HBO Max, a new streaming service from the channel behind The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Game of Thrones, launches in the UK this week, almost six years after it first appeared stateside. In those six years, much has changed: war in Europe, Keir Starmer in Downing Street, Brooklyn Beckham ceasing diplomatic relations with his parents. And quietly, barely known on these shores, HBO has been putting out exclusive content, such as its medical drama The Pitt, which swept last year’s Emmys and has been heralded as one of the great post-pandemic series. Now, as its second season concludes in America, the show finally arrives here in Britain.
Each season of The Pitt follows a single day in the life of the emergency department of a hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The emergency room is led by Michael Rabinovitch, known to all as Dr Robby (Noah Wyle), and features a cast of misfits. Among them are wry charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa), smarmy resident Langdon (Patrick Ball), cocky intern Santos (Isa Briones), and brittle medical student Javadi (Shabana Azeez). Unfolding in frenetic real time, like Kiefer Sutherland thriller 24, The Pitt explores some of America’s hot-button issues: sex trafficking, online misogyny, racial inequality in healthcare, neurodivergence and more. As the hours pass, an anxiety emerges. Is this day just a snapshot of life in an overcrowded, under-funded hospital? Or are we witnessing an extraordinary 24 hours at the bloody face of American medicine? After a mass shooting event concluded the show’s first season, its second chapter picks up in apparent peace. “Who else is going to get this place through the Fourth of July weekend,” Dana observes, with a twinkle, as Robby rocks up on a motorcycle.
