The 1990s Were a Different Time

I’ve been watching through the second season of The Pitt, the current medical drama following doctors at a hospital emergency room as they deal with a constant stream of cases, all produced by the team of R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells, and Noah Wyle. Because I’ve been watching through that series, HBO (which hosts the show) has decided that I also need to watch ER, a medical drama started in 1994 following doctors at a hospital emergency room as they deal with a constant stream of cases, all produced by the team of R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells, and (eventually) Noah Wyle. You know, because there’s connective tissue here.

And I guess, in a way, there really is. The Pitt was pitched originally as a continuation of ER, where Noah Wiley’s Dr. Robbie was initially supposed to be his character from ER, Dr. John Carter. Negotiations with Michael Crichton’s estate didn’t work out, though, so the idea was reinvented to be its own thing (likely to the betterment of The Pitt), and fans of the original show just had to divorce themselves from what they expected to enjoy what they got. But that does leave ER as a footnote that’s worth investigating on its own.

The show isn’t talked about now as much as it used to be. There’s been a long string of medical dramas that have come out since that were flashier, sultrier, or more hard hitting, anything to give a new hook that would make them stand out against what had been, for fifteen years, the stalwart of the genre: ER. Many of those shows have come to dominate the zeitgeist, making people forget about ER and all that show did. But it is interesting to go back and look at the show, as it was first conceived, to see what it did right… and how much the genre needed to push past ER’s flaws to give us something even better.

This first episode of the series, “24 Hours”, is both the perfect illustration of the series and probably its worst foot forward. Our main protagonist through the first, double-length episode is Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), the overworked (and presumably underpaid) Chief Resident at the Emergency Department of County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. He barely gets any sleep, often pulling long, 24-hour (or 48-hour) shifts at the hospital, all while his wife, Jennifer "Jen" Greene-Simon, works on her law degree (while barely seeing him at all). He needs to get out, he thinks, even looking at a job at a prestigious concierge medical facility down the road from the hospital… but it’s hard for him to pull away when the job means so much to him.

And it means a lot to many others working there, from emergency pediatric fellow Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney), to resident Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield), hot-shot resident Peter Benton (Eriq Le Salle), and medical student (on their first day on the job), John Carter (Noah Wyle). All of them want to help take care of their patients, from an abused child, to a man with blood building in his stomach, victims of a car crash, and those just needing basic medical care. Not every case is special, but the patients are what matters.

You can tell that the creators of the show really want to sell the idea that these doctors are saints. Like, the show feels like it underlines that more than once. Each person exudes care for their patients, leaking it out of their pores. Hell, there’s a point, right after Dr. Green interviews with the concierge medical service, where he’s standing over a patient and goes, “I can’t give this up,” telling us, “I love what I do more than anything else in my life.” We’re supposed to cheer for him, and this heavy handed dialogue, because he’s doing the right thing (the show wants us to think), as is everyone else in this department.

That’s something that The Pitt has over ER. This first episode spends a day with the cast of characters at this emergency department, but it’s a very fast (as a double-length episode) day, breezing us through various cases as the doctors flit from room to room, taking care of problems and never seeing the patients again. The Pitt forces us to spend time with the doctors and follow their cases through every break and moment, good and bad, while the doctors themselves deal with their own, personal issues, good and bad, and it can’t really pull away. The vibe of the two shows are completely different, and in the case of ER it makes the show feel superficial.

Naturally you wouldn’t have felt this at the time as ER was still more realistic than many of the medical dramas (most of which were daytime soap operas) that were on the air. Hell, this wasn’t even the first show called ER that George Clooney was even on (as he previously was featured in eight episodes of the short-lived 1984 medical comedy E/R). This ER did try to give us a better glimpse of the loves of doctors and all the crap they had to deal with, even if it was glossy and sanded down for television. And, at least in this first episode, it wasn’t soap operatic.

Honestly, ER is amazingly restrained in this first episode when it comes to character drama. We get little hints that maybe Mark Greene and Susan Lewis could have a thing (or the passing will they/won’t they that could be a thing, which could lead to his divorce, if that were a plotline the show wanted to follow). There’s also a bit of unrequited tension between Ross and Nurse Manager Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), a previous relationship that leads them both to think about what could be, or at least could have been. But that’s all played out in a couple of quick glances and nothing else. The show tries to keep the drama on the medical floor (and, unlike Grey’s Anatomy and the like, out of the sheets), which does at least keep things from turning too lurid.

Of course, as someone that knows the history of the show, and then followed it to The Pitt, the one I couldn’t help but watch was Wyle’s John Carter, who would go from first day medical student (who doesn’t really know anything) to one of the longest running main players on the show. Viewers would get to see him become the Chief Resident, and then even rise up to an Attending Physician, surpassing all the characters we first meet on the series this first, full day. It’s interesting to go back and see where he began and realize all the little seeds of his growth are here… once you know it.

But still, ER does feel like something of a relic. It’s not as propulsive, at least in this first episode, as you’d like to see, but it also doesn’t have any interesting dramatic hooks that really make you want to keep watching. It’s a medical drama, well made and well acted, but one that feels like just a medical drama now. Back in the day it was more because there wasn’t anything like it, but now there’s so much out there like it… and more. You can understand, going back to this first episode, why people don’t still talk about it, why they aren’t binging the show as hard as they once would have, all because the show feels like it comes from a different era (and not just because of all the 1990s trappings in the series). It was just made different back then.

So we’ll see if I continue on with the series. On days where I’m bored and there’s nothing else to watch I could see revisiting ER for another episode or two. Right now, though, this isn’t a show I feel the need to binge over and over. A revisit to Chicago’s emergency department was interesting, but I doubt I’m going to want to take up residency here for fifteen full season.