Possibly the best way to have watched The Traitors premiere. Noah Wyle is back in the ER, thank God! It’s 2024 and I’m still talking about the Chicago movie. The Real Housepresidents of the Funeral. Smiling during a hard time.

It’s time to scrub into the 2025 TV schedule once again, as Max’s new medical drama The Pitt has debuted, and with it Noah Wyle’s drama series comeback. Working with some of the people that helped him make a name in his ER days,

He's immersing himself in work, but he's doing exactly what anybody would be doing in his job on shift,' says Wyle.

HBO’s streaming platform Max is emulating network TV with a weekly medical drama. Each episode tracks an hour of a shift in the ER.

"The Pitt" is a smart show that values character detail and intricate medical science that sometimes succumbs to doses of melodrama that can be forgiven for everything that it does very well.

Consider this example both an enticement and a warning. Created by ER alum R. Scott Gemmill, The Pitt takes a ruthlessly realistic approach to its depiction of our beleaguered/broken healthcare system — but it’s also the most engrossing and addictive medical drama to come along since Grey’s Anatomy and, well, ER.

A medical drama going for bracing realism is anchored by a strong central performance from a veteran TV doctor.

“The Pitt” is the derisive nickname given to the rundown Pittsburgh hospital where Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch leads a dedicated team through the daily horrors and miracles that comprise an ER. In a Zoom interview, Wyle noted that this return was a choice with perhaps a sprinkling of earned wisdom.

For most of ER ‘s 15-season run (1994-2009), Wyle starred as Dr. John Carter. We watched him go from his very early days as a doctor, switch from surgery to emergency medicine, become the one who “set the tone” and advised others to do the same, and return time and time again even after he’d moved on from Cook County General.

"The Pitt" may take place in an emergency room and star Noah Wyle, but nothing else about Max's new medical drama resembles the classic series "ER" -- at least according to the show's creators. The new series,

The premiere of The Pitt covers 07:00-08:00 and 08:00-09:00 of a single continuous shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center; it’s a two-episode, two-hour span of drama that turns out to be long enough to make it feel like you’ve been punched in the stomach,