‘Not possible’: Real reason ER reboot was canned

It was one of the hit shows of the 90s, and broke the Hollywood career of George Clooney. Now, one of its stars reveals why a reboot of ER never happened.

Actor Noah Wyle is back in scrubs and navigating the chaos of a new emergency room decades after first saving lives as ER’s idealistic Dr John Carter.

The popular medical series that made his name aired its first episode back in September 1994.

“Scrubs are incredibly comfortable, so there’s been no problem getting back into those,” the 53-year-old tells The Binge Guide with a laugh. “Plus, it’s sort of one-size-fits-all. Even though I’m not the same body shape that I used to be, they still fit.”

In new drama The Pitt, Wyle returns to his doctoring roots as Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. Being back in a TV hospital is both familiar and strange for the actor, who “came in cocky, thinking I was going to be showing these kids a thing or two”, only to find a lot of the procedures had changed and the drugs had different names.

The way they were! The cast of ER: Noah Wyle, Sherry Stringfield, Anthony Edwards, George Clooney and Eriq La Salle, pictured on set in 1995. Picture: Supplied

Wyle admits the most embarrassing part was trying to live up to the expectations that he was an expert in television medicine.

“[Producer] John Wells [who also worked on ER] kept bragging about my suturing skills to everybody saying, ‘Well, wait until you see Noah’s sutures! He does better sutures than the doctors,’ which, 30 years ago, may have been true for a relatively short period of time,” he says, smiling.

“But it’s not like I’ve kept my skills up actively, and suddenly I’m finding myself being asked to demonstrate. And the first thing that struck me is I can’t see a goddamn thing without my glasses.”

Regularly ranked as one of the best TV shows of all time and a prototype for modern medical dramas, ER launched Wyle’s acting career, not to mention the careers of George Clooney and Julianna Margulies.

Original ER staar George Clooney (second from left), with Amal Clooney, Brad Pitt (far right) and Ines de Ramon in Venice last year. Picture: Getty Images

“That was a really good ensemble,” Wyle recalls. “I’ve worked with some great casts since then, and had some wonderful times, but I haven’t really felt a sense of total buy-in and excitement the way that I did in those early years – until this new show. I can’t wait to be the sort of proverbial Trojan horse that introduces all these new players.”

Although he has been in no rush to play another TV doctor since hanging up his ER stethoscope in 2009, Wyle felt the time was right for a new realistic medical drama that spoke to a modern audience.

And he says The Pitt, created by ER writer and producer R. Scott Gemmill, fit the bill.

“At one time, when ER was at its best, we were giving really accurate, authentic medical information to a very large global community, and that became a point of conversation that patients could have with their doctors,” Wyle muses.

“In the last couple of years, we’ve begun to become distrustful of the medical community and become amateur physicians.

“We think that because we have access to Google we can be our own experts, and it has a degrading effect on a delicate and meaningful relationship between you and your physician.

Back in surgery! Noah Wyle plays a doctor again in new Binge drama, The Pitt. Picture: Binge

Listen to a new episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below featuring Gary Jubelin:

“So part of this is to re-establish what an objective medical fact is, and how these things aren’t necessarily open to opinion or interpretation.”

Although there was discussion The Pitt would be a sequel to ER, with Wyle reprising his role as Dr Carter, he says “circumstances have made that not possible”.

Explains Wyle: “We all collectively felt a sense of relief that we could tell a story that wasn’t beholden to any baggage or history or lineage.

“[We wanted to] tell something that felt very contemporary and very relative to now, and let that be the point of the exercise.”

However, just as ER broke ground in the 1990s and 200os with storylines involving HIV and mental health, The Pitt examines current concerns such as elder care, the fentanyl epidemic in the US, and the toll of Covid. It’s also told in real time, adds Wyle, with an appreciation that today’s viewers “consume so much narrative storytelling that they’re extremely trope sensitive – and spot a device a mile away”.

The Pitt streams Fridays on Binge, with new episodes dropping weekly, and is also available on Hubbl.

For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.

Originally published as ‘Not possible’: Real reason ER reboot was canned