The Pitt Season 1: Reviewing TV’s Top Doctor Show
I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to watching/reviewing HBO’s first season of the critically acclaimed The Pitt. Well, as the saying goes, better late than never.
I had always heard positive things about the medical drama series when it was initially airing early last year. But I hadn’t gotten around to watching it since I’ve never been a huge fan of medical TV procedurals. If there’s any genre of show that typically seems to cater towards melodrama and lacking any bit of realism, it’s your run-of-the-mill doctor show. In these types of shows, the doctors all look like models and they’re usually more concerned with inter-office romance than helping patients. Fortunately, The Pitt is starkly different from most medical programs.
The Pitt follows the emergency department staff while they work the day shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Each of the show’s 15 episodes covers one hour of what becomes a longer-than-typical shift.
The most notable aspect of the series is that it aims for a realism that’s opposite what most popular medical shows depict. We’re not concerned with attractive couples who happen to be doctors here or ridiculous medical cases that require doctors to double as detectives to determine what’s wrong with a patient. The Pitt is very fast-paced and shows a group of doctors working on patients in a believable way.
While most patient cases span several episodes, we’re always following multiple cases at the same time. Also, since these are emergency room patients, their injuries all vary greatly in terms of severity. You really feel as though you’re in the trenches with these medical professionals.
The cast is excellent – these really feel like actual doctors and nurses. Noah Wyle stars as attending physician, Dr. Robby, who’s in charge of the staff. He’s a standout and was fantastic casting, but there are really no weak links here. I was also thoroughly impressed by all the actors who play different patients throughout the series. Everyone is totally believable and it goes to show how many quality performers are out there.
Despite being the most realistic medical show I’ve ever watched, you do need a little suspension of disbelief, not because of what occurs on the show, but because all of these instrumental occurrences happen on a single day. I think that everything that happens on The Pitt could happen during an emergency room shift, but I was a little taken out of it by all of what happens on this one monumental shift.
Towards the latter part of the show, there’s a storyline (which I won’t specifically mention here to avoid spoilers) that really dominates what’s going on in the ER. It’s one of the few times I wished the show’s hour episodes weren’t so directly connected. Because while I wouldn’t have minded a single episode focusing on this event, it got somewhat repetitive having the doctors deal with the same type of patient. I missed the variety of cases that the majority of the show focuses on.
Despite this, The Pitt is an easy show to recommend to anyone on the hunt for a quality medical series. It’s gritty, emotional, and stressful – it’s an experience. I might never want to be an ER doctor in a million years (something I definitely don’t have to worry about), but their stories sure make for incredibly compelling TV.
Grade: 8.5/10