Kathryn VanArendonk
Appearances
Today, Explained
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So there are, I think, a couple of reasons why we're suddenly seeing all these medical dramas. One is that TV just tends to go through trends, right? And we have been in this period where there are tons and tons of There's been this huge proliferation of the Dick Wolf style shows, but the medical drama has always also been a TV mainstay.
Today, Explained
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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.
Today, Explained
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But 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 –
Today, Explained
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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 is radically political Yeah.
Today, Explained
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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...
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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.
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Later in the season, there is a measles case, and this becomes a big and very fraught discussion about vaccines.
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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.
Today, Explained
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Yes, I have a theory about this for The Pit in particular. Your 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.
Today, Explained
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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.
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The world is a mess, but you don't have to care about that. All you care about is what is in the emergency room in front of you at this moment.
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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.
Today, Explained
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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... TV 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?
Today, Explained
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And either they say two and you're like, great, I'm going to catch up. Or they say like there's seven season that they all came out four years ago. And you're like, well, that's never going to happen. Yeah. And so I strongly, strongly believe that the weekly release is a huge part of why all three of those shows have been so discourse-y lately.
Today, Explained
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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 D dollars and then he goes off and creates a whole season of TV and he's an auteur and he's a genius. And The Pit is like, what if we made... Can I swear on this? What if I made TV-ass TV?
Today, Explained
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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 runtimes 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 TV
Today, Explained
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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. And 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.
Today, Explained
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I was not actually the biggest fan of The Last of Us Season 1, but I very much enjoyed The Last of Us Season 2. And that will have that weekly release rhythm. There are seven episodes, so you get to— You've already seen it all. I have, yeah. I'm really excited about Andor. It's not quite weekly release. It is in chunks. It's like three episodes a week for a couple of weeks.
Today, Explained
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But I think Andor season one is astonishingly great television. And it is also the kind of thing where you're like, oh, it's Escapist. It's a Star Wars show. And then you're watching it and you're like, actually, no, this is the most devastating text about fascism that like any entertainer has created in the last decade.
Today, Explained
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A hundred percent. Something more like full escapism, the Sex and the City spinoff, and Just Like That will be coming out again at some point. Finally. Finally. Finally, our long national nightmare is over.
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thing that i want to mention about the pit though is you won't have to wait that long for it to come back it is actually on a network schedule like they are going back into production this summer okay great so what you're saying is if you're missing the pit don't worry you can watch the pit yes yes
Today, Explained
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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.
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My name is Catherine Van Arendonk, and I'm a critic at Vulture and New York Magazine.
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No, there are hundreds, thousands. You could be buried underneath them. There are so many medical shows right now. It's wild.
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Well, so a lot of these live on network television. And if you have only ever been watching Netflix or Max in the last couple years, but you're like, I need more doctors. Where 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. There is one called Watson on CBS, and that one is your more detective-y kind of medical drama.
Today, Explained
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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.
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And so she's just wandering around the hospital, like, being a doctor, even though she's also, you know, not fully compos mentis. But... 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 show's crazy.
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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. So again, you're hurting for choice, really.
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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!