Watercooler TV is back

0:00Remember the global COVID-19 pandemic? All of a sudden, everyone had to stay home and people didn't really know what to do, so they started watching TV. Lots of TV. And we talked about all the TV we were watching. Not since way back then have more people been asking me about the TV I'm watching. Like, my dude, are you watching The Pit? Don't you have to know basic anatomy to become a doctor? He's a student doctor. Did you see that White Lotus monologue? Maybe what I really want is to be. one of these Asian girls. Severance. Have you ever heard the story of the Glockstupe? Let's assume we haven't.

0:41Something's afoot with all these seemingly unrelated television programs. Yes, they actually have one very, very important thing in common that has directly to do with what you are saying, which is that they are released weekly. Water Cooler TV is back on Today Explained. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

1:21And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

1:49You're listening to Today Explained. All right, so TV's got people talking again, and one of the shows they're talking about is The Pit. And if we're going to talk about The Pit, we've got to talk about ER.

2:03I'm Joe Sachs. I am an executive producer, writer, and also a real-world emergency physician. I came in halfway through the first season of ER and stayed for 14 and a half years. For people in our audience who, you know, maybe weren't even alive in 1994, can you just help people understand how big a deal ER was and why? Yeah, you know, back in the day, there was no streaming. There was no YouTube. Basically, there were four television networks. There was NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox. So after I came on the show, there was a milestone. One man's defining moment. Over 48 million people experienced The show got a 50 share.

3:04That means that 50 % of all televisions in America that were on were watching ER. So, you know, right now a big hit show gets 2 or 3 % of the American public is watching you. And it was really the classic water cooler show. And what's fascinating about the pit is that I've heard so many stories and so many online postings from people who say that on Friday morning, everybody's talking about the pit in the office.

3:41Joe had half the TV watching country eating out the palm of his hand in the 90s, a feat that's basically impossible to pull off now unless you're the Super Bowl. So we asked him why he wanted to return to the medical drama with The Pit. Well, after ER, I didn't have a strong desire to work on a medical show. And in fact, I worked for 10 years on a crime show. When John Wells, Noah Wiley and Scott Gemmel first called me in to pitch the show, they said, well, what's changed? What's different? And my answer was everything. And I said, after COVID, you wouldn't recognize the place. There's this thing called the boarding crisis.

4:25Most of the beds and all the hallway spaces are taken up by patients who can't go upstairs to be admitted because they don't have the nursing staff. They don't have the beds. The waiting room is filled to the brim. And you have to try to practice medicine from the waiting room. So people are angry. People are frustrated. Weights are long. And these doctors and nurses who are trying to deliver quality, compassionate care have the deck is just stacked against them. So I said to them, you want to make it real. This is how it's real. And they embrace that, that number one, there's a crisis in emergency medicine, and we're going to show that warts and all.

5:07And number two, post-COVID, there's tremendous post-traumatic stress on emergency workers who worked during the pandemic before there was any effective treatments and who just watched hundreds and hundreds of people die. And in order to tell this story of what it's like to be an emergency medicine physician in 2025-ish, you guys decide to tell this show in this continuous fashion where every episode is picking up exactly where the last episode left off, depicting the course of one long, chaotic, gnarly shift at one hospital. Yes. How can we make the show different from anything you've seen before?

6:02And that's to do a 12 hour shift in 12 hours where every episode is an hour of the same day. I wanted to ask you about that. It's funny. You know, I'm used to shows on HBO being six episodes, eight episodes, 10 episodes. I just watch Adolescence. It's four episodes. This show is 15 hours, which it's HBO, it's Max or whatever, but it feels kind of like old school network television where there's a lot of episodes. Yeah, and the powers that be at HBO Max decided that they wanted this show to be unique from what people are used to seeing, the seven or eight hours. And 12 just wasn't enough. So they wanted 15 to say, wow, here's a streaming show that can give you 50 in a year.

6:53and one of the reasons we can do 15 in a year is because we're in the same place, same set. We don't go out on location. We don't go home with people to see their personal lives. So we are literally in this submarine for 15 hours and that saves you a lot of time and money with location work and sets and costumes because everybody is wearing the same thing for the whole run, except for Whitaker, of course, who gets bodily fluids on his scrubs every now and then. Oh, do something, man. Oh, I need a little help here. Jesus. Noob. Were you nervous that the amount of stress in this hospital, in this emergency room, in this sort of like tight 15-hour period would overstress your audience out and they might get scared off.

7:50Were you at all nervous about that? I honestly had no idea how the public was going to respond to our show. I just wanted to do it as realistically and as accurate as possible. And that was the bar that I set for the medicine, but what a delightful surprise to see that people responded in a way to seeing what we worked so hard to create. How did people respond? I can say that people in medicine are saying this is the first medical show I've been able to watch that feels real. And I can also say that for many emergency workers, they're saying for years I've tried to explain to my friends and my family what it's like and I've never been able to put it into words.

8:39And now I just say watch an episode of The Pit and you'll know what my workday is like. And that's a big compliment. And then there are the emergency workers who see it and see the flashbacks to COVID and say, oh, my God, I have been dealing with such post-traumatic stress disorder and I've been denying it and I need to get help. Wow. And that's a wonderful thing. The show's also pretty gnarly at times. I mean, if you're like, you know, faint of heart, there's this floating face moment early in the show where I was just like, I mean, the noises that come out of me while I'm watching the show are pretty hilarious, I imagine.

9:13Yeah. The skinless foot, I think, in the first episode, there's like a needle in the heart. Was there stuff that didn't make it because it was too gnarly, or did you guys just go for it? Not so far. No. No. The first episode, the degloved, fractured, dislocated foot. Train went over her foot. Got caught between the platform and the incoming train. Ma 'am? Ma 'am, what's your doing? Came about by the writer's room looking to me and saying, what would make a young medical student faint? If an artery is totally transected, the smooth muscle in the tunica media contracts with hemostasis. But if it's a partial cut, get out your umbrella.

9:50I'll stabilize the need for the reduction. Dr. Langdon will be distracting distally before moving medially to clear the tibia. Ready?

10:02Med student down. That's the dramatic need of the story. It's not like I've been saying, oh, man, I want to do this degloved, fractured, dislocated foot, and I got to have that on the show. That came out of nowhere. That came out of what can we show that will just make the audience feel the same way that this young medical student feels? And on other medical shows and on ER, you know, we open chests and we put in chest tubes and we put tubes in every orifice and this and that. But the degloved, fractured, dislocated ankle was a case that I had actually had as an emergency physician. And when I pitched it to the room, all the eyes lit up and they all said, that's it.

10:49So what are you going to show us that we haven't seen before in season two? Stay tuned.

11:03Joe Sachs is an executive producer and writer on The Pit, which had its season finale last night on Max, which means you can binge the whole thing over the weekend now and maybe still catch the tail end of some of that water cooler conversation that we are going to be talking about when we return on Today Explained.

11:25Support for the show today comes from none other than HIMS. Erectile dysfunction can make you feel like you aren't yourself. HIMSS says they can help you get back to the best version of you with personalized ED treatments that are prescribed by licensed providers, including daily meds, that support more spontaneous moments. Sounds fun. HIMSS says they offer access to ED treatment options, including trusted generics that cost 95 % less than brand names if prescribed. And since HIMSS is 100 % online, you can get the care you need from the comfort of your own home. No sitting around under fluorescent lights reading a week's old magazine while you wait for an appointment.

12:03Remember magazines? You can get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more by visiting hims.com. That's hims.com. For your free online visit, hims.com. Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information.

12:34Support for the show comes from BoxyCat. There's a lot to love about having a cat in your home. But there's one thing that even the most ardent cat lover could do without. Stinky litter boxes. Boxy says that they can help. Boxy wants to be the last kitty litter you ever try. They say the difference is in their formula, which includes probiotics that can stop bacteria that cause odors. Plus, Boxy says their clumping power is superior, making it easier to scoop so your litter box can be less stinky without any of the fake fragrances. Here's our colleague, Andrew Malnizik, to tell us more. So my sister is that cat mom.

13:11She calls them her children. So when it comes to trying anything new for them, she's incredibly skeptic and always a little hesitant. That's why I was so excited to hear that she was really enjoying Boxy's cat litter. The first thing she noticed, there was just zero issues transitioning to cats. There was no drama from them, which, you know, cats can kind of push back and be a little bit drama. It was really a miracle. If you're tired of switching litters looking for the one, get Boxy at B-O-X-I-E-C-A-T dot com. It's the last litter you'll switch to. Enjoy 30 % off with code EXPLAINED at BoxyCat.com slash EXPLAINED.

13:51That's B-O-X-I-E-C-A-T dot com forward slash explained.

14:21inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

14:44Scalpel. Scalpel. Suction. Suction. Today. Today. Explained. Explained. My name is Catherine Van Arundonk, and I'm a critic at Vulture in New York Magazine. And we've asked you here because we just talked about The Pit with a guy from The Pit, but it turns out The Pit isn't the only medical drama on the television right now? No, there are hundreds, thousands. You could be buried underneath them. There are so many medical shows right now. It's wild. What are the big ones that we maybe don't know of yet? Well, so a lot of these live on network television. And if you have only ever been watching Netflix or Macs in the last couple years, but you're like, I need more doctors.

15:26Where are all the doctors? They're on network TV. They've always been. They've never left. But now there are all these other options.

15:35There is one called Watson on CBS, and that one is your more detective-y kind of medical drama. Not a lot of blood, not a lot of guts, a lot of people staring at a board and being like, what if it's this genetic mystery? That's the vibe of Watson. There's a truly bonkers one called Doc that's on Fox. And the premise of Doc roughly is that the main character suffered a traumatic brain injury and does not remember the last eight years, but does still remember mostly how to be a doctor. And so she's just wandering around the hospital like being a doctor, even though she's also, you know, not fully compost mentis.

16:14But the other great thing about Doc is that it turns out eight years ago, she was a jerk. And now she's nice. So she's trying to understand everything that happened to her in the last eight years to turn her into a jerk. That shows crazy. You're really selling me on Doc. Look, there's a lot of options for people. If you prefer your medical dramas to be not in English, there's also Berlin ER on Apple TV Plus. That's quite good. and like The Pit, that's kind of the vibe of Berlin ER. But if you're like not that kind of not in English, there are also several Korean, new Korean medical shows on Netflix too.

16:52So again, you're hurting for choice, really. And you didn't even mention the one I have heard of, which is Dr. Odyssey? Dr. Odyssey is the new Ryan Murphy show on ABC. and in that Joshua Jackson is a super hot daddy doctor and he wears pristine white uniforms and yet somehow cares for people's blood and other liquids. And there's threesomes. Like that's kind of the vibe of that show. Oh, that's good. I haven't seen one in the pit yet, but I haven't finished it yet. Well, fingers crossed. Why are there so many daddy, doctor, doctor dramas, doc, Watson, etc.? So there are, I think, a couple of reasons why we're suddenly seeing all these medical dramas.

17:49One is that TV just tends to go through trends, right? And we have been in this period where there are tons and tons of cop dramas. There's been this huge proliferation of the Dick Wolf style shows. But the medical drama has always also been a TV mainstay. But the dial has just been turned a little bit more toward cop drama, I would say, in the last decade or so. I do also think that there is this moment in Hollywood and sort of politically where it's like, hmm, how are we feeling about cop dramas right now? They used to be the great American pastime, watching somebody get murdered and then somebody else be like, you did it.

18:32But we are currently in this moment where everyone is like, are cop dramas? Is this a partisan thing now? How do I feel about this? And network TV wants to be a big bucket. It wants to get everybody in. And the medical drama does not have those same kinds of political associations. Now, a show like The Pit, I would argue, is radically political, but we just sort of as a national discourse have not turned to the medical drama and been like, this is where the culture war is happening. And so it is this political procedural safe haven for TV right now. Tell people how The Pit is radically political.

19:13Yeah. So The Pit, because it takes place in the ER hour by hour and because its co-creators and writers make this really deliberate choice to be focusing on the stories of the patients who come in, not the personal lives of the doctors. The cases that show up on the pit are things like a situation where a black woman comes in and she is experiencing an incredible painful crisis because she's having a sickle cell crisis. And she is instead assumed to be drug seeking. Stop fighting. Come the fuck down or I'm calling the cops. My beds at home aren't working. Please. I have sickle cells. Okay, stop.

19:58Everybody stop. Later in the season, there is a measles case, and this becomes a big and very fraught discussion about vaccines. Georgia was sick, but she got better on her own quickly. Yeah, many people get better on their own, like Georgia. However, as many as 1 in 20 kids that get measles get pneumonia like your son. Are your children vaccinated against measles? No. The MMR vaccine is perfectly safe. Measles is not. And then there is this, of course, this huge season arc that's about a mass shooting and that includes a lot of implicit, I would say, commentary on like why on the role of guns.

20:38As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims. We don't know yet how many we are getting, but we are instituting hospital wide emergency protocols. And that's sort of interesting to me because people are watching this show as escapism. Our colleague Jonquilin Hill was explaining this morning how she feels like watching The Pit is like, oh, this is my new family. These are the people I hang out with every night. And yet when it's getting so political and when people are constantly dying or almost dying, like how is that escapism? Yes, I have a theory about this for The Pit in particular.

21:19Your brain knows that things are crazy, that the world is very stressful right now. And even when you are seeking escapism, it is very hard to turn off the part of you that is like, alarm, alarm, alarm. So things that are purely escapist, things that are like a fantasy world that has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on right now, are hard to enter into. Something like The Pit is instead this incredibly comforting fantasy of competency. Emergencies that are happening that people can deal with, they care about, and they want to deal with in the best way they possibly can. The world is a mess, but you don't have to care about that.

22:03All you care about is what is in the emergency room in front of you at this moment. Hmm. What I'm hearing from you is that it's escapism in that someone has your back in this world. One million percent. I think that is the nature of this. And I truly cannot emphasize enough just like not just that they have your back, but they're so good at their jobs. And like I cannot imagine anything more gorgeous, fantastical and escapist right now.

22:37And how does The Pit and its throwback quality fit into the broader trends we are seeing in television, whether they're, I don't know, on the sort of tail end or somewhere in the middle? I'm not really sure, but I mean, The Pit exists in the same televised universe as the third season of White Lotus and the second season of Severance. And these shows don't seem to have much in common with each other, except for the fact that people are talking about them a lot right now. Yes, they actually have one very, very important thing in common that has directly to do with what you were saying, which is that they are released weekly.

23:25TV used to know how to create conversations, and it did that by releasing one episode a week so that your friend could be like, you know what shows really good? The Pit. And you're like, how many episodes are there? And either they say two, and you're like, great, I'm going to catch up. Or they say, like, there's seven seasons and they all came out four years ago. And you're like, well, that's never going to happen. And so I strongly, strongly believe that the weekly release is a huge part of why all three of those shows have been so discoursey lately. I think both White Lotus and Severance are built on this prestige TV model, this peak TV thing where it's like you find a guy and you give him a billion dollars and then he goes off and creates a whole season of TV and he's an auteur and he's a genius.

24:13And the pit is like, what if we made, can I swear on this? What if I made TVS TV? Like, what if I just made the most, like, it feels like a show that you watched in 1995, but we're going to streaming it, right? Like we're going to be able to have gory medical procedures. The run times are going to be just a little more flexible. You don't have to hit the commercial breaks quite so hard. It has been very frustrating to watch streaming shows from the last 10 years forget how to make television. And watching The Pit feels like somebody finally remembered how to make television again and put it on a streaming platform.

24:54And I'm just so hopeful that other streamers look at this, other creators look at this and are like, great, we can make Suits again, too, and put it on Netflix. And for all the people out there, Catherine, who are, you know, mourning the loss of their precious pit or their brief sojourn to Thailand or hanging out with the Severance kids, what are you excited about in the coming weeks and months on the TV? I was not actually the biggest fan of The Last of Us season one, but I very much enjoyed The Last of Us season two. And that will have that weekly release rhythm. There are seven episodes, so you get to.