In Praise Of ‘The Pitt,’ The Most Normal Show On Television

On Sept. 19, 1994, a week before Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell declared that there was no legislative path forward in the current Congress for the Clinton administration's healthcare reform agenda, NBC aired "24 Hours," the pilot episode of ER. Set across a single day in an urban emergency room, the episode introduced a cast of medical professionals including John Carter, a medical student on his first day at Cook County General, played by a fresh-faced Noah Wyle. Wyle would be the last original cast member to leave the show, at the end of Season 11 in 2005, by which point ER's status as the anchor of "Must-See TV," the most watched night on television's most watched network, meant less than it used to.