The Pitt Has Changed Medical Dramas In One VERY Unsexy Way

March 26 cannot come soon enough, because HBO Max is finally coming to the UK—and along with it, the acclaimed medical TV series The Pitt. The series takes place in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre (affectionately known by employees as “the Pitt”), where emergency staff—overseen by Noah Wyle’s wise Dr Robby and Katherine LaNasa’s head nurse Dana—and student doctors work gruelling 15-hour shifts treating any number of urgent cases coming through their doors.

While The Pitt is no doubt a hospital drama—and even shares some key cast members with previous genre staples like ER—it is unique for one very specific reason: It does away with melodrama and opts instead for a realistic approach to work in a hospital emergency department. Gone are the secret steamy makeout sessions in the break room, banished are the drawn-out get-to-know-you chats between doctors, patients, and nurse staff, and instead, something even more exciting emerges: A series that is both entertaining and educational, while largely staying true to the reality of what life is like within the walls of an American A&E. 

Sure, a few trending news-of-the-day topics conveniently crop up, but the creators’ careful handling of difficult subjects serves to elevate this series from what could have been another run-of-the-mill hospital drama to critically acclaimed television.

The Pitt Doesn’t Rely on Melodrama, And It’s All the Better For It

There have been plenty of popular hospital series over the years. From ER to Grey’s Anatomy to House, these television classics have tended to heavily rely on romantic subplots and rare diseases to keep viewers coming back. While The Pitt isn’t devoid of melodrama, I’d argue it’s exactly the choice to ditch the soap opera style and hammer home the realism that has made it such a hit. As it turns out, there’s plenty to keep you at the edge of your seat in a realistic scenario—with or without two doctors’ tangled love lives hanging in the balance.

Another reason to love The Pitt is that the stakes are genuinely high. Whether it’s a degloved foot (ouch!) or a lovable repeat patient whose alcoholism is slowly deteriorating his health, the careful writing illustrates how important each story is, regardless of how flashy. The series also doesn’t simply rely on a genius doctor solving the rarest of cases to keep you engaged. In fact, the series succeeds at conveying just how important and skilled everyday medical professionals are, without unnecessary fanfare.

While there are some rarer cases represented in The Pitt, the majority are common but deadly, and it really shows that the creators teamed up with practising emergency physicians to understand what they see every day. Whether it’s a heart attack or the rapid onset of sepsis, as viewers, we are even more invested in these more common conditions precisely because they can and do often happen.

The Pitt’s Hour-By-Hour Format Keeps Us Strictly on The Job

Since each episode takes place hour-by-hour during a 15-hour shift, The Pitt features several cases per episode, with some spilling over into subsequent episodes, and some patients even resurfacing at later points across seasons. This makes the whole series feel more realistic, and does away with the “case of the day” format used in so many other medical dramas. While there is a thrill to the genius doctor solving the case just in time—much like a detective figuring out who the murderer is in a crime drama—the melodrama can easily feel overdone, and winds up taking over as the main hook.

Some plots in The Pitt are less interesting than others, and some characters are genuinely frustrating (looking at you, Santos!). However, each case and subplot reveals something real and interesting about both the condition itself and the characters we have come to love. We want to watch the next episode because we care about how these multiple storylines play out, and enjoy spending time with the characters, rather than simply having to know how the big cliffhanger panned out.

Is The Pitt Still Entertaining?

While some rarely seen cases come through the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre, the doctors are largely shown doing their due diligence on a whole host of common cases, including quickly creating comprehensive and smart treatment plans, avoiding unnecessary procedures, and following up on what seem like small inconsistencies that turn out to be life-saving factors. The result is a wildly interesting watch that is on its own enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. Who knew that real life—sped up and with a few choice embellishments—could be entertaining enough?