Medical dramas don't tend to be my primary choice of TV show. But I'd be a liar if I said The Pitt didn't hook me right away. The Pitt immerses us in the high-stress environment of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center's emergency department,

The new Max medical drama chronicles a 15-hour shift at a fictional Pittsburgh emergency room. The second episode of The Pitt — the new Max medical drama starring Noah Wyle as the chief attending doctor in an overwhelmed emergency room in Pittsburgh — ends with the grimmest four minutes I've seen on TV in a while.

The cast of Max's medical drama "The Pitt" is clocking in for their shift, meet the stars of the intense new streaming series.

HBO’s streaming platform Max is emulating network TV with a weekly medical drama. Each episode tracks an hour of a shift in the ER.

“The Pitt” is the derisive nickname given to the rundown Pittsburgh hospital where Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinavitch leads a dedicated team through the daily horrors and miracles that comprise an ER. In a Zoom interview, Wyle noted that this return was a choice with perhaps a sprinkling of earned wisdom.

The series speaks to contemporary issues in the way it attempts to dramatize the toxic drug crisis and issue of systemic bias in medical care