'The Pitt' Reunites 'ER' Workmates
by EG
ER star Noah Wyle is getting back to his roots in a new medical drama that debuts this week on Max. The Pitt features Wyle and is the brainchild of ER's original creator and producers. The new drama adds some twists and new features to the medical drama format that ER pioneered decades ago. Read on for details.
It took a while, but all those hours folks spent marathoning ER and House and other classic medical procedurals during the pandemic lockdown have paid off in a rush of new hospital-set series, including NBC’s slightly above-average Brilliant Minds and promising St. Denis Medical, ABC’s zany Doctor Odyssey and Fox’s Doc.
There’s also been speculation about a full-fledged ER revival. But what we’re getting instead is Max‘s The Pitt, which — despite the presence of ER favorite Noah Wyle as star, executive producer and writer, plus a behind-the-scenes team led by ER veterans John Wells, R. Scott Gemmill, Joe Sachs and more — definitely isn’t an ER revival, especially for legal purposes.
Nope! The Pitt is an entirely autonomous series with a new, barely utilized urban setting, an ensemble of new, vaguely familiar characters and a narrative format that’s a bit like ER but a bit like 24, which makes it totally different, or at least somewhat different.
The truth is that if The Pitt actually were ER: Pittsburgh Edition, it probably wouldn’t need to start off as slowly as it does, struggling for at least an hour with introducing characters and an overall situation that don’t really need quite so much establishing. Once it gets going, though, The Pitt emerges as a well-executed medical procedural made by people who know from well-executed medical procedurals, boasting a structural twist that’s occasionally very effective and sometimes just a bit annoying and distracting.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.