• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, January 8, 2025

The new medical series “The Pitt” might be the most proficient scripted, emergency-room drama in the long history of such shows.

Previewing Episode One of this show, which drops Thursday on Max with the first two episodes, was one of those experiences in which you sit in wonder at how they produce such a thing.

One answer might lie in the experience of those who are making it, starting with John Wells, who was executive producer of “ER” and “The West Wing,” among other shows.

The star of “The Pitt” is Noah Wyle (above photo), now 53, who is perhaps best known for starring on “ER” for the first 11 of its 15 seasons.

Thus, Wyle is a veteran at working under John Wells in a manic, TV emergency-room setting.

In “The Pitt,” the scene is set in a hospital emergency room in Pittsburgh. The title refers both to the ER, which some members of the staff have nicknamed the Pit, and the city itself, although it is news to me that anyone from Pittsburgh calls their city The Pitt.

Wyle plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, senior physician on the dayshift at the hospital. He works long hours under great pressures and suffers from some PTSD stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

He is positioned as swashbuckling and unorthodox, which places him at odds with a hospital administrator who complains that Dr. Robby’s manner threatens to alienate colleagues and patients alike.

There is no evidence of this, however, except for surveys the administrator cites of patients who said they were unhappy about conditions in the hospital. 

In Episode One, Dr. Robby seems to get along with everyone just fine. These include nurses, nurses’ aides, residents and wide-eyed interns. None of the patients in Episode One had anything negative to say about him either.

As in just about every other hospital show -- not only recently, but going back decades -- this hospital is understaffed and underfunded. This is why the work is so hurried in the ER as everyone involved tries to do more with less.

The manic emergency room, the unconventional physician, the jaded hospital staff, the nagging administrator and the eager interns are all clichés of past hospital dramas too numerous to count.

Despite all that, the show fascinates anyway. Whether or not real emergency rooms are this insane, this one feels real because of the obvious pains that have been taken to sweat the details.

The medical equipment and their surroundings look so authentic that it looks as if millions were spent to outfit the sets and make them real.

The same attention to authenticity seems to have gone into the scripts too. I was amazed while watching the first episode of “The Pitt” at all of the medical jargon and orders being shouted out all over the place that sounded so accurate that they would likely receive unanimous approval from emergency-room professionals.

How do these actors memorize these complicated lines and medical terms, and then recite them on the fly while some patient is flatlining?

The gimmick here is that each episode will show us a single, 15-hour shift, from beginning to end, in each of the show’s 15 episodes.

With its similarities to so many past hospital dramas, “The Pitt” plays like a show that except for a few expendable f-words, could play on network television.

“The Pitt” premieres Thursday, January 9, on Max.