Review
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: where a knight can still dream
by Luca Fontana
Why HBO’s The Pitt has me in a chokehold
23.1.2026
Translation: Natalie McKay
A single shift. In real time. The Pitt tells the story of 15 hours in an emergency room in one go, with an almost too-close-for-comfort authenticity that doesn’t resort to cheap tricks to create suspense.
Fear not, the following review of the first season contains zero spoilers. I won’t be revealing anything that hasn’t already been revealed in trailers. The Pitt airs on HBO Max.
So, here it is. The emergency room of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Or as it’s also known, The Pitt. Time seems to take on a different meaning here. Monitors beep incessantly, voices overlap, footsteps hurry through corridors that seem too narrow for everything that happens here every day. People come in with fear in their eyes, with pain, with hope – and sometimes with none of it left.
This is exactly where The Pitt starts. This HBO series takes you by the hand and leads you into the midst of the chaos. Not for a moment or for a single case. But for an entire shift. For 15 hours.
In real time.
The hype – and what’s behind it
But let’s start at the beginning: people have been talking about The Pitt for months. In the USA, it’s even considered one of the best new series ever. It’s hardly surprising that critics are showering it with praise, and are already putting it on a par with classics like Emergency Room or the early seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
You also recommended it in our blog post on the editors’ favourite TV series, although The Pitt wasn’t officially streamable in this country – despite HBO’s deal with Sky Show. Only with the launch of HBO Max in Switzerland has this potential cult series finally arrived here, and episodes of the second season have been aired every week for just two weeks now.
The story? At the centre is Dr Michael «Robby» Robinavitch, played by Noah Wyle. Yes, the same Noah Wyle many people remember from Emergency Room. But anyone hoping for nostalgia here will soon be set straight. Robby isn’t one of those idealistic doctors you typically see in a TV series, he’s not an emotional cornerstone with moral superiority. He’s tired. Struggling. And, above all, marked by the lasting effects the Covid pandemic had on the emergency room.
But Robby’s the boss, and the most experienced doctor in the team. He’s expected to get on with things. To make decisions, take responsibility and radiate calm – even when he’s long lacked the strength for this. Giving up isn’t an option. Not in this emergency room. Not during this shift.
No breaks. No rest. No mercy.
The big attraction of The Pitt is its radical concept – think 24 or Emergency Room meets the constant nervous tension of The Bear. The series tells the story of a single 15-hour shift in the emergency room of the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. 15 episodes in 15 hours, from the start of the shift at 8 a.m. to the end of the shift at 11 p.m.
Source: HBO Max/Warner Bros.
This means nothing’s shortened or omitted for dramatic effect. We accompany doctors, nurses and assistants through a day at work that treads the fine line between routine and loss of control. From traffic accidents and gunshot wounds, to nearly severed legs and psychological crises. Some cases can be brought under control. Other patients aren’t so lucky. But the team’s being bombarded from all angles at once.
With no time to catch their breath.
This is exactly where The Pitt differs from conventional hospital series. It’s not about the most spectacular case of the week, or a neatly resolved medical mystery. It’s about high-pressure everyday work. About decisions that have to be made on the fly. About overcrowded corridors, too few staff, too many patients. And about a system that’s constantly being pushed to its very limit.
The Pitt not only shows us all this, but also forces us to endure what 15 hours of madness in a row feel like when there are no breaks.
Heroic drama? No, teamwork at its limit
Another unique thing about The Pitt is that it isn’t just interested in the senior doctor at the centre, but in the entire structure around him. Nursing staff, junior doctors, medical students, experienced staff, newcomers. People with different tasks and very different remits. Not every decision here’s made from above.
And not every mistake can be corrected.
Source: HBO Max/Warner Bros.
Nursing care, in particular, isn’t relegated to the background in this series. It’s a driving force, buffer zone and early warning system all in one. After all, in reality it’s often the nursing staff who are the first to notice when something goes wrong. The Pitt gives them the space they deserve. They’re competent, annoyed, exhausted and sometimes cynical. But above all, indispensable.
«The world’s changed, people are angrier, tempers are shorter, and we’re still just trying to help,» one of them says.
Even the junior doctors, experiencing the baptism of fire of their lives, are constantly under pressure. In this show, learning doesn’t take place in a protected environment, but under real conditions, while the next patient is already waiting. Mistakes don’t remain theoretical, they have direct consequences. The series doesn’t turn them into a teachable moment. Rather, it shows how thin the line is between growth and burnout.
Source: HBO Max/Warner Bros.
No escapism – and that’s exactly why it’s so effective
Permeating everything, without ever being explicitly named, is the echo of the pandemic. That’s not to say The Pitt is a post-Covid series, but it bears unmistakeable marks of the viral outbreak. It asks what toll it took on the patients, but above all on the staff – and how long they can keep paying this price.
This is precisely why The Pitt never seems like a comfort watch. The series doesn’t offer a safe space in which medical problems are neatly resolved and emotionally contained. There’s hardly any light-hearted relief, few feel-good scenes. Instead, everything remains raw, messy and sometimes uncomfortably close to home.
Source: HBO Max/Warner Bros.
Yes, this is also where The Pitt differs from conventional hospital series from previous decades. As I said, it’s not the big moments that make the series, but the sum of small ones. That’s what’s most demoralising.
In a nutshell
There’s no doubt about it: The Pitt is already one of the greats for me
The paradox: The Pitt doesn’t leave you feeling good. But that’s exactly what I love so much about the series. There isn’t always a happy ending I could comfortably hide behind. Instead, it forces me to follow this one shift – step by step, hour by hour and with everything taking place in real time.
At the beginning, many things still seem manageable. Procedures are in place, the decisions being made are routine. But the longer the day goes on, the more the hours and constant barrage of issues wear down everyone involved. The doctors and nurses become more tired, irritable and drained. And at some point, I realise I feel the same way. As a viewer. The series not only depicts this exhaustion, it transmits it.
So if anything’s painful in the end, it’s the knowledge that these 15 hours seem like a state of emergency to me, but are nothing special to the people there. Yep, nothing out of the ordinary.
Just an average day.
Header image: HBO Max / Warner Bros.
Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
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