In the Flesh: The Pitt Season 1

It’s not uncommon to see critics waxing nostalgic for the so-called good old days of network TV. Long seasons, filler episodes, a certain Law & Order je nais se quoi. I generally don’t go in for this line of thinking. You turn on CBS or ABC any night of the week, you’ll see plenty of that kind of crap pouring seemingly without end from the corporate spigot. Lawyer shows, police procedurals, monster of the week sci-fi, and of course the ever-popular medical drama. Gray’s Anatomy has been on the air since 2005, and I don’t think you’ll find many serious TV critics aching for more of that. But every once in a blue moon, something special comes along that really does feel like when you first fell in love with TV, that conjures up that iconic American image of a family on a couch bathed in the comforting glow of the screen. The Pitt is that rarity, a sharp and crackling drama set in the emergency room of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital, each of its first season’s fifteen episodes covering in real time a single hour in a tumultuous shift.

Noah Wyle leads the ensemble as the insightful and wryly funny Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, his hangdog good looks and bone-deep weariness the perfect lens through which to dive into the chaos of the hospital’s ER. Watching him guide medical students through their first rotations, teach and gently remonstrate with his senior residents, and even handle the show’s not infrequent soapbox Issues Moments with world-weary good humor makes you feel he’s been on TV your whole life. His presence is comforting, though he’s not without his own difficulties. It’s shocking what a relief it is to see a show actively discuss not just that the COVID pandemic happened and continues to happen, but that many of us are carrying life-altering trauma as a result of it. Robbie’s flashbacks to the death of his mentor during the height of the pandemic feel like a social purgative, a real attempt to strike back through art against the memory-holing of millions of deaths.

Around Wyle are a truly wonderful supporting cast, from Katherine LaNasa’s gruff and indomitable charge nurse, Dana Evans, to swaggering but vulnerable intern Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) and the self-possessed and driven Dr. Heather Collins (the absurdly beautiful Tracy Ifeachor). The clear standouts in the ensemble are Taylor Dearden’s Dr. Mel King, a neurodivergent woman with a winningly direct and literal bedside manner, and Supriya Ganesh’s Dr. Samira Mohan, a meticulous third-year resident with a knack for puzzling out difficult diagnoses but a troubling habit of getting hung up on each patient. The patients themselves range from unobtrusive to magnetic, a realistic spectrum for anyone who has ever spent six hours in an emergency room. Charm and skill — both in ample supply — aside, though, it’s a breath of fresh air to see so much flat, damaged hair on TV. Dark circles under eyes, stained clothes; the doctors don’t feel like sexy primetime hunks, they feel like real people you might know in your own life. It’s a type of filmmaking which permits a much deeper level of audience investment, a greater sense of realism.

While I cannot personally speak for the show’s medical veracity, critical response from the medical community has been overwhelmingly positive, and not just for the diagnostic processes and the procedures depicted. The logistical and budgetary struggles of the modern hospital, the horrors of trying to save lives under capitalism, the repeated clashes of personality both major and minor. Pleasingly, the show never leans too hard on making its characters shout at each other to escalate drama. These are people coping with unimaginable amounts of stress under badly suboptimal conditions, but they’re also trying their hardest to pull together for the good of their patients and their team. There’s a deep satisfaction in watching skilled adults work toward a common goal in the face of steep odds and stacked circumstances, and the show builds that feeling with real skill.

That’s the real appeal of The Pitt: watching informed, intelligent people fix problems as a unit. They care about human suffering. They care that systems aren’t fair. They can’t make everything right, can’t save everyone, can’t change the world, but they’re working very hard to make a small and local difference. The material about the formation of the modern EMT certification system atop the foundations laid by Civil Rights activists gives a sense of mission to these proceedings, a feeling that none of this is happening in a vacuum or for purely personal reasons. The show takes explicit aim at people working against this kind of community mindset, from anti-vaxxers to abusive parents to garden variety oblivious selfishness, and manages to keep mostly just this side of preachy in doing so. It’s a breath of fresh air to see something so mainstream look at the current politically dominant culture and say with its whole chest, “These people are sick, antisocial freaks behaving like spoiled children.”

The Pitt moves fast. It’s not visually showy, but nor is it incompetent. The effects artists handling its wound prosthetics are doing especially astounding work. It wraps layered human interest stories around a tight and fully-fleshed core cast and a simple, straightforward premise. More than any of this, though, it’s an attempt to reckon with death in an environment in which total disconnection from reality has increasingly become the norm. We watch children die. We watch the elderly slip away. We watch families struggle to accept loss, or outright reject that it’s happening. We see parents refuse to believe that their children are sick, even if it means risking those same children’s lives. We see a man wrestle with the death of his friend and mentor, and his own role in finally deciding to cease care. It’s steak and potatoes TV at its absolute best, and an argument that longer seasons and more conventional formats aren’t an excuse for shoddy work. I can’t wait to see what it does next.