The Pitt

The Pitt is an American medical drama television series created by R. Scott Gemmill, and executive produced by John Wells and Noah Wyle. This marks Gemmill's, Wells' and Wyle's second collaboration, having worked alongside during ER. It stars Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell and Shabana Azeez. The series follows medical staff as they attempt to overcome the hardships of a single 15-hour work shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital all while having to navigate staff shortages, underfunding and insufficient resources. Each episode of the season covers approximately one hour of the work shift.
The Pitt premiered on Max on January 9, 2025. The series has received acclaim from critics for its writing, direction and acting performances. The series has also been praised by the medical community for its accuracy, realistic portrayal of medical professionals and addressing the psychological challenges faced in a post-pandemic world. The Pitt was renewed for a second season in February 2025, scheduled to premiere in January 2026.
Staff
Patients
On March 26, 2024, Max gave production a 15-episode series order for The Pitt. The series is created and showrun by R. Scott Gemmill who is also an executive producer alongside Noah Wyle, John Wells, Erin Jontow, Simran Baidwan, and Michael Hissrich. Production companies involved with the series are John Wells Productions and Warner Bros. Television. The pilot is also written by Gemmill.
On February 14, 2025, Max renewed the series for a second season.
Upon the series order announcement, Wyle was also cast to star. On July 12, 2024, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, and Katherine LaNasa joined the cast as series regulars. On August 14, 2024, Shawn Hatosy, Michael Hyatt, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Brandon Mendez Homer, Kristin Villanueva, Amielynn Abellera, Alexandra Metz, Krystel V. McNeil, and Deepti Gupta were cast in recurring capacities.
The Pitt was filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles. Additional scenes were shot at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh over three days. The budget is estimated to be around $5 million per episode, which is inexpensive for a drama on streaming.
Special effects company Autonomous FX created many of the prosthetics for The Pitt, including a degloved foot shown in "7:00 A.M.", makeup for a full-body burn victim in "4:00 P.M.", and a vaginal canal and newborn baby for a birth scene in "5:00 P.M.". The birth rig had originally been designed for the Showtime TV show SMILF (2017) and had later been used for the Amazon Prime miniseries Dead Ringers (2023).
On August 27, 2024, it was reported that the estate of ER creator Michael Crichton, represented by his widow Sherri, had sued Warner Bros. Television, Wells, Wyle, and Gemmill—all of whom had been involved in the earlier series—over breach of contract, claiming that The Pitt was a reworking of a planned sequel to ER that the estate had not approved, and that Crichton should be credited as creator of The Pitt. On November 4, 2024, Warner Bros. Television's lawyers responded to the lawsuit by filing for a motion to dismiss, claiming that it is "a completely different show".
The Pitt premiered on Max on January 9, 2025, with the first two episodes available immediately and the rest debuting on a weekly basis until April 10.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 97% approval rating with an average rating of 8.55/10, based on 57 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Setting the trials and tribulations of hospital life on a timer, The Pitt combines multiple tried-and-true formulas to create a bracingly fresh medical drama." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 76 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
In a positive review written for The New Republic, Phillip Maciak praised the contrasting pacing of the show's plotlines. The show has been well received by the medical community, in part due to its accurate portrayal of medicine and emergency room conditions.