Noah Wyle and John Wells Say Employment Efficiency is a Double-Edged Sword in Season 2 of THE PITT

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   Is John Wells the most employee-friendly boss in history? After all, there aren’t many bosses in the world who would issue this supposedly pressure-reducing declaration to his workforce: “Stop being so good at your jobs.” But that’s exactly what happened on the set of THE PITT, the acclaimed medical drama starring Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch that is returning for its second season on Thursday, Jan. 8, only on Crave. Wells is a co-executive producer of THE PITT, which is set in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency department, with each season of the show taking place during a single 15-hour shift. As both Wyle – who also is a co-EP – and Wells recalled, a specific concern emerged as the series progressed. “We’re almost too smooth – in fact, that was John’s big note to us,” Wyle revealed during a media conference. “Things are starting to look too polished, too choreographed. You guys look too efficient, and the composition is too perfect. You know, don’t be so good at your jobs.” Wells agreed and added, “our actors didn’t know what they were doing at the beginning, literally physically. Then doing it for seven months (as the first season of THE PITT was being filmed), you get better at it, but the character is only one or two hours farther along in their training, not seven months farther along in their training. We had to continue to keep the discipline of, ‘what do you actually know in the amount of time you’ve spent as a physician in this setting?’ There’s nothing easy about what Noah’s character does, but his character has been there for a long time. The others started to get too good.” And that went for the behind-the-scenes people as well. “Our camera crew also started to get too good,” Wells said. “Part of the rawness is bumping into things, and not knowing exactly where you are, and trying to keep up, because we’re really trying with the camera to say, ‘you are someone who’s trailing behind these physicians, and so you’re going to be in the way, and it’s not going to be a perfect view, and you’re not going to see everything all the time.’ And so, we had to remind ourselves to not get too good at it.” Of course, in a wider sense, THE PITT had no such concerns, as the first season won multiple awards, and topped many 2025 “best of TV” lists. Season 2 picks up 10 months after the compelling events of the first season, and follows another grueling 15-hour emergency shift, this time on the busy July 4 holiday weekend in the U.S. After the first season of THE PITT was so celebrated, Wyle admitted that the cast and crew were fully cognizant of a possible sophomore slump, and were determined to combat it. “When you have something that’s as impactful and as successful as our first season was, it’s inevitable that you’re going to be combating expectation,” Wyle said. “But I will say that John (Wells) alleviated us from a lot of that pressure early on, by saying, ‘you don’t have to do it bigger, better, faster, stronger, you just have to do it again, and remember what you did the first time, and stay true to the characters, and be honest, and go from there.’” That still sounds like a lot of stuff. “Once we realized that certain things were working, and that was validated by the viewers, it gave us a little confidence to come back and put a little bit more emphasis on certain things and less on others,” Wyle said. “We learned that it’s a really delicate balance between the cases and the characters, and that a lot of people respond to the medicine, for sure, but a lot of people respond more to the internal journey of our characters. So, coming back, it was less about coming up with sexy cases, and more about being really faithful to the interior architecture of the characters, and where they were, and how these cases that they’re working on reflect on them even to a greater degree, I’d say.” The status of healthcare in both the United States and Canada is a hot topic, and THE PITT has pointed yet another bright spotlight on those concerns. But Wells stressed that when any show reaches for contemporary relevance in a way that’s too obvious, it can be a mistake. “It’s important not to follow the headlines, which is kind of top-down, but rather to actually hear what the concerns are of the people who do this job,” Wells explained. “Now, the people who do it also read those headlines, and sometimes those are also their concerns. But sadly, there are a lot of stories to talk about in American healthcare.” In a previous era, Wyle and Wells worked together on ER, which was one of the most successful medical series in the history of television, and is also available on Crave. “One of the first things we did (when working on THE PITT) was we had a huge dry erase board, and we just wrote all the things that we never did on ER that could be talked about today,” Wyle said. “And we were amazed at how fast we filled up that board, whether it was talking about fentanyl, or talking about trans rights, or talking about gun violence, or talking about nursing shortages, or a boarding crisis. It went on and on and on, and we thought, ‘oh my goodness, there’s a lot here that we could get into that feels extremely relevant.’” The relevance continues on Thursday. But for viewing purposes, let’s hope nobody gets too good at their jobs.   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv