Noah Wyle’s new emergency room drama turns back the clock

The Pitt ★★★
Binge

It’s nigh impossible for a new American emergency room medical drama not to be compared to the enduring prime-time hit ER. Once the gurneys come crashing through the door with bloodied patients and the doctors start making life and death diagnoses on the spot, we’re back in 1994 with George Clooney and Julianna Margulies. Shifting the setting from Chicago to Pittsburgh, The Pitt walks a shaky line between homage and update. Sometimes we’re also back in 2009, when ER petered out after 15 lengthy seasons.

Dr Robby (Noah Wyle) walks into the Pitt.Credit: Warrick Page/MAX

The baton passing is obvious. Noah Wyle, who played medical student John Carter on ER, returns here as head doctor, Dr Michael Rabinovitch. “Dr Robby”, as everyone calls him, marshals the under-resourced staff, provides split-second expertise, counsels patient families, spars with mercantile administrators and finds time for some traumatic flashbacks to COVID’s first wave. Each of the 15 episodes is an hour in his workday. “This is the job that keeps on giving,” he drily jokes. “Nightmares, ulcers, suicidal tendencies.”

Creator R. Scott Gemmill, who previously wrote or co-wrote 32 episodes of ER, has an instinctive feel for this world. His first episode, which is directed by original ER showrunner and filmmaker John Wells, is a model of economic storytelling, with the handheld aesthetic and busy frames introducing a slew of doctors, nurses and audience proxies: student doctors about to be thrown into the deep end. Soon they’re all trying to handle unresponsive children, leg amputations, family conflict and barely breathing burn victims.

After that, the narrative momentum contracts and expands from one episode to another. Even as the storytelling lays intriguing traps – such as when a dreaded patient with amphetamine psychosis, nicknamed “The Kraken”, might wake – The Pitt tones down the crucible of chaos that veterans joke about with rookies. There are actorly moments, including in an episode written by Wyle, which feel too dramatised, too emotionally tidy. Occasionally, the dialogue is schematic: “Violence against healthcare workers is a national problem,” one nurse declares.

The Pitt: Flashbacks to COVID.Credit: Warrick Page/MAX

As a judgment on America’s profit-first health system, the show is condemnatory without being too specific. It’s more interesting in how it sees the staff. They are frontline heroes as healthcare workers, but flawed as individuals. There are failings, spats and favouritism (but not by Dr Robby), as patients die. I’m not sure there’s a breakout star here, but Taylor Dearden makes the most of her geeky neophyte Dr Mel King. That slightly compromised quality is typical of The Pitt. The dose it’s prescribing needs to be stronger.

Silly: Diana Morgan as Philomena Cunk.Credit:

Cunk on Life ★★★½
Netflix

As with Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G, some of the experts interviewed in the latest instalment of this British mockumentary series are in on the joke. Physicist and actual TV host Brian Cox leans into the daft questions of Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan), the comically ill-informed host of the show. But some, thankfully, are not. Bless you, Cambridge University professor of religious philosophy Douglas Hedley, who calmly discusses whether the 10 Commandments are God’s “T’s and C’s”.

Cunk on Life is something of an encore to the character’s unexpected 2022 international breakthrough series Cunk on Earth. Creator Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) provides a single 70-minute episode where Cunk’s glorious Lancashire accent delivers baffling observations about faith, philosophy and art alongside genius descriptions, awkward interview exchanges, teenage puns and some loving fan service. Is Cunk crediting the Sistine Chapel to “Michael A.N. Jello” silly? Yes. Did I laugh out loud? Absolutely.

Brooker and a lengthy list of writers have probably found the limit of their satiric format, having mastered both the globe-spanning segues of the genuinely weighty BBC documentary and the brain-bending logic of Cunk’s queries. Some of the diversions work better than others (shout-out to the puppetry team), but there are still just enough gags that transcend stupidity for subversive insight. Case in point: Cunk calling religious worship “sucking up to the boss”.

Everything Is Fine
Disney+

Disney+ has a surprisingly large range of subtitled international productions, most of which are decidedly low-profile in the eyes of the recommendation algorithm. One of the best is this French drama, which begins from a family coming to terms with their nine-year-old daughter, Rose (Angele Romeo), requiring a bone marrow transplant due to leukaemia. The life and death demand changes the extended Lafarge clan’s relationships, bringing the women in particular into sharp focus. Virginie Efira, as Rose’s aunt Claire, gives a thrillingly complex performance that distinguishes the show from a hospital drama.

The Rig (season 2)
Amazon Prime

A mix of science-fiction conspiracy and supernatural chiller, this British series earned a small but dedicated audience with its first season, which unfolded on a Scottish oil rig in the North Sea where things quickly turned bad after it was encased in an otherworldly fog. The key cast that made it out of the first season – including Iain Glen, Emily Hampshire and Martin Compston – return for a second season of searching for answers while barely staying alive. The budget constraints still show, but the storytelling has a creepy momentum.

Rectify
Stan

This is my annual public service announcement that the four seasons of this quietly masterful American drama top the list of best shows from the past 15 years that hardly anyone watched. From a legal thriller’s set-up – an exonerated prisoner, Daniel Holden (Aden Young), returns to his small Georgia hometown after two decades on death row – springs a study of belief laced with anger that often moves to the most intimate of storytelling rhythms. An exemplary supporting cast, including J. Smith-Cameron and Adelaide Clemens, adds to a level of illumination that verges on the spiritual.

The worst TV show ever made? The Jerry Springer Show under the spotlight.Credit: Getty

Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action
Netflix

Before his death in 2023, Jerry Springer apologised for the tabloid TV show that he gave his name to. As this two-part documentary series makes clear, it was the least he could do. Running from 1991 to 2018, The Jerry Springer Show was a crude provocation that exploited guests to the point of violent confrontation, both on and eventually off the set. But the endless examples of the show’s failings are mostly presented as a lurid recap, shorn of analysis. The more pertinent question is: Why does America’s broader political discourse now resemble the daytime series?

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