“The Pitt,” on HBO’s streaming platform Max, is a weekly medical drama that emulates the kind of shows that have long been — and remain — a staple on network TV. It’s an instructive blueprint for other streamers to follow suit.

Starring Noah Wyle, who knows his way around a hospital show thanks to his 11 seasons on “ER,” the 15-episode series has plenty of other “ER” talent behind the scenes as well, including John Wells as executive producer (he also directs the first episode) and R. Scott Gemmill as the show’s creator. Unlike an unnerving number of executives and showrunners who are uninterested (or simply unable) in adapting network formats for a streaming model, the team here actually understands how television should be paced, satisfying the needs of an episodic weekly series while juggling ongoing storylines.

The show’s style is realism, with each episode tracking an hour of Wyle’s Dr. Michael Robinavitch’s 15-hour shift running the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s chaotic emergency department.

Everyone calls him Robby, or Dr. Robby. He’s approachable and good-humored. Like a runner in a marathon, the job demands endurance (and maybe a good deal of coffee). Along with the department’s unflappable charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) and a handful of residents, they guide a new class of wide-eyed interns and medical students through their first day. There’s no intrusive musical score juicing the drama, which is the right choice. Just the stuff of life, and sometimes death, which is interesting enough.

A doctor ending his overnight shift is greeted by a new intern: “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here!” He gives her an incredulous look, and then: “Talk to me at the end of the day.” Oh, don’t mind him, Robby says, he had a rough night and is having an ongoing existential crisis. But the departing doctor gets the last word: “Don’t worry, you’ll get there soon enough.”

It’s the banter of grizzled veterans, but we also get to know the patients just enough so that they’re not cardboard cutouts but human beings experiencing a terrible, scary, occasionally humorously bizarre moment in their lives. There are close-ups of scalpels cutting into skin and glimpses of the human body in various states of mangled and bloody distress. I have no understanding of what’s going on medically at any given moment. No clue how much or little of it is accurate, but from an entertainment standpoint, the show delivers.

That’s largely because Wyle is giving such a wonderfully unfussy performance. He doesn’t yell or embody “I’m very important!” vibes. Robby is uncannily good with people, willing to get testy with a hospital administrator who wants higher patient satisfaction but doesn’t provide the resources to make that happen, and he’s a steady presence when things the fan. I can’t express how engaging competence is over more melodramatic choices.

Even so, Robby is operating under considerable strain. When someone notices, he replies, “I’m always good, you know that,” which might as well be the equivalent of Chekhov’s gun; Robby is not OK and chances are that will come to a head. Or not. He’s an expert at bottling his feelings and putting off that much-needed bathroom break in order to maintain an even keel within the whirling dervish of the emergency room.

Like any show of this type, the doctors and nurses are given the hero treatment. What’s missing are more complicated, inconvenient realities a show like “The Pitt” is built to tackle if it wanted, including medical racism and doctors being dismissive of their patients’ insights or concerns. A couple of EMTs bring in a Black sickle cell patient writhing in pain and treat her as if she is dangerous and needs to be restrained, rather than treated with compassion. But apparently in the ER itself, medical racism is a nonissue. There’s a similarly glancing acknowledgment of fatophobia that’s also too brief to really land. COVID is treated as a “then” problem rather than a current ongoing one, erasing any mention of new cases or health issues some people have developed as a result of a past infection. Robby is frequently seen grabbing hand sanitizer from wall-mounted dispensers between patients and all I could think was: Let’s hope no one they’re treating has undiagnosed norovirus, which can only be scrubbed off with soap and water.

The topic of insurance coverage (and all the stress related to that, for both patients and doctors) is a nonissue, which feels like an egregious omission. Cliches abound, including the sarcastic med student who gives everyone mean-girl nicknames, and another who gives CPR to a patient who is clearly beyond help because he won’t give up. Some of the dialogue is terrible.

But “The Pitt” is a far more timely show for the moment than something like NBC’s “St. Denis Medical.” Maybe it’s not fair to compare. They’re different genres — one’s a drama, the other a comedy — but the warm, fuzzy mockumentary style of the latter seems so out of touch with the sentiment of the moment. I get it, hospital shows tend to focus on feel-good stories and pounding on something like constantly denied insurance claims has a way of short-circuiting that.

Even so, I prefer what “The Pitt” is doing. It’s not glossy and it’s not presenting a moodily lit fantasy. It’s a day-in-the-life, and all the more compelling for it.

The quality of the ensemble players can be hit-and-miss. Taylor Dearden (the daughter of Bryan Cranston) is particularly good as a thoughtful and literal-minded, if socially awkward, intern. But the primary reasons to watch are Wyle and LaNasa’s charge nurse, playing longtime veterans at the hospital who are fully formed and imperfect personalities, and deeply compelling screen presences as a result.

If all of this sounds a lot like “ER,” well … that’s what the estate of Michael Crichton thinks, as well. Crichton (who died in 2008) wrote a film script set in an emergency room, which never got made but was eventually adapted into the TV pilot that became the long-running NBC series.

“The Pitt” is not framed or marketed as a sequel to that show. But last August, Crichton’s widow filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Warner Bros. Television has responded by saying “The Pitt” is a completely different show. The lawyers will have to sort it out.

From a viewer’s perspective, if you’ve seen one hospital drama, you’ve seen them all. What distinguishes one show from another is whether the writing and casting is any good. And “The Pitt” lands enough on both fronts to make it essential viewing. I’m just so pleased that someone finally decided it’s possible to take all the things that people love about network TV and make it work for streaming.

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'THE PITT'

3.5 stars (out of 4)

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: Thursdays on Max

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