By Josh Nason
My wife and I were on vacation this past February in the Bahamas and chilling out at night after a long day of things you do at all-inclusive resorts. The channel options weren’t great so we connected a Roku stick (a pro move, btw) and were able to access HBO Max.
After not finding anything that interesting due to geo-location restrictions, I suggested this show we both discussed before but never started. And, that’s when we started watching The Pitt.
We watched three or so episodes but completely forgot to keep going after we returned home for no reason other than post-vacation brain. Fast forward to warm weather back home and we resumed making our way through the first season in August.
Should You Watch The Pitt s1 (HBO/HBO Max)?
How many seasons?
Two with the third coming in January ’27.
How many episodes?
15 in season one.
What type of show is it?
Medical drama.
How old is it?
2025.
Where can you primarily watch it?
HBO/HBO Max as of now. If you are reading this in 2027 or beyond, it could be Paramount+ or ParaMax or HBOmount for all I know.
Who is it for?
Is medheads a term? It is now. If you’re into hospital/medical dramas like ER, welcome to the party, pal.
What’s the commit level?
Total runtime without the credits is just over 12 hours. You can shave off a few minutes here and there if you skip the ‘Previously On’. Nearly every episode is in the 50 minute range.
Is there a bailout episode?
I’d give this two episodes. There’s a pretty constant flow throughout so if you’re not feeling this after 90 minutes, you can be discharged.
What’s the main plot in a sentence?
Let’s spend a 12-hour shift in a Pittsburgh emergency room, shall we?
Any interesting background in the show’s creation?
Oh, is there!
Wyle and ER TV producers R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells started discussing this during the pandemic as Wyle was credited by emergency workers and first responders as inspiring them when he was on ER. The three guys talked about a new medical drama taking the current day challenges of hospitals and the system into account.
But when they approached the estate of ER creator Michael Crichton (he of Jurassic Park fame and plenty of other books), they couldn’t come to an agreement on an official spinoff. Warner Bros. Discovery moved ahead anyway as they wanted a procedural and the trio started working on this in the fall of 2023, eventually rolling out in 2025.
However, the Crichton estate is suing because they think it’s a ripoff of ER. As of September 2026, the producers are still trying to get it thrown out in appeals court after failing to do so when first presented with the suit.
The stories about the production and how they pulled this off is insane. Watch this interview with Wells and you’ll be as fascinated as I was.
Are there actors the average TV watcher would recognize?
Noah Wyle, Shawn Hatosy and a few character actors including the daughter in the Ant-Man movies.
What’s the reaction been?
Incredibly positive, scoring a 94/88 split on Rotten Tomatoes and a 78 generally favorable score on Metacritic.
On the awards front, The Pitt took home five Emmys including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor (Wyle) and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Katherine LaNasa). It also took home hardware from the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Critics Choice Awards, TCA Awards and more. In other words, it was well-received.
What’s the rewatch factor?
This feels like it has an extended life on late night basic cable with some editing, but I could see some medheads dropping in to check out favorite episodes on the regular. For everyone else, I would say the rewatch factor is low — mainly due to its graphic nature and 15-episode run. Plus, there’s a billion shows to watch.
If you like these shows or movies, you’ll like this:
I never watched ER, but I’d say anyone that enjoyed procedural and old-school network dramas will dig this. I’m not a medical/hospital show watcher, but this was an exception.
Is this a first or second screen show?
First. The amount of literally painstaking effort they made in making this as real as possible deserves your undivided attention.
Should you watch The Pitt s1?
Let’s first get this out of the way. Yes.
This is one of the better dramas I’ve seen in a while and completely outside the usual wheelhouse of stuff I watch. As I noted above, medical and hospital shows aren’t really my bag for no other reason than they are usually on a network and more like Grey’s Anatomy than what we have here.
The Pitt definitely isn’t Grey’s but does have their own versions of McSTEAMY AND McDREAMY, AMIRITE?
And despite that it’s on cable/streaming, it’s just like ER and Grey’s in that it’s a traditional procedural that follows all the same beats and, in a very old school way, the seasons are all coming out annually. It’s 1998 all over again!
While the medical action (so to speak) is what the show centers around, the characters are all developed through that action. You get to know personalities within minutes with the doctors, staff and even the patients and their families. You find people you like and sympathize with while also experiencing frustration with choices parents of injured kids make.
But the really interesting thing is that the patients aren’t there for the entire season for the most part. You get time with them, but not that much time. It’s an everchanging show with everchanging problems which makes it fun. That’s even the case with one of the doctors who was a big part of the first half of the season and isn’t around at all for the big storyline shift of the season. Yet, it doesn’t matter. There’s enough story and emotion to go around.
From all accounts, including from my niece who is a nurse, the medical procedures are as real as they get on screen in literally painstaking detail. If you’re squeamish, this show is going to be tough for you. There’s no way to avoid seeing scalpels on skin and the like. There’s also a pretty big event that happens near the end of the season where there is a lot of blood. Like, a ton. It stressed my wife out to the point she couldn’t watch before bed while it didn’t bother me at all.
The show is Wyle and a ton of actors I had never seen before, but they are all pretty incredible, especially in discussing complex medical terms and instructions that come off as seamless. The podcast linked above will give you insight with the hiring process and how they film which is pretty cool.
Wyle is the lead doctor/captain of a Pittsburgh ER unit and has to deal with patients, doctors, nurses, intense situations, trauma and his own life. While I’m sure he didn’t want to be typecast after his long run on ER, this is his wheelhouse and he throws pure gas doing it.
Should you watch The Pitt’s first season? Yes. Now, we’re onto the second.
