Does The Pitt Need More Romance?

2 min readWant to know one of the reasons why shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy were such huge hits? Romance. People love to see people kissing! It’s hot! But The Pitt, a serious drama on HBO praised for its handling of grief and real-life healthcare problems, still only toys with the idea that their doctors could smooch.That hasn’t stopped fans from setting characters up together. But when Amy Poehler directly asked The Pitt star Noah Wyle about the lack of romance, the four-time Emmy winner—who came on Poehler’s podcast Good Hang to promote that he’s People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” this year—responded that they’re more concerned with putting together a realistic medical drama.“If you're gonna show so much guts and blood, if you're gonna go there, which you go there, and it's incredible, your makeup team is incredible, the stuff you do is bananas ... but if you're gonna show that much, every time you do that, you got to get a little smooch,” Poehler suggested. “Someone's got to do a little smooch.”When Wyle joked that the blood-to-romance ratio could be “four-to-one, but certainly not one-to-one,” Poehler insisted, “You’re gonna show the guts, you gotta show some butts.” Wyle fired back by saying the show does have naked butts, but Poehler argued it should be steamier.Wyle conceded: “We don’t show those kinds of butts.”Warrick PageTo be honest, Poehler is onto something. In contrast to Wyle’s previous hospital drama ER, which was chock-full of romantic subplots, The Pitt is devoid of that sort of soap opera business. While that’s allowed The Pitt to be a “serious” show about the grave responsibility of emergency doctors and frontline healthcare workers, it’s still television. This is an entertainment medium built on spectacle and fantasies. People are lonelier than ever, with men and women opting out of dating. We crave touch!Sure, we might tune in to The Pitt anyway. But while we’re here, why can’t we also see Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) and Dr. Abbott (Shawn Hatosy) get a little frisky? Dr. Robby (Wyle) clearly had a situationship brewing with case manager Noelle Hastings (Meta Golding) in season 2. What happened there?Production on The Pitt season 3 is set to begin this very week in Pittsburgh, so it may be too late for the show’s writers to incorporate Poehler’s (correct) note about kissing and butts. But maybe we can hope that the creators have heard the legion of very outspoken Pitt fans and wrote in a few treats for those who live and die by their favorite “ships” from the show. If you don’t know what that means, trust me when I say it will probably never influence how you already watch The Pitt.