Mark Harmon & Denzel Washington’s 137-Episode Series Shows The Pitt How It’s Done

Published Sep 20, 2026, 9:30 PM EDT

Cher Thompson is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, where she covers everything from explosive reality TV moments to cast interviews about the twists and turns of scripted dramas. With a background in creative writing, marketing, and teaching, Cher knows how to spot both the storytelling genius and the guilty pleasures in pop culture. Her work blends wit with insight, making readers feel like they’re chatting with a friend who just happens to know way too much about TV.

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Despite medical dramas having experienced a resurgence in recent years, the renewed interest in shows like The Pitt prove that Mark Harmon and Denzel Washington's past medical series was far more than a flash in the pan. No series has benefited more from the renewed popularity of medical shows than The Pitt, as the HBO Max series has received widespread acclaim since its debut in 2025. With a sense of realism, fast-paced storytelling, and a rejuvenation of the week-to-week TV cycle. Critics and audiences alike have praised its depiction of modern emergency medicine, as well as the show's real-time format.

What makes The Pitt particularly interesting is that it only represents the latest in the evolution of a long-time TV format in medical drama. Every generation has produced a similar medical show that changes the game in an interesting way, from ER in the 1990s to House and Grey's Anatomy in the early 2000s. Each medical drama has brought in its own elements from other shows, with ER bringing a theatrical sensibility to life with its fast-paced camera work, while House brought an anti-hero into focus with its main character, and Grey's aligned itself with a soapier mentality in general.

Long before any of those dramas ruled over the medical genre, however, there was NBC's long-time hit St. Elsewhere. Premiering in 1982, the series ran for six seasons and made stars of fresh faces like Mark Harmon and Denzel Washington while quietly revitalizing the medical drama as a genre.

NBC’s St. Elsewhere Is The Ultimate Blueprint For The Pitt To Follow

When St. Elsewhere premiered in the early 1980s on NBC, the landscape of medicine on TV looked incredible different from what audiences expect to see on screen today. The series focused on doctors and nurses at the aging St. Eligius Hospital in Boston, and quickly had a reputation for realism and complicated character work that made it stand out from the crowd. Over the course of six seasons, St. Elsewhere featured an ensemble cast that brought its stories to life and revolutionized the way that running character arcs played out on medical dramas as the genre continued to develop.

St. Elsewhere's influence can't be overstated within its genre and for dramas overall. The series helped pioneer serialized storytelling techniques that are still used in contemporary TV, tackling difficult social issues and treating its audience as capable rather than feeling the need to spoon feed them stories. The show's approach moved away from the traditional isolated weekly stories of past medical dramas, combining serialized narratives and episodic stories to create the blueprint of what we see on screen today within shows like The Pitt. St. Elsewhere's pristine reputation earned it critical praise and awards recognition as it moved through its run.

St. Elsewhere’s Polarizing Ending Hasn’t Affected Its Legacy As An All-Time Great

Despite everything it accomplished during its run, St. Elsewhere is most remembered for its polarizing ending. The show's series finale, which aired in 1988, revealed that the events of the show may or may not have existed within in the mind of a child, making the show fall into the "it was all a dream" territory. The conclusion quickly became one of the most discussed and debated endings in TV history, with wide-spread reactions that ranged from admiration to frustration. Remaining one of the most divisive final twists of a TV drama of all time, St. Elsewhere ended intensely.

In many cases, a divisive finale can overshadow a show's positive reception or general accomplishments, and St. Elsewhere fell victim to that curse in many ways. Despite the quality of the 130+ episodes prior to the finale, St. Elsewhere is often only remembered for its finale, as critics and TV historians speak about the show mostly in the scope of its end. Even when praising the series for its pioneer efforts in creating what modern medical dramas look like, the finale becomes a sticking point as the biggest memory of the series, giving St. Elsewhere less credit than it deserves.

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  Ed Begley Jr.

  Dr. Victor Ehrlich

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  Howie Mandel

  Dr. Wayne Fiscus