa Briones‘ Dr. Santos. Santos is a young, ambitious, and headstrong doctor who is trying to make a name for herself on day one. She can sometimes be the most annoying character on screen, but she has some good storylines throughout the shift.
Fiona Dourif‘s Dr. McKay, as the older intern, feels somewhat reminiscent of fans of ER as a character starting later than others and is a mom with many other things to juggle in her life, unlike her peers. Gerran Howell‘s student doctor Whitaker is the most comical thread in the season that he pulls off excellently in each episode, yet also has some heartbreaking scenes where he’s able to show so much emotion in his face, especially his eyes you can forget you watching an actor in a show. As Javad, another student doctor, Shabana Azeez takes time to build a more interesting character. In the early parts, her character is mostly about her first reaction to the ER and hiding her relationship with her mother, a surgeon in the hospital. Luckily, they flesh her out in the later parts of the shift. I also liked Taylor Dearden‘s Dr. King a lot as she does a lot of stuff when her character is in the background, but also, when they do focus on her and a case she’s working on, it’s a very different method of working with patients as well as having such a distinct personality from the other characters her inter-character relationships are entertaining scenes. As Dr. Mohan, Supriya Ganesh is probably my favorite of the young doctors, but she also might be the most boring for some watchers. Her main flaw so far is spending too much time with her patients doing every test imaginable. As they need to help as many people as possible, her “slowness” is an issue for Dr. Robby, but the show doesn’t sell well on how this is bad as you as a view can’t help but put yourself in the role of a patient and would love to have that much attention when in the ER.
I don’t want to forget Katherine LaNasa as Dana Evans, the head nurse of the ER and, manages the boards and patients coming into the ER. Evan’s portrayal of this nurse feels like a person you’ve for sure seen in a hospital or doctor’s office – a nurse who knows exactly what they are doing even more than the doctors and can manage the whole thing in her. She and Wyle play their characters like old friends and perfect partners in managing this ER and helping people. Her scenes with Ifeachor are also bright spots throughout the show as well. All of her scenes feel so natural and real. In terms of reality or authenticity, the show’s look and directing style still feel like a TV show, but it has a documentary or news feel regarding the camera work and movement. It’s not a show that is going for a faux documentary, though. During tense scenes, the camera moves quickly as the medical professionals swarm the patients, trying to help the person as fast as they can, and the tension is well conveyed on screen with cuts to the different characters’ faces as they solve and learn during these moments.
The quieter moments and funnier scenes are handled very too. Each episode is consistent with each other, even with the different directors. That might seem like no big deal, but with a show where each episode is supposed to be one hour of a work shift during one day, things being consistent helps with that storytelling choice. As I said earlier in this review, The Pitt is my type of television. Its riveting and captivating characters in a familiar setup flipped slightly differently. The Pitt uses television nostalgia well with it being a new thing itself. WBD is on a good trend through HBO or Max, with a great show in January for the third straight year.
Score: A
