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\u201cThe Pitt,\u201d premiering Thursday, on Max, is set in the emergency department of a Pittsburgh hospital, a noble and chaotic environment staffed by sage teachers and eager students, where monitors bleep, the bereaved weep and the waiting room gets fuller and fuller.<\/p>\n
There is an overwhelming d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu about it all, the elephant in the trauma room: Is this a sideways reboot of \u201cER,\u201d just in Pittsburgh instead of Chicago? The show\u2019s creative team includes \u201cER\u201d vets \u2014 its creator is R. Scott Gemmill, and John Wells is among its executive producers and directors \u2014 and it stars Noah Wyle, who also an executive producer. It certainly seems to want to be \u201cER,\u201d but that\u2019s no great vice; shouldn\u2019t everybody want to be \u201cER\u201d? But it has fewer ideas, fewer moves, less energy, less specialness. In the 10 episodes made available for review (out of 15), \u201cThe Pitt\u201d is not redefining the pace of television or pioneering a visual language.<\/p>\n
Instead, it\u2019s a decent enough medical drama with promising episodes as it develops. There are worse things to be, and having Wyle as the star and beating heart of the show goes a long way. He plays the boss and leader Dr. Michael Robinavitch, known as Robby, who is having a tough day because it\u2019s the anniversary of his mentor\u2019s death and the first day for a new group of students.<\/p>\n
Those newbies seem pulled not from the \u201cER\u201d folder but from \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d: Here\u2019s the one whose mom is a famous surgeon (Shabana Azeez); here\u2019s the sad-sack guy who\u2019s jittery and also loses a patient during his very first shift (Gerran Howell); and here\u2019s the cocky meanie who is covering up for a bad childhood (Isa Briones). These versions of Meredith, George and Alex would benefit from a version of Cristina and Izzie, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The show\u2019s shtick is that it all takes place during one 15-hour shift, with each episode of the show following an hour of real time. When deployed on \u201c24,\u201d that gimmick provided the foundational urgency of the story; on \u201cThe Pitt,\u201d the emergencies themselves provide the urgency, and the clock aspect just erodes the show\u2019s realism. Most hospital shows include an imposing administrator who swings by periodically to gripe about budget concerns and tsk-tsk our heroes. That happens here, too, but multiple times in one day.<\/p>\n
That day is also the most didactically virtuous shift in human history, giving our characters a chance to correct a transgender patient\u2019s gender in the computer system; support an unhoused mother wary of needing help; identify a potential human trafficking victim; address fatphobia within medicine; address anti-Blackness within medicine, particularly as it pertains to the treatment of sickle-cell anemia; provide tailored services to an autistic patient; disavow scolding as a pedagogical technique; and educate viewers about the Freedom House Ambulance Service.<\/p>\n
But dang it, when it\u2019s good, it is good. Robby\u2019s advice to a grown brother and sister struggling with their elderly father\u2019s final hours stunned me with its applicable, tragic beauty. In another scene, a mother wails over her brain-dead teen son\u2019s body, and her scream is so wrenching and potent that all the other patients turn to look, casting a brief spell of unified compassion. A tertiary doctor character\u2019s enthusiasm for corny puns adds a fun bit of personality in later episodes. When a colleague criticizes Robby for giving a patient\u2019s family false hope, he shrugs. \u201cHope\u2019s hope,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And for all the ways \u201cThe Pitt\u201d seems like \u201cER,\u201d to its tremendous credit, it is not actually a revival or reboot. (The estate of Michael Crichton\u2019s, the creator of \u201cER,\u201d disagrees<\/a> and has filed suit<\/a>. Warner Bros. Television, the studio that produces \u201cThe Pitt,\u201d has said the suit is \u201cbaseless.\u201d) So often during this reboot era I\u2019ve thought, \u201cJust \u2026 make another show\u201d \u2014 that the \u201creboot\u201d aspect was craven and tangential, that struggling to recapture magic is a miserable, fruitless pursuit when compared with attempting to make new magic. I would rather watch \u201cThe Pitt\u201d figure itself out than watch an \u201cER\u201d revival that is \u201cWeekend at Bernie\u2019s\u201d-ing a premise.<\/p>\n SIDE QUESTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n