Roush Review: ‘ER’ Meets ’24’ in ‘The Pitt’

The Pitt

Matt's Rating:

Time flies when you’re saving lives.

We first encountered Noah Wyle in 1994 as an eager med student when ER took off as the blockbuster dramatic anchor of NBC’s legendary “must-see” Thursday lineup. Three decades later (how is that possible?), he’s running the joint, this time in an overwhelmed and understaffed Pittsburgh ER as chief attending Dr. “Robby” Robinavitch.

In Max’s riveting The Pitt, from John Wells (ER) Productions, Dr. Robby is healer, counselor, teacher, boss, roaming from room to room, hour by hour — each episode covers an eventful hour in a single day’s 15-hour shift, 24-style — as he puts out fires. Think of him as a medical Jack Bauer, gently and firmly and always wearily guiding his harried staff through multiple crises and traumas. “Oh my God, I can’t wait for this shift to be over,” he sighs during the 10th hour (4-5 pm), the last of the episodes made available for review. To be honest, I was ready for a break as well.

Still, there are many moments of grace and just as many flashes of gallows humor — including the uninvited appearance of runaway rodents and the slapstick spectacle of a fresh-faced med student (Gerran Howell) who’s forever changing his scrubs during his first day on the floor, repeatedly being covered in bodily and other fluids. They help alleviate the relentless parade of injury, anxiety, and heartbreaking tragedy witnessed by these doctors, residents and interns in what’s often a thankless job. (When they are shown gratitude, it’s usually a tearjerking moment.)

Throughout, Wyle (who’s also an executive producer) dominates the screen with understated authority as Dr. Robby finds humane solutions to impossible situations, all while still processing the loss of his mentor during the COVID crisis.

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The “day in a life” comprising The Pitt‘s first season happens to be the anniversary of said mentor’s passing, just one of the show’s many contrivances, and all of Robby’s nearest and dearest associates are watching him warily to gauge his emotional state. Better these physicians monitor their own moods, because they’re all put through the wringer before it’s time to clock out.

As is the viewer. What distinguishes this from most TV medical dramas is the intimate focus on cases that can’t be easily resolved in an hour: grieving parents who need time (and multiple episodes) to process the overdose brain death of their only child, or grown siblings debating how and whether to let their elderly father pass away peacefully and end his suffering. The Pitt doesn’t redefine the hospital show, but by following patients (and those impatiently waiting in chairs) over a long day, we feel their pain in a new way.

Is it all a bit much when so many of Dr. Robby’s colleagues experience life-changing events on the same day? Of course it is. It’s a TV show. Hardly time for a lunch, or barely a potty, break.

Just as ER was an ensemble piece at heart, creating a new generation of stars, Wyle’s Pitt is populated by a promising cast of relative newcomers, though the standout is TV veteran Katherine LaNasa as longtime charge nurse Dana Evans, an oasis of street-smart warmth who anticipates everyone’s needs while keeping a gimlet eye on the chaos within and beyond the ER’s doors. When a newbie learns she’s been doing this for 33 years, she responds, “I like taking care of people—especially the ones who fall through the cracks and got nowhere else to go.” Told she deserves a medal, Dana smirks, “I’d settle for a raise.”

I hope there’s someone like Dana and Dr. Robby on hand if I ever have to visit a pit like The Pitt.

The Pitt, Series Premiere (two episodes), Thursday, January 9, Max