Maybe it’s the leftover hangover from New Year’s, but I really don’t have anything interesting to say about HBO’s new medical drama The Pitt. The latest in a long line of medical dramas about a busy and understaffed emergency room, the new series starring Noah Wyle about one day in the life of a Pittsburgh trauma center arrives early in the year, when everyone’s still burnt out from their Christmas movie binges, and, unfortunately, doesn’t have much in the way of intrigue to break through the bleary, post-bacchanal haze.
It’s easy to see why Michael Crichton’s estate is suing for breach of contract, claiming that The Pitt is simply ER with a Penguins jersey slapped onto it to hide the evidence. Much like police procedurals, it’s tough to come up with a medical drama that stands out in a sea of them that all seem largely the same, and there’s nothing to suggest that The Pitt isn’t just a relabeled ER. The constant shuffle of emergency cases combined with personal drama feels like a near-exact mirror of the long-running, beloved series, and Wyle looming over everyone’s shoulders as attending physician doesn’t exactly help anything.
‘The Pitt’ Doesn’t Evoke Its Namesake

Image via HBO

Part of that identity crisis I credit to the fact that, despite plenty of name-drops, I did not for one second believe that this series takes place in Pittsburgh. Is that an overly niche critique to make of a show that was definitely shot in a studio in Los Angeles? Perhaps, but having lived in the area for twenty-six years, with a mother who’s spent even longer than that working as a nurse for two of its major hospitals, it’s impossible to overstate how unlike the real thing The Pitt feels.
For all I complain about it, Pittsburgh is a city with such a specific and localized culture that anyone who knows anything about it can spot the tell-tale signs from a mile away. From the way we speak, to our bizarre food, to a devotion to all three of our sports teams that borders occasionally on the psychotic, the people of this city are not those who can be easily sanitized and made to look like any other major city in the country, as Hollywood tends to do.
We’re a strange place, I’m well aware. (George A. Romero was certainly aware of that fact too.) It’s a tough energy to capture, but when you put in the effort, it pays off, not even just for those of us watching from our couches in Mount Lebanon or Shadyside. Specificity is what makes a story work — give people something unique to latch onto, and you’ll find that audiences become far more attached than if they’re just given a simple everyman. You can’t tell me HBO couldn’t afford to slap a couple Steelers shirts on people at the very least in some attempt to give it more oomph than just “the next medical drama to hit the market.”
No One in ‘The Pitt’ Is Compelling Enough to Keep You Watching

That specificity wouldn’t necessarily have helped the paper-thin characters The Pitt presents us with. While Wyle’s Dr. Robby is the attending physician in the ER, we spend our time primarily with his residents, who largely have control of the floor. It’s a healthy mix of senior residents — student doctors in their final year before actually obtaining their MS or MD degree — and faces fresh out of medical school, including a twenty-year-old prodigy and the daughter of one of the hospital’s best surgeons. This would be a refreshing change from the way most shows like Chicago Med or Grey’s Anatomy operate… except for the fact that they’re essentially a cast of Flat Stanleys, with one single, defining personality trait each that quickly becomes nothing more than a cheese grater on your nerves.
Isa Briones’ Santos is where things get particularly rough, as she displays little more than a sense of sarcasm and mean energy usually reserved for girls who go into nursing simply because they don’t have any other real passion in life. Combine that with Shabana Azeez’s anxiety-riddled kid genius student doctor and Gerran Howell’s Whittaker, who has to change his scrubs so many times it becomes a Charlie Chaplin-esque gag, and The Pitt feels more like a farce than a proper drama.

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Noah Wyle is returning to the emergency room next month on Max.

Taylor Dearden Is ‘The Pitt’s Only Saving Grace

Image via HBO

The one exception to The Pitt’s characterization struggles is Taylor Dearden’s Dr. King, a senior resident fresh off a stint at the local VA hospital. Perhaps the only true-to-life representation of an autistic person (and an autistic woman, at that) I’ve ever seen on television, she blows every misnomer established by The Good Doctor’s long run out of the water with a careful hand. Amidst other characters who come off as nothing more than flat caricatures, Dearden crafts a soft and never-overblown approach to Long’s repeated attempts to self-soothe in a busy environment that would stress any neurotypical person out, let alone a neurodivergent one whose brain is much less suited to intense sensory input.
Unfortunately, Dearden’s Long is a light in an otherwise very dark, mostly mind-numbing trudge through fifteen episodes. The Pitt isn’t necessarily a show you want to watch going into the new year — it’s brutal and unkind, with very little going for it in the emergency department. Does any of the dozens of disasters that come through the ER’s doors ever resolve into anything meaningful? I can’t say for certain, given that HBO withheld the last five episodes of the series, leaving off on a cliffhanger that probably should’ve hit much harder than it ultimately did.
If it’s worth anything, The Pitt seems far more suited to the binge model than the weekly release schedule HBO prides itself on. Fifteen episodes over the course of a couple of days (which, minus the final five, is how I went about it) seems much more palatable than having to wait every week for minor resolutions and yet more shallow drama… especially when all fifteen seasons of ER are available on the same platform.
The Pitt premieres January 9 on Max in the U.S.

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Noah Wyle’s new medical drama The Pitt is a flat, lifeless imitation of ER, with bland characters and nothing to distinguish it from other shows in the genre.

Pros

Taylor Dearden provides a refreshing portrayal of an autistic woman in a professional field.
Once all episodes are available, the series is best suited for bingeing rather than one episode at a time.

Cons

Flat, uninspired characters make it difficult to care about any of the goings-on in the series.

The Pitt is a medical drama developed by veterans of the television series ER. The series will follow healthcare workers set in Pittsburgh, showing he challenges faced in the modern-day United States by nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals.

Main Genre

Drama

Seasons

1

Character(s)

Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch
, Uncredited

Producers

John Wells
, Noah Wyle
, R. Scott Gemmill
, Simran Baidwan
, Erin Jontow

Network

Max

Showrunner

R. Scott Gemmill

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Watch on Max