Noah Wyle is enjoying a career resurgence thanks to “The Pitt,” Max’s medical drama which began production after a revival of “ER,” the NBC series which made him a household name 30 years ago, failed to get off the ground.
In addition to Wyle, “The Pitt” is created by R. Scott Gemmill and executive produced by John Wells, both of whom also worked on “ER.” The show’s success, however, has prompted Sherri Crichton ― the widow of “ER” creator Michael Crichton, who died in 2008 ― to file a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Gemmill, Wells, Wyle and Warner Bros. Television. According to the suit, “The Pitt” is simply an “ER” revival “under a different name,” and thus “a shameful betrayal of [Michael] Crichton and his legacy.”
Speaking to Variety in an interview published Wednesday, Wyle admitted he was saddened by the legal turmoil, and shrugged off Sherri Crichton’s claims.
“The only thing that I can legally speak to is how I feel emotionally, which is just profoundly sad and disappointed,” he said. “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have. At one point, this could have been a partnership. And when it wasn’t a partnership, it didn’t need to turn acrimonious. But on the 30th anniversary of ‘ER,’ I’ve never felt less celebratory of that achievement than I do this year.”
Wyle also quashed the implication that elements of the now-defunct “ER” revival were reworked into “The Pitt.”
“We pivoted as far in the opposite direction as we could in order to tell the story we wanted to tell — and not for litigious reasons, but because we didn’t want to retread our own creative work,” he said.
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By all accounts, “The Pitt” is a critical and commercial smash, and has already been renewed for a second season. The series, which debuted in January, stars Wyle as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, an emergency room physician at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital who is grappling with his experiences following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elsewhere in his Variety interview, Wyle shared how his own frustrations with the divisive global response to COVID-19 have influenced his performance.
“I find it infuriating that we still can’t come to a consensus that masks cut down on transmission of disease,” he said. “I find it infuriating that we still won’t acknowledge that vaccines are an important way of eradicating disease. I find it all infuriating that we are where we are right now. So I wanted to make a show that brings back into sharp focus what an objective medical fact is.”
