ER collides with 24 and Sherlock parties with House in two thrilling new medical series coming to M-Net this month. The Pitt (from Monday 11 August at 21:00) is a realistic examination of the challenges facing healthcare workers in America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a modern-day hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – with the entire 15-episode season set in real time over the course of one shift. Watson sees Sherlock Holmes’ famed sidekick become the central figure in his own story as he returns to his medical roots – but his detective senses still tingle from time to time.
In The Pitt, ER star Noah Wyle returns to the emergency room as he marshals a team of doctors through the hardships of life at the underfunded, short-staffed Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre. The series has been praised by medical experts for its accuracy, realistic portrayal of healthcare workers, and the way it addresses the psychological challenges faced by both patients and physicians in a post-COVID world.
The series was nominated for 13 awards at the upcoming Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series and three acting nominations. Wyle’s nomination at this year’s 77th Emmys marks the end of a 26-year wait since his last nomination for his role as Dr John Carter in ER.
Alongside Wyle as Dr Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, the cast includes Tracy Ifeachor as senior resident Dr Heather Collins; Patrick Ball as Dr Frank Langdon, Dr Robby’s right-hand man; Katherine LaNasa as charge nurse Dana Evans, and Shabana Azeez as Victoria Javadi, a brilliant third-year medical student whose parents are both respected doctors at the hospital.
The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee writes that Wyle’s character “remains haunted not just by working through the pandemic but also what was lost during, specifically an important mentor who died. Over a long, and what we can imagine is textbook strenuous, shift, we see how he, and those old and new around him, cope with the chaos”. He says of the show that “the frenetic format, throwing us right into the middle of the mayhem for a darting, lightly structured series, does in its finer moments help convey what sheer hell it can really be, working in an underfunded and overstretched hospital. Criss-crossing between patients, and various other fires that need putting out, the layering of stress upon new stress upon still unfixed stress is successfully … stressful to watch.”
NPR’s Linda Holmes called The Pitt “ ... exceptionally propulsive and interesting — as well as moving and emotional.”
Six months after the death of his friend and partner Sherlock Holmes, Dr John Watson (Morris Chestnut) recovers from injuries of his own to resume his medical career as the head of a clinic dedicated to treating rare disorders in Watson, which premieres on M-Net on Monday 18 August at 19:00
Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of the superstar detective and his phlegmatic crime-solving partner, Watson embroiders on the work done previously by showrunner Craig Sweeny in his Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu-led Holmes' adaptation Elementary – though that’s the only connection between the two series. While tackling a host of challenging and unusual medical conditions at the Holmes Clinic, Watson soon finds out that there are still loose ends to his past, which threaten to engulf him.
Speaking to Max Gao from TV Guide, Chestnut said of the show: “I knew that we had access to this iconic mythology, which is rich with stories and characters, but we can incorporate it into a modern-day storytelling with the show that is also taking on a challenge of combining genres. We saw some of the cases inside the hospital, but we go outside the hospital to gather information as detectives. So we're doctors inside the hospital, we're detectives outside the hospital — we're doc-detectives. That was a unique twist to not just the mythology, but also to the traditional network television that I wanted to be a part of."
Watson also stars Eve Harlow as Dr Ingrid Derian; Peter Mark Kendall as identical brothers Stephens and Adam Croft; Inga Sclingmann as rheumatology and immunology specialist Sasha Lubbock, and Ritchie Coster as Shinwell Johnson, an acquaintance of Holmes and Watson who works as the clinic's administrative aide and whose past criminal connections often prove very useful to the team.
The Pitt joins M-Net on Monfay 11 August at 21:00 and Watson arrives on Monday 18 August at 19:00. Both will also be available on DStv Stream and DStv.
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