One Of The Best Hours Of TV I Have Ever Seen

One Of The Best Hours Of TV I Have Ever Seen

By

Leonard Zwelling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pitt

I have been watching television for almost as long as there has been television. I think I was about three when my father brought home the pale wood box with the small screen and antennae from which emanated Howdy Dowdy, Rootie Kazootie, and Hopalong Cassidy, all in black and white.

Over the past seventy plus years I have accumulated years of TV time, I am sure. Most of the most stunning hours have been the live broadcasts of real events; the Nixon-Kennedy debates, the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the moon landing, and the Watergate hearings are but a few examples. As for the scripted comedies and drama, there have been examples of greatness from All in the Family to Hill Street Blues and beyond. But I never saw an hour of TV more intense than the twelfth episode of the new medical drama The Pitt on Max.

If you have not seen this show, binge the first twelve episodes, but strap in for number twelve.

There will be no spoilers here. Just know The Pitt is a very realistic medical drama set in the busy emergency department of an inner-city Pittsburgh hospital. Up until the episode on March 20, The Pitt was already great TV. Noah Wylie of ER fame leads a largely unknown cast of character actors playing nurses, doctors, and patients with various degrees of experience on the battle field that is any big-city ER. At the end of episode eleven, we learn that there is an active shooter at a music festival near the ER. The ER staff gears up for the worst.

Each hour of TV on The Pitt is an hour in real time in the ER. This twelfth hour will be the response to the mass casualty event. In my own life in ERs, I never had to handle such an occurrence. I am not sure how ready I would have been for one. Watch as we see how a modern ER is prepped and ready with a detailed plan and then executes it. That’s all I will say about the events other than the amount of research done by the writers was massive and the direction and acting are superb. The episode was directed by Amanda Marsalis and written by Joe Sachs and R. Scott Gemmil, the series creator. Major props go to them and the entire cast.

I don’t usually review TV on the blog, but this hour is one that cannot be missed or even believed once viewed.

Suffice it to say that after the fifteen episodes that will be aired this season, The Pitt has been renewed for at least one more. I can’t get enough of this one. It’s the best medicine I have ever seen depicted on a small or big screen. Don’t miss this.