The Pitt Could Run Forever Under One Condition

Published Apr 12, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

Casey Duby is an avid TV writer, watcher, and reviewer. She graduated from Emerson College in 2021 with a focus in Writing for Film and Television, where she wrote several pilots and watched countless more. She's been working in television ever since.

Casey loves thoughtful content that makes her ponder our world and the people in it, and she's learned that any genre can surprise her. With favorites in every genre from horror to politics, family to action, nothing is off limits.

Casey has experience working in TV development, as well as writing both narrative and host-driven shows. Currently working as a Writer in Los Angeles, with an AMC A-List membership to boot, she is always hunting for the next good story and great theme song.

It was a bold premise, complete with a literal ticking clock and episode titles mirrored by The Pitt that simply reflected the hour of that particular episode. 24 was unique and captivating, but it quickly faced an obstacle of its own making. It was undeniably Jack Bauer's show, and even the most interesting man, on the most interesting day of his life, was bound to have at least a few moments of downtime.

Yet by its own design, this wasn't possible for Jack Bauer. Thus, by season 2, 24 had already been forced to put action over plot. It quickly veered into the realm of the almost laughably unbelievable, so as not to lose momentum. Despite an almost identical format, The Pitt has made a couple of key changes to avoid this pitfall, and they just might allow the show to run forever.

How The Pitt Can Avoid The "24 Problem"

The Pitt season 1 climaxed with the PittFest shooting, a major tragedy that pushed its characters well beyond their norm and that of a realistic emergency room shift. This could have left season 2 vulnerable to the "24 problem" had the show attempted to "outdo" season 1's mass casualty event in order to keep The Pitt's characters on site for the final three off-duty hours in the season's run.

Instead, The Pitt season 2 smartly re-centered itself on its core characters, and has been largely driven by subtext and emotion as they suffer from the realistic effects of burnout. In subverting any expectation of a major external spectacle to carry the season through its final hours, The Pitt has preemptively saved itself from a narrative headache that would have likely given the show a new kind of ticking clock.

The Pitt's Greatest Strength Is Its Ensemble Cast

Beyond the smart, subtle, character-driven focus season 2 has taken, The Pitt thrives through its massive cast. 24 also depicted Jack Bauer's family and coworkers, along with the President of the United States and the terrorists that put them all in jeopardy, but Jack was, without a doubt, the face of the show, and every plot line ultimately tied back to him.

Noah Wyle's Dr. Robby is arguably the face of The Pitt, but he shares screen time with a whole host of other doctors and their patients, many of whom have stories that are completely independent of Robby. Even with fewer episodes (a wise choice), a breakneck pace, and life-or-death stakes, a series that was purely the Dr. Robby show would become cumbersome.

Yet when he and other characters do eventually reach a natural end to their story beat, The Pitt is able to simply pan to someone else.

The Pitt Will Never Run Out Of Believable Story Material

It felt like a plot hole that viewers didn't see Jack Bauer go to the bathroom for an entire day. Comparatively, it was woven into The Pitt ​​​​​​season 1's story that Robby was truly too busy to pee. Its ensemble cast allows The Pitt to breathe, but its emergency room setting also gives every single character more than enough tasks and emotions to fill each episode.

Jack was a strong agent, which meant that each season's initial problem wouldn't be enough to keep him on his toes for a straight 24 hours. To keep the story moving, his day had to keep getting worse for reasons outside his control, a narrative device that quickly ran its course. 24 had perhaps its most infamous storyline in just season 2, when Jack's daughter faced off with a mountain lion.

So long as it's paired with good writing, The Pitt's setting nearly guarantees that the medical drama won't need to resort to any mountain lion-esque plot lines to maintain its brisk pace. The nature of an overcrowded emergency room innately allows for new crises to arrive on the scene whenever characters run the risk of downtime without forcing the show to continuously escalate to new, unbelievable heights.

With 24-episode seasons primarily focused on one man, 24 viewers saw perhaps a bit too much of Jack Bauer. Despite being with them for every hour of their shift, The Pitt's hyper-realistic medical cases, spread out amongst its sprawling cast of doctors, leave viewers aching for more. These small but crucial adjustments allow The Pitt to revive 24's narrative format in a series that could very well run forever.