The Pitt is back and I recognize that there is value in a show coming out once a week instead of dropping all at once. But there is also a tremendous amount of frustration every time that screen goes to black and I know I have to wait another seven days for the next one!

So, to cope with the emptiness, I started watching ER. It's a show that I was obviously aware of when it was airing, but I was too young to watch. And somehow, even though I love medical dramas, I never circled back to it. Here are my thoughts on the pilot.

Damn, this show is good. (I know, groundbreaking, right.)
This show is darker than I was expecting, both in subject matter and just in physical lighting.
This show feels so much more modern than I was expecting.
Dr. Greene’s daughter is named Rachel, which means there were two shows airing on Thursdays on NBC with a character named Rachel Green/e.
I was not expecting George Clooney’s character to be a pediatrician.
Dr. Carter's breakdown in the pilot is a nice parallel to Dr. Robby's in season one of The Pitt.
Speaking of parallels to The Pitt, Noah Wylie must have really wanted to revisit this part of his career because this is basically The Pitt: The Babyfaced Years
I'm a sucker for episodes with a conceit, so I like the way the pilot episode is 24 Hours and ends on the same shot it starts with, a nurse opening the door to wake up Dr. Green. This also is a nice juxtaposition with the conceit of The Pitt where each episode is one hour.