ER Nailed the Fix for The Pitt Season 2’s Biggest Problem — 32 Years Ago

If you watched TV back in the '90s and someone asked what drama everyone was obsessed with, there was really only one answer. I know everyone today wants to act like medical shows are a dime a dozen, but ER basically invented the modern template: stressed-out doctors, emotional wipeouts, and yes, some eyebrow-raising melodrama—but with a level of quality that almost nobody since has matched. And before Clooney was a movie star—or Noah Wyle was everyone's favorite harried young doc—these guys were just trying not to kill their patients in fictional Chicago.

Why 'ER' Still Rules the Medical Drama Roost

Let me put it this way: when ER showed up on NBC in September 1994, it instantly clicked. The pilot ('24 Hours') grabs you with John Carter (Noah Wyle) completely panicked about being new to medicine, while Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) is agonizing over a shot at more money in private practice versus staying in the trenches. Yes, things occasionally got a little over-the-top (there is literally a helicopter amputation episode in Season 9), but the show never forgot to ground the jaw-dropping stuff in real character dilemmas and life-or-death stakes.

Compare that to stuff like Grey's Anatomy—which definitely leans hard into soap—ER was just as interested in the literal guts and gore as it was in the emotional fallout for its gigantic cast (and dear god, was it a huge cast sometimes). Even in its messiest moments, it always knew that to tell a great hospital story, you have to care what happens to the actual people under the scrubs.

Okay, So How Does 'The Pitt' Stack Up?

Now, fast-forward to HBO Max and their own attempt at hospital drama with The Pitt—which, to be fair, is also centered on high-stakes medicine, and even tries to keep the focus tight by showing one hour of a long hospital shift per episode. Noah Wyle is back, this time as Dr. Robby, and there’s some solid character chemistry (shoutout to Katherine LaNasa as Dana Evans and Shawn Hatosy as Dr. Jack Abbot). If you loved The Pitt's first season, I get it—the show does a pretty good job exploring big questions about responsibility and mortality for all its under-pressure staffers.

But Season 2 is where things get...messy. There are 12 episodes available so far, and the show just doesn’t juggle its way too big cast very effectively. Some characters get plenty of time; others might as well be reading lines in the break room. Mel (Taylor Dearden) finally gets a little drama with her sister's storyline, but her legal subplot is basically all talk (hello, what happened to the actual courtroom action we were teased?). Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) and Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) sit on the sidelines, which is doubly frustrating because these are the more interesting characters for my money. In some cases, major emotional moments happen off screen, or just...never get followed up on.

'Not every character is given their due in every episode of The Pitt. Some have threads that start strong then just fade, and others we only hear about through gossipy asides. It makes you appreciate how ER, even with a sprawling cast, made sure every main character got at least one meaty arc per season.'

Quick Breakdown: Why 'ER' Did the Big Cast Thing Better

• Spotlight sharing: In ER, every major doc got headline stories. Season 1 alone covers Dr. Benton's family drama, Carol and Doug's steamy near-misses, Susan Lewis's struggles with her sister, Greene's messed-up work/life balance, and on and on. No one was ever completely left in the background.
• Balanced drama + medicine: Episodes could be deeply sad, like 'Into That Good Night' (where a patient faces a terminal diagnosis), or just totally bonkers, like the infamous helicopter scene. Still, it never felt fake or hand-waved for convenience.
• Off-clock lives matter: ER knew that what doctors did after hours was just as interesting (and dramatic) as what happened during their shifts. The Pitt, by design, limits that, which can make it feel boxed in.

'The Pitt' Season 2: Still Time for a Save?

It isn’t all bad news. There are still episodes left in Season 2, so maybe some of these dropped threads get picked up, and the show ends on the kind of emotional finale that wowed people at the end of Season 1. We all want to see Robby (Noah Wyle) actually get some closure—preferably not the tragic kind, thanks. Will Dana and Abbot actually talk through their issues? Are we going to see an actual resolution for that abandoned baby plotline, or is it another thread floating in the ER breeze?

Basically, The Pitt has the building blocks of a great hospital drama and flashes of real excellence, but when you see the way ER kept all its plates spinning, you realize just how difficult this genre really is to pull off—especially when you have more characters than beds in your TV hospital.