‘The Pitt’ is not an ‘ER’ reboot, despite first appearances

“The Pitt,” which premieres Thursday on Max, is set in the emergency department of a Pittsburgh hospital, a noble and chaotic environment staffed by sage teachers and eager students, where monitors beep, the bereaved cry and the waiting room grows ever more crowded. .

There’s an overwhelming déjà vu about it all, the elephant in the trauma room: Is this a sideways reboot of “ER,” just in Pittsburgh instead of Chicago? The show’s creative team includes “ER” vets — its creator is R. Scott Gemmill, and John Wells is among its executive producers and directors — and it stars Noah Wyle, who is also an executive producer. It certainly seems to want to be “ER”, but that’s no great vice; shouldn’t everyone want to be “ER”? But it has fewer ideas, fewer movements, less energy, less specialness. In the 10 episodes made available for review (out of 15), “The Pitt” doesn’t redefine the pace of television or pioneer a visual language.

Instead, it’s a decent enough medical drama with promising episodes as it develops. There are worse things to be, and having Wyle as the star and beating heart of the show goes a long way. He plays the boss and leader Dr. Michael Robinavitch, known as Robby, who is having a rough day because it is the anniversary of his mentor’s death and the first day of a new group of students.

These newbies don’t seem to be pulled from the “ER” folder, but from “Grey’s Anatomy”: Here’s the one whose mother is a famous surgeon (Shabana Azeez); here’s the sad guy who’s nervous and also loses a patient during his very first shift (Gerran Howell); and here is hidden the cocky one who covers up a bad childhood (Isa Briones). These versions of Meredith, George and Alex would also benefit from a version of Cristina and Izzie.

The main feature of the show is that it all takes place during a 15-hour shift, with each episode of the show following an hour of real time. When implemented on “24,” the gimmick provided the basic urgency of the story; on “The Pitt,” the emergencies themselves provide the urgency, and the watch aspect just erodes the show’s realism. Most hospital shows include an imposing administrator who periodically drops by to complain about budget issues and tsk-tsk our heroes. It also happens here, but several times in a day.

That day is also the most didactically virtuous shift in human history, giving our characters a chance to correct a transgender patient’s gender in the computer system; support a homeless mother who is wary of needing help; identify a potential victim of human trafficking; addressing fatphobia in medicine; treat anti-blackness in medicine, particularly as it relates to the treatment of sickle cell anemia; provide tailored services to an autistic patient; reject scolding as a pedagogical technique; and educate viewers about the Freedom House Ambulance Service.

But never mind, when it’s good, it’s good. Robby’s advice to a grown brother and sister struggling with their elderly father’s final hours stunned me with its applicable, tragic beauty. In another scene, a mother wails over the body of her brain-dead teenage son, her screams so harrowing and potent that all the other patients turn to look and cast a brief spell of united compassion. A tertiary doctor character’s enthusiasm for puns adds a fun bit of personality in later episodes. When a colleague criticizes Robby for giving a patient’s family false hope, he shrugs it off. “The hope of hope,” he says.

And for all the ways in which “The Pitt” seems like it “IS,” to its enormous credit, it’s not actually a revival or reboot. (The estate of Michael Crichton’s, the creator of “ER”, disagrees and has filed suit. Warner Bros. Television, the studio that produces “The Pitt,” has said the suit is “baseless.”) So often during this reboot period I’ve thought, “Just … do another show” — that the “reboot” aspect was craven and tangential that struggling to recover magic is a miserable, fruitless pursuit compared to trying to create new magic. I’d rather see “The Pitt” figure itself out than see an “ER” revival that’s “Weekend at Bernie’s” – a premise.

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