'The Pitt' Isn't the Show I Thought It Was — and That's Why I Love It

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the finale of Season 1 of The Pitt Season 1.I’ll admit, when I first heard about The Pitt, I wasn’t all that intrigued. Oh, great, Noah Wyle in a hospital drama. How original! I loved ER to the point that I watched every episode during its run, and Wyle’s character of John Carter was probably my favorite, but it annoyed me that he was being typecast into pretty much rebooting the past. Medical dramas have been done to death. Can’t we think of anything new? But as I continued to hear the hype for The Pitt, I decided to finally check it out last week. Now, I’m still several episodes behind, but I am shocked by what I’ve found.

For one, The Pitt is so much more realistic than ER, which was already groundbreaking. Having it air on Max instead of network TV allows for a rare rawness. It feels nearly like a documentary. And while there are intriguing relationships, it’s not the hook for the series. What really got me was the approach that The Pitt took. Each episode represents one hour in a fifteen-hour shift. This allows us to see just how chaotic one night in an ER pit can be, where there is no time to stop. The Pitt isn’t ER, and it certainly isn’t Grey’s Anatomy. Instead, it’s another favorite of mine from years gone by. The Pitt is the new 24, and I love it!

‘The Pitt’ Was Sued for Being a Ripoff of ‘ER’

It wasn’t just me who thought The Pitt was going to be nothing more than an ER clone. Even the family of the man who developed the hit NBC series thought so. ER was created by Michael Crichton, the novelist who gave us Jurassic Park, but also directed movies like Westworld. Sadly, Crichton passed away in 2008, but his estate has sued the creators of The Pitt for being a follow-up to ER that was done without their permission. The legal battle has hurt Wyle, who told Variety, “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have. At one point, this could have been a partnership. And when it wasn’t a partnership, it didn’t need to turn acrimonious. But on the 30th anniversary of ER, I’ve never felt less celebratory of that achievement than I do this year.”

Yeah, The Pitt has ER producers John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill working for them, and having Noah Wyle working in a hospital is going to take you back to his most famous character, but if someone else were playing his new character, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, we wouldn’t look at The Pitt and compare it so much to the past, at least not to ER. No matter if Wyle was in the show or not, it would still be impossible not to watch The Pitt and think of 24.

‘The Pitt’ Shares Much More in Common With ’24’

24 came out at the perfect time. Debuting on FOX in November 2001, it was the post-9/11 solution to our anxieties. The world around us was terrifying, but every week we could watch American badass hero Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) kick some terrorist ass. What really set the series apart from everything else was its storytelling approach. With twenty-four episodes, every show was one hour in real-time. 24‘s ticking clock was a rush as Bauer was always in a race against time to save the day. For nine seasons and a movie, the poor guy could never even stop to take a break. Did he ever use the bathroom?!

The Pitt and 24 might seem like wildly different shows, but that real-time approach raises the stakes and keeps us glued to our seats. If you’re behind like I am on The Pitt, it makes you want to binge it as soon as possible. When one episode ends, you want to keep going to the next, because while we might be able to stop, the characters aren’t. We have only paused them in the middle of their chaos. There are even a lot of similarities between Bauer and Robby. Bauer is a man going through a lot, and he will lose a lot of people, but he has no time to focus on that. The same goes through Robby, who has lost people, and who is also suffering a great physical and emotional toll from the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. But both are also heroes, and they are surrounded by other heroes helping them to save the day or save lives, whether it be at the Counter Terrorist Unit or the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital.

Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) and Dr. Abbott (Shawn Hatosy) from The Pitt

After Seeing Dr. Mohan and Dr. Abbot, This Is the One Time I Wished ‘The Pitt’ Was More Like ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

I can’t be the only one who saw sparks flying.

Real-life doctors and nurses have celebrated The Pitt for how realistic it gets, from its dialogue, to how it addresses hospital politics and issues like funding and staffing. Just like Jack Bauer always had to contend with someone in his way, messing up what needed to be done, the staff of The Pitt can never just treat the sick and injured without something else going on too. In 24, no sooner would Jack Bauer solve one problem or defeat one bad guy, before he’d run into another before he could take a breath. That’s what also makes The Pitt so relentless. It’s ER turned up to 11. As soon as the staff treats someone who comes in, another tragedy enters before they can collect themselves. Jack Bauer might be an ass-kicking hero, but even he could never make it working in the pit.

Honestly, ‘The Pitt’ Is Far More Intense Than ’24’ Ever Was

Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby wearing white medical scrubs in the ER in 'The Pitt.' — Image via Max

I’d argue that The Pitt is actually even more intense than 24. I was obsessed with the latter, but you could also detach from it a bit, because no matter how suspenseful it was, it also felt over-the-top. The Pitt, however, is as gritty and as real as it gets. It’s must-see TV, but I wouldn’t call it fun. In 24, Jack Bauer could move from one location to another, going inside and outside. He had to. But in The Pitt, our characters have to stay where they are. They are stuck in one location, which brings an unnerving claustrophobia to the suspense.

In 24, many of the characters stayed the same, but with each season, the story changed. Some characters left, and new leads were brought in to tell a new narrative. This is an idea The Pitt can follow. It has already been given the thumbs-up for a second season. The producers revealed to Deadline that Season 2 will take place over a Fourth of July weekend. Get ready for victims to come into the ER with some fingers blown off! What if like 24, The Pitt followed 15 hours of other doctors and nurses in the same hospital coming in for a different shift? Some of our bigger stars, like Noah Wyle, could return, but we could also meet more of the characters from the night shift and other corners of the hospital.

The Wire switched things up with different stories and characters every year. The White Lotus is doing it. The Pitt can do it, too. The Pitt has found the perfect way to combine what worked from two classic shows to create something better than what came before. Now, we have to wait until Season 2 to see what comes next. The clock is ticking.

All of The Pitt Season 1 is available to stream on Max in the U.S.