As The Pitt blazes its own trail on the 2025 TV schedule, there’s both good and bad news for fans to celebrate. On one hand, the Noah Wyle-led medical drama has been renewed by Warner Bros. Television for Season 2, which is fantastic for those who can’t get enough. However, the real-time narrative series is currently weathering a massive legal challenge mounted by the Michael Crichton estate due to implied similarities to ER.
The subject has been a bit of a hot button ever since the Max original series seemed to rise from the ashes of a failed reboot to the iconic NBC drama. But if anyone has continually talked up the differences between these projects, it’s been Noah Wyle. Which leads to these comments the star shared with TV Line, addressing how losing out on ER’s proposed legacy-quel was a good thing:
It just became, well, ‘Is the old IP the easiest and most advantageous delivery system?’ It seemed to be the one that people were most excited about trying, but it wasn’t really the point of the exercise. The more we went down that road, the more the point got obscured in the reunion aspect, the retread aspect, the reboot aspect… so I was not sorry when, you know, we were sort of forced to pivot and figure out how to tell the story in a new way. In a lot of ways, [not reviving ER] unburdened us from narrative limitations that we would have had to adhere to, and pay homage to.
For a viewer like me who’s just starting to enter The Pitt, but has years of memories watching some of ER’s most memorable moments, I couldn’t agree with Noah Wyle more. I fully admit that it would have been fun to see Cook County Hospital presented in the modern day, since the classic TV show’s ending saw Wyle’s Dr. Carter heading back into the action with Dr. Greene’s daughter starting her own potential legacy.
At the same time, you can practically hear the fans all asking the same questions about whether or not George Clooney will return for a cameo. Some of the further background that The Pitt’s leading man/executive producer provided on its genesis helped differentiate the two concepts even more.
While ER’s former showrunner/writer John Wells may have broached that would-be reboot from an initial intention to revive the brand, Noah Wyle explained where his head was when pitching this Max subscription driver:
The intentionality was born in 2020 during the pandemic, with an inbox that was full of really gratifying messages from people that were on the front lines — and they weren’t just compliments, they were also kind of cries for help. They were 'hear what I’m going through' kind of messages, 'get the word out' kind of messages, you know? 'We’re tired… our morale is flagging… we’re getting sick… we’re dying… we’re getting abused. We’re getting taken for granted, and people banging on pots at the end of our shift is not helping.'
The Pitt’s future simultaneously looks bright, but uncertain. As Warner Bros. Television’s motion to dismiss the Michael Crichton estate’s case was denied, there’s going to be a need for further proceedings and/or negotiations to take place. Season 2 could theoretically hang in the balance, depending on what happens next.
At least there are still several more weeks of suspense from The Pitt to help distract from this legal drama, with a new hour of tension arriving each Thursday at 9 p.m. ET, only on Max.
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