How Many Seasons Will HBO Max's 'The Pitt' Have? Show Star and Creator Drop a Big Hint
HBO Max's medical drama The Pitt returned for season two this week, a refreshing nine months after the first season finished airing on the streamer. The new season arrived with some good news: The Pitt has already been renewed for season three. The show has been hailed for its sustainable filming model, offering something closer to traditional network television with more episodes, lower production costs, and shorter breaks between seasons. All of this begs the question: just how much Pitt are we going to get?
Now, we may have an answer.
The Pitt Creator, Star Say They Want it to Run as Long as Possible
During a new interview with The New York Post, series creator R. Scott Gemmill revealed that he's hoping the production will run for years to come.
“My whole thing is trying to keep a show on the air as long as possible, in order to keep people employed,” he said. “I think that’s a really important part of my job. And so, I will stay as long as people want to do it, and keep watching it. I think Noah [Wyle] feels similar.”
And indeed he does. The former E.R. star, whose comeback to medical television was the original selling point for The Pitt, has longevity on his mind. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wyle extolled the value of running a show in Los Angeles during an industry downturn.
"I think Scott [Gemmill] and I both feel significantly that we employ upwards of 350 people in Los Angeles right now, nine or 10 months a year, and we’d like to keep that going as long as possible," he said. "I think we’d also like to enjoy ourselves while we do it, and we’d like the characters of the show to still have something to say when we finish. So throw all of those variables together, and we’ll see how far we get."
Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO Max
Even Executive Producer John Wells is on board, telling THR: “Having done medical shows since China Beach, I keep waiting for us to have actually solved some of the problems in the health care system and we haven’t. So I would say unless something dramatically changes in the way that the American health care system is organized, we’re going to have a lot of material for a lot of years. As long as HBO Max wants us to do it, I think there will be plenty to write about.”
The Pitt Season 2 Looks to Build on Momentum and Make Some Changes
The freshman season of The Pitt brought home five Primetime Emmy Awards for the show, including Outstanding Drama Series and acting wins for Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, and Shawn Hatos.
"The success of Season 1 surprised all of us….you don’t want to hit the sophomore slump sort of thing," Gemmill said. "And we tried not to, but we didn’t do anything differently. We just tried to do the same thing in a sense, and just tell really good stories that connect with people."
They did make some changes based on feedback from medical professionals. "I got feedback from respiratory therapists who didn’t feel that they were being serviced in the first season. So, we tried to rectify that," he said. He also noted that fans shouldn't get too attached to any character, given the chaotic nature of real-life emergency departments.
“The reality is unfortunately, these departments turn over personnel really frequently. That’s one of the most difficult parts for me, trying to decide who who comes back and who doesn’t," he said. "We have to turn over our cast on a semi-regular basis.”