Radiohead once sang that “anyone can play guitar” – but not anyone can do a Radiohead and write songs that make grown adults weep. And it’s the same with TV, as The Pitt is currently demonstrating.
While there’s no shortage of hospital-set dramas for you to watch on the best streaming services, none of them come close to this. Radiohead would call it “a low-flying panic attack”.
It’s The Bear meets 24 in surgical scrubs, a single ever-more-stressful shift scalpel-cut into 15 hour-long episodes of edge-of-the-seat TV, making it one of the best Max shows. .
Given the choice between a new Severance season 2, a new Yellowjackets season 3 or a new The Pitt, I’ll go to the emergency room (ER) every single time. It’s that good.
The Pitt will make you feel a lot of things, including old
The Pitt will make you feel a lot of things, and if you were a fan of ER back in the day the first thing it’ll make you feel is old.
That’s because the lead character here, Dr Robbie, is played by Noah Wyle – aka ER’s medical student John Carter. In ER Carter was a baby. Here, he’s a haunted man who’s been through too much.
If that sound like a cliché, it is. There are lots of them in The Pitt, and I don’t care because the performances are wonderful, the camerawork is balletic and the pacing grips you from the very first second until the screen goes black and you can finally breathe again.
Can you see where that subplot is going? Yes!
Was that coincidence a little too convenient? Also yes!
Do I care when I’ve been crying so hard I damn near drowned the dog? Hell no!
A big sad labrador
Dr Robbie is also a dog, a big sad labrador who desperately needs someone to come and give him scritches.
But while Dr Robbie is the central character he’s part of an excellent, well rounded ensemble that – among many other fine actors – includes Fiona Dourif as former substance abuser and big-hearted angel McKay, possibly my favorite character on TV right now; Katherine LaNasa as Dana, the sassy mother hen who’s more fragile than she seems; and Taylor Dearden as the endearingly awkward and clearly neurodivergent Mel.
Mel’s a good example of why I like this show so much: it’s reflective of the real world in both good and bad ways, reflecting its diversity not just in who people are, but the issues many people face in the lives they lead.
It’s not done in an ‘Issue Of The Week’ way but more organically; our characters encounter some of the best, and the worst, of humans in a hospital that won’t give them the resources, or the protection, they need to do their jobs.
It’s beautifully filmed and unrelentingly stressful, and I’m not kidding about the crying. But while it’s often unbearably sad, and some of the stories are deeply upsetting, it’s also a very human show with heart and humor.
I’ve really come to care about these characters, to the point where after 13 out of 15 episodes I’m absolutely terrified of where the increasingly horrific main storyline is heading and what it’s going to do to them.
This is appointment TV, the show you have to watch straightaway or stay off the internet for fear of spoilers, and i’m really going to miss it when it ends this month.
So far, 13 episodes of The Pitt are available to stream on Max, with the next one coming on Thursday 3 April. The finale will air on Max at 9pm ET on April 10. UK users will be able to watch it on Sky and Now soon, while those in Australia can catch it on Binge and Foxtel.
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