u/sansastvrk

>It is a really awkward period of time on our set because we're playing with real people, we're playing with real emotions and investment, and it's a great place to work and a hard place to leave. And yet, over the course of this show's lifetime, we're going to have a lot of changes in front of the camera and behind the camera as part of our narrative and because situations will dictate it and it's never going to be easy. But I do believe that the longevity of the show and its sustainability is in keeping that rotational narrative going and bringing in new characters, because that is the environment of an emergency department. It is a transitory place and people don't stay there forever unless they do so at the cost of the room itself.

He has some...interesting takes in this interview. To me this was one of the big things that jumped out - he's clearly talking about Ganesh's exit, and it sounds like fans aren't the only people upset by it. "Awkward period of time on our set" tells me that there are resulting tensions amongst the cast, and to be fair, we knew that also from Hatosy, Moafi, and Briones supporting Ganesh openly; what is surprising is that he's acknowledging this friction so baldly, and without any acknowledgment of why much of his core cast is upset over this (and with zero sympathy). It's odd to me that he keeps going out of his way to justify this as a "rotational" decision, when they're making herculean efforts to keep the characters who would be most likely to leave (the medical students are glaring here) and writing out the resident with arguably the most development potential they have. Where there's smoke...

>It’s really about as the show scales larger globally, keeping our perspective local and remembering that the more specific you make a storyline, the more universal it can be felt. And there's great power in that. There's also great safety in that, because it's not our job to take on the issues of the world. It's our job to take on the cases that come into our emergency room.

He said the above when discussing his hope to keep the show relevant, and I think it's interesting that The Pitt is deliberately written to comment on real-world issues, and yet he's trying to sidestep that and argue that it isn't their job. He's clearly been reading the critiques online that the series hasn't made a good faith effort to thoughtfully explore many of the real-world issues it touches on (much in the same way the show wants diversity points for its cast despite not providing any meaningful representation).

A lot of what he says here is empty, and feels strangely defensive. I'm shocked he's openly admitting to tensions amongst the cast, that he's doubling down on their mistakes instead of trying to course correct. The whole interview is quite a read.

>You know who works mostly night shift? Mothers. Because they like to be free for their kids (and) to be home during the day. So, it’s a lot less wild and woolly, and a lot more boring and sedate than you would think...I’ll say personally, I feel like when you have something that’s a really good thing and it’s working for you, you don’t want to dissipate it too quickly. You don’t want to bleed it off into other narratives and franchise it out, because I think you kind of dilute the potency a little bit and you get everybody overfamiliar with the arena to where it loses a little bit of its specialness.

This is his justification for not wanting to pursue a night shift spinoff. And even if I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding the second half of this statement (not wanting to dilute the brand) - which I'm not willing to do, because after his prior statements and that GQ interview, the quiet part of all this seems to be that he doesn't want to compete with Hatosy or risk the spinoff bringing back cut characters (e.g. Mohan, as Hatosy has been asking to do) and overtaking the main series in popularity - this is a ludicrous take.

To me a recurring theme in each bad take Noah Wyle comes up with is that he likes to pretend this is a documentary. It decidedly is not. This is a scripted TV series and they could very easily keep night shift "wild and woolly" - he just doesn't want to. He's saying so quite openly here; he wants to preserve the interesting storylines for the main show (and, by extension, for himself). And pointing the finger at women as being the reason why night shift wouldn't be interesting is nothing short of blatant misogyny.

There is a very real push and pull between medicine and motherhood. Female physicians have much higher infertility rates (nearly double!) than the general population, and have to balance a demanding job and demanding home life. The show briefly touched on some of this (Mohan's comment about her eggs dying, Al-Hashimi and McKay's conversation), but clearly has no real interest in exploring this further.

We want to see women succeed in medicine. Give us stories of women finding ways to balance every aspect of their life, or the struggle they face in doing so. Refusing to explore these topics at all - and then blaming their existence for why a popular fan and cast request is being denied - is shocking.

Especially when the night shift we've seen so far is...wait for it...mostly men.

From an interview with Noah Wyle. The "rock bottom" comments have been discussed extensively, but I think a piece that hasn't been is that he anticipates this as being a "five to six-year journey" of going from "a place of brokenness to a place of health."

This storyline was utterly exhausting just for one season, and the way they diminished and insulted the other characters - especially Mohan - to do it was just shocking. They're scrapping the ensemble for season after season of self-insert Emmy bait. It's painful to see that their plan is to drag this out for 5-6 seasons, or that they expect anyone to still be watching. I don't expect to be one of them.