‘The Pitt’ Brings Noah Wyle Back to the ER With Medical and Human Tension

Alci Rengifo

Some actors feel born into their roles. Noah Wyle is a talented, seasoned pro but he was surely born to play a doctor. Max’s “The Pitt” decks Wyle with a new stethoscope 16 years after he ended his tenure on the NBC hit “ER.” The latter will no doubt inspire instant comparisons, not least because “The Pitt” is executive produced by “ER” veteran John Wells, who also directs the pilot. Deeper comparisons can stop there. Creator R. Scott Gemmill hasn’t fashioned this series like a weekly serial or breakneck thriller. The entire season takes place over the course of one day at a Pittsburgh hospital with a much more observant, slow burner pacing. 

Wyle is Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, the chief at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Robby is overseeing a shift with a batch of new interns and residents. It is also the anniversary of a traumatic day in Robby’s career when the trauma center was overloaded with Covid patients and his mentor died. His team is divided between the residents, no-nonsense Collins (Tracy Ifeachor), sharp but sarcastic Langdon (Patrick Ball), hesitant Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) and McKay (Fiona Dourif), a single mom. The nickname for the trauma center is “the pitt” and into it steps a new crop of fresh talent. They include naïve Nebraska farm boy Whitaker (Gerran Howell), oddball King (Taylor Dearden), upfront and disarming Santos (Isa Briones), and Javadi (Shabana Azeez), who is only 20 and happens to be the daughter of a respected surgeon on staff. Dana (Katherine LaNasa) is the supervising nurse with biting wit. The day begins at 7 AM and the team will face everything from rowdy patients to their own personal demons.

“The Pitt” flows with the tone of a near documentary. While “ER,” which was created by “Jurassic Park” author Michael Crichton, was a breakneck drama that made its Chicago hospital feel like a war zone, this series prefers to linger patiently around its characters without raising the melodrama levels. Wyle is no longer the young, eager rookie Dr. Carter from the ‘90s classic. The writing expertly turns him into an older, wiser teacher who can keep it together while the younger pupils try to make sense of the environment. He had to memorize so many prescriptions, commands and archaic terminology in the first show that it all just easily flows out. What “The Pitt” does have in common with “ER” is that it can be wholly involving purely from the medical jargon and grounded emergencies. There is a natural tension to the idea that your job requires such sheer focus as to avoid killing someone. Casual conversations can be interrupted by gory moments (queasy viewers beware). Unconstrained by network rules, the camera gives us a good view of what a detached limb looks like or the details of a scalpel cutting open flesh. How does a chest tube actually go in? You’ll get the details in the pilot.

Good hospital dramas are in the same league as entertaining newspaper thrillers. A sense of camaraderie is generated where we get to know each character yet enjoy the feel of a working unit. Amid the burn cases, stabbings, shootings, and other uncomfortable developments, we do get to know a bit more about everyone with every new episode. McKay has a scarred past that she hints at little by little, first when Robby has to deal with a patient’s son who has a kill list with the names of female classmates. Javadi feels the pressure of living up to her mother’s expectations and reputation, but can’t stay conscious when she sees gore (Santos cruelly starts calling her “Crash”). Collins, who exudes respect, is trying to keep her pregnancy secret. Everyone has a cross to bear, not least the chief, who keeps flashing back in his mind to that nightmare day during the pandemic when the hospital seemed overtaken by death. When Whitaker loses a patient for the first time, it creates a jarring sense of fear that he has to overcome. Gloria (Michael Hyatt), the hospital administrator, then has to appear every once in a while with the kind of bureaucratic jargon and demands no one has time for when dealing with patients.

The patients are written vividly enough where they pose their own, at times wrenching, challenges for the staff. There are the siblings who don’t want to disconnect their elderly father from life support, despite his expressed wishes. A very heartbreaking storyline involves two parents whose only son is rendered brain dead but they just can’t accept it. Robby must balance having the will to be honest and open with these situations as he teaches the younger interns how to do it themselves. Clearly there is an emotional volcano in the man waiting to erupt. “The Pitt” finds moments to be light and funny, like a Nepalese patient who no one can understand or ambulances getting stolen. There isn’t a sense of chaos but of a busy line of work where your full attention is demanded. 

Wyle also writes in “The Pitt” and is one of the producers. It is unavoidable to keep referencing “ER” but it helps to explain why he’s so good in the role, as if returning to a place he took a 16-year vacation from. His tone is so pitch perfect you wonder if he could walk into a hospital and pass for the real deal. Yet, on its own, “The Pitt” is a strong, involving day in the life show. The writing tosses around little bits of education, like the amount of tobacco in a vaping pen, while succeeding in making the humans the real draw. We want to see if Santos is eventually humbled and if Crash will ever admit to her mom she gets queasy around the innards of the human body. Most of all, we want to see if Robby can make it through the day. “The Pitt” is good TV by making us feel like for the hour of each episode we actually inhabit its space and running around with its characters as they try to figure themselves out and not make fatal mistakes.

“The Pitt” season one begins streaming Jan. 9 with new episodes premiering Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Max.