AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Looking for a good drama to kick off the new TV season? Maybe one set in a hospital? There's "The Pitt" on Max.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE PITT")
BRANDON MENDEZ HOMER: (As Donnie Donahue) Fifty-two in the waiting room, and it's not even 7.
RASCOE: What about a sitcom? Check out "St. Denis Medical" on NBC.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ST DENIS MEDICAL")
MEKKI LEEPER: (As Matt) And Mr. Lasky wants morphine, oxy and vicodin. He asked if we had a menu, and I said, I didn't think so.
DAVID ALAN GRIER: (As Ron) That's a party.
RASCOE: What if your vibe is more doctors on a luxury cruise? There's a show for that - "Doctor Odyssey" on ABC.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOCTOR ODYSSEY")
JOSHUA JACKSON: (As Dr. Max Bankman) You must be my brilliant nurses.
PHILLIPA SOO: (As Avery Morgan) We are the ship's brilliant and capable nurses, yes.
JACKSON: (As Dr. Max Bankman) Of course. I'm sorry.
RASCOE: And also a drama about a doctor who herself lands in a hospital - "Doc" on Fox.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOC")
AMIRA VANN: (As Dr. Gina Walker) You were an incredible doctor. You saved hundreds of lives.
PATRICK WALKER: (As Dr. Theodore Coleman) You're the reason I became a doctor.
RASCOE: So why are viewers so interested in dramas about doctors, especially when we all aim to avoid the hospital in real life? Here to make a house call is TV critic Kathryn VanArendonk of New York Magazine. Welcome.
KATHRYN VANARENDONK: Thanks so much.
RASCOE: Why are there so many medical dramas on TV? It's not like there are a bunch of, like, medical movies.
VANARENDONK: Yeah, that's true. You know, TV has this very particular rhythm. And what tends to make a really great television show is the specific combination of something that feels brand new every episode and something that feels very familiar and reliable. And there's really no better route to that combination than the medical show because you can be connected to these doctors. You can care about their lives. You can be interested in who's sleeping with who or whether or not they are doing better or worse at their jobs. But there is this immediate and sort of obvious, constant influx of novelty at the same time because you have new patients every day, and it's part of why TV just cannot escape medical dramas.
RASCOE: Well, and do you find kind of echoes in these shows, like, similar plots and storylines? A lot of these medical shows are plagued by the worst diseases. Like, these doctors catch the worst of it.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: That's what I've noticed.
VANARENDONK: They do, yeah. I mean, I am always fascinated by the lines of dialogue that you'll get on a very long-running medical show - something like "Grey's Anatomy" that's been on for seasons and seasons - where the doctors have to - occasionally, there'll be these lines, like, can you believe that we've been through the bombing and the helicopter crash...
RASCOE: (Laughter).
VANARENDONK: ...And the plague? And now we have to deal with this?
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Yes.
VANARENDONK: But that's also not that far from the reality of doctors in traumatic situations. There's this immediate adrenaline junky quality to that job or at least particularly when you're located in these super intense medical situations like "The Pitt," which is in this emergency department.
RASCOE: Is there a show in this bunch that really stands out for you? You mentioned "The Pitt" just then.
VANARENDONK: Yeah, I really love "The Pitt." I am thrilled to see it on television for a bunch of different reasons. One is that, for me, the kind of creme de la creme medical drama and, in fact, for me, one of the best TV shows of all time was "ER," this beautiful primetime drama about doctors in an emergency department in Chicago.
And "The Pitt" really echoes that in both metaphorical ways or more thematic ways. It's - you're back in an emergency department. You have the sort of intense rhythm of both very small cases and very large cases happening all the time. There's also more literal echoes. It is once again led by Noah Wyle, who was one of the lead characters on ER, so it feels very familiar in that regard.
But I'm also really happy about "The Pitt" as a streaming show in a way that streaming has really not played with very much before in its original programming. It's a procedural. And although people watch procedurals on streaming all the time, they're almost always older shows that have been licensed to show up on Netflix. "The Pitt" is one of the first shows like this that, to me, really feels excellent and has a long episode run for its first season and that I'm hoping streaming gets even more behind in the future.
RASCOE: Any standout shows from the past? I know you mentioned that you love "ER."
VANARENDONK: Yes, I love "ER" endlessly, and I think it is not just worth going back to because it's a great drama that I think really stands up to what TV feels like right now, but it also has so many different eras. Because that show was on for so long, the cast changes quite a bit over the course of it.
I also want to encourage people to check out "St. Denis Medical," which we mentioned earlier. It's a new sitcom on NBC from the creator of "Superstore," which is another show that I really admire. And it is less of the sort of urgent and gross medical stuff, although it is still in that setting, and it is more about the economic reality of medical spaces in this country right now - the incredible pressure from the administration, the understaffing and the way that that leads to interpersonal drama and humor and absurdity. And it's just enough of that kind of black humor because you are in these life-and-death scenarios, but they are also just people. This is their everyday life.
RASCOE: That's Kathryn VanArendonk, a TV critic at New York Magazine. Thank you so much for joining us.
VANARENDONK: Absolutely, my pleasure. Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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