The Pitt makes absorbing television out of an exhausting job, with Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa giving the hospital staff weight and warmth. The opening is awkward, and some supporting characters remain thinly written.
The Pitt is an absorbing medical drama once it stops introducing its staff and lets them work. Its real-time approach keeps us close to the competing demands of an emergency department, where being capable does not mean being able to keep up. We recommend it for the ensemble and the sustained pressure, with a warning that the opening is clumsy. Its early character introductions are less convincing than the medical work.
Noah Wyle gives Dr Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch the authority this kind of programme needs, without suggesting that authority will solve everything. He makes competence interesting, allowing the effort of remaining useful under pressure to show without turning every difficulty into an announcement. Katherine LaNasa’s charge nurse Dana Evans is just as important: her practical presence helps make the department feel like a place of employment, with work that must be done regardless of anyone’s private troubles.
We respond to the lack of glamour in Johanna Coelho’s cinematography and Nina Ruscio’s production design. The hospital is convincing enough that routine work can hold our attention before the characters have earned much of it. That matters in a programme built around an ensemble: we need to believe that the department keeps functioning beyond whichever person is speaking. The graphic medical detail makes the physical demands harder to dismiss, though squeamish viewers may find the insistence punishing.
Mark Strand and Joey Reinisch are among the editors managing that flow of information. Too much tidiness would make the workload look easy; too much confusion would make watching it a chore. Once the opening settles, the editing keeps the work legible without making the pace comfortable. We felt worn out by the succession of demands on the staff, and still wanted to keep watching. Gavin Brivik’s music matters less to the tension than the persistent sense that the staff cannot give everyone enough time.
The writing is less dependable when it pauses to make sure we understand a character. R. Scott Gemmill, Joe Sachs and their fellow writers sometimes give the staff traits before they give them enough behaviour to make those traits convincing. Some performances consequently push harder than the scenes can bear, and the occasional soapiness is noticeable because the medical routine is so persuasive. The ensemble grows more distinct as it settles, but the opening asks us to invest in people we can barely distinguish.
As a hospital procedural, it understands the appeal of watching trained people think and act together. Its attention to the shortcomings of emergency medicine gives those decisions weight, though the discussion of wider problems can be more explicit than it needs to be. The gallows humour helps. It gives the staff some relief without asking us to forget what is making them tired, and keeps the programme from becoming a lecture about how much we ought to care.
Give it time to get past the introductions. If graphic medical detail is likely to make you switch off, the strength of the acting will not solve that. For anyone who takes comfort in watching capable people persist, there is plenty here to stay for.
