North Side-set 'The Pitt' gets the green light for a second season

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

He was in Pittsburgh earlier this month to keep the momentum behind “The Pitt” moving forward. No word on whether or not Noah Wyle exclaimed “mission accomplished,” but he certainly could have: The Max medical drama has been granted a second season.

Warner Bros. Discovery, Max’s parent company, announced the renewal on Friday.

Currently six episodes into its first season, “The Pitt” stars Noah Wyle in a role familiar to many viewers from his years on “ER”: a doctor juggling the patients and personalities that power an emergency room. But while there are “ER” creatives, including producer John Wells, behind “The Pitt,” the series sets itself apart from the earlier, network TV juggernaut both in format and pacing. 

It’s also set right here in Pittsburgh.

The drama follows Wyle and a large regular cast of doctors, nurses and interns across a 15-hour shift, with each hour unfolding across one episode. Shot documentary style with handheld cameras and longer takes between edits, “The Pitt” is set at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. And while it is largely filmed on a California set, production came to Pittsburgh in September to shoot exteriors at and around Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side. You’ll also clock sweeping shots of Steel City as the series opens.

In his Feb. 10 visit to Pittsburgh, Wyle met with area doctors. “It gives us the seal of approval — which has meant a lot — to be able to say that we are maybe the most realistic medical show that’s ever been on TV,” Wyle said, during an interview with Bobby Kapur, system chair at the AHN Emergency Medicine Institute.

New episodes of “The Pitt” air Thursdays, with the Season 1 finale slated for April 10.