It’s a bit disconcerting to see the “new child” of Cook dinner County Common Hospital on the large hit “ER” develop into the grizzled veteran of an identical medical drama three a long time later, however that’s the place we’re at with the excellent “The Pitt,” a present that reminds one of many easy charms of well-done procedural tv.
The extremely influential John Wells was a producer on that NBC smash (together with a shocking resume that features “The West Wing,” “Southland,” “Shameless,” “Maid,” and lots of extra). The story goes that “The Pitt” was as soon as conceived as a sequel to “ER” however has advanced since into a really completely different present. Sure, we’re again in a hospital with extra relentless pacing and no time for private lives. (And the distinction in language and picture restrictions from NBC to Max adjustments the tone, too.) “The Pitt” unfolds over 15 real-time episodes, 15 hours in an emergency room in Pittsburgh the place lives are modified – and generally saved or ended – within the blink of a watch. It’s a sensible present that values character element and complex medical science that generally succumbs to doses of melodrama. However for all the things that it does very nicely, that may be forgiven.
Noah Wyle does the most effective work of his profession as Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch, the voice of purpose and calm on the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. However he’s additionally coping with his personal demons associated to 4 years prior, when COVID turned ERs around the globe into literal nightmares and took the lifetime of his mentor. Temporary flashbacks to that period appear to be a horror movie, a reminder of how a lot trauma our medical professionals are carrying with them to today. Wyle imbues Dr. Robby with simply sufficient weariness to stability his innate kindness and intelligence. He’s deeply emotionally current for his sufferers, colleagues, and college students—it’s a instructing hospital—but in addition acknowledges the systemic points in his occupation, particularly in a subplot involving the powers that be in search of issues like satisfaction rankings and threatening to take management of the ER from him.
Nearly as good as Wyle is right here, “The Pitt” can be lesser if it was a one-man present. Whereas I query how usually Dr. Robby occurs to be round for therefore many subplots to supply the suitable serving to hand at simply the suitable time, the writers enrich the ensemble of recent faces because the season progresses. Standouts embrace Tracy Ifeachor as an skilled physician with a secret, Gerran Howell as a brand new man who struggles by means of some dangerous luck over the season relating to bodily fluids, Taylor Dearden as a younger physician who battles with anxiousness, Isa Briones as the scholar who lacks in bedside method, and the exceptional Shabana Azeez as a scholar with a mom who occurs to be a well-known surgeon on the Pitt.
Is that relationship a TV comfort? Positive. And the writers have a behavior of pushing that boundary between realism and manufactured melodrama—is each affected person on today caught between life and demise? There are not any children with simply breakable fevers and oldsters who go house completely satisfied? Nonetheless, the sense that there are just a few too many scripted tales is forgivable within the context of the historical past of the medical drama. We come to exhibits like this to witness the unattainable and the unimaginable; to see folks do this which we can not and undergo that which we hope we by no means do. To that finish, we forgive a little bit of melodrama, solely made extra distinguished right here by how a lot of “The Pitt” strives for realism with parts like real-time pacing, no rating, and a few gnarly medical footage (a warning to the squeamish about such issues).
It helps that the actors thrown into the affected person subplots are uniformly sturdy as nicely, enlivened by the general high quality of the manufacturing. Tales involving siblings debating whether or not or to not override their dying father’s want to not be intubated and oldsters realizing that their son has died from fentanyl publicity are devastatingly emotional. And these affected person tales permit for some sturdy visitor appearances, together with Abby Ryder Fortson of “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret,” Samantha Sloyan, and Mackenzie Astin, now sufficiently old to have a dying father. Once more, this present making me really feel historic.
“We have to snicker, in any other case we’d by no means cease crying,” says a health care provider, and it’s a line that sounds scripted however true on the similar time. “The Pitt” is consistently pulling between realism and fiction—the granular particulars of an actual ER vs. making that attention-grabbing sufficient for TV. Dr. Robby’s fixed knowledge and the “little bit of all the things” within the affected person roster on this specific day remind you it’s a present. However that has been true of nice procedural dramas because the style was invented. They’re home windows into excellence and heartbreak, permitting us to see a little bit of ourselves in each.
Six episodes screened for evaluate. Premieres with two episodes on Max on January 9th, subsequent episodes weekly.
