One of HBO Max's Best New Shows Debuts With Incredible Rotten Tomatoes Score Ahead of Season 2
It's time for another shift of TV's medical drama. One year afterThe Pitt premiered to rave reviews from critics and audiences on HBO Max, season two of the show is set to begin on the streaming service starting January 8. The first reviews of the sophomore season, which were published on Monday, suggest that it's going to be as good as the first. The Pitt season two has a very high score on Rotten Tomatoes—to the point where it briefly held a rare 100 percent rating.
The Pitt Wows Critics
The Pitt, a medical drama that takes place in roughly real time across one shift in a Pittsburg hospital's emergency room, debuted on HBO Max (which at the time was just called Max) on January 8, 2025. Starring Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, the show was a gripping, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable medical drama. It won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series along with a Lead Actor trophy for Wyle and Supporting Actress award for Katherine LaNasa.
Reviews of the second season, which will be set during one ER shift on a Fourth of July Weekend, are almost universally glowing. For a couple of hours, season two had a rare 100 percent rating, though one negative review published in the early afternoon brought down the average.
That review is a clear outlier, though. Writing for The Daily Beast, critic Nick Schager said the show avoids the sophomore slump, and is "the most harrowingly realistic medical show on TV—and, also, the most empathetic." Chris Evangelista of Slashfilm said The Pitt "reminds us why we fell in love with the show to begin. This is still one of the best shows on TV."
Indeed, that seems to be one of the great selling points of The Pitt, how much it feels like the TV of an earlier era. While so many big, buzzy shows these days are expensive to make but have short seasons with only a half-dozen or so episodes and two years between seasons, The Pitt is a machine. It's 15 thrilling episodes, and season two comes just one year after season one. The like TV used to be.
Rotten Tomatoes Scores Are Not a Perfect Metric
It's always worth remembering that Rotten Tomatoes is an imperfect way of evaluating a TV show or a movie. The average is not the same as a letter grade. Even when The Pitt's second season briefly had a 100 percent rating, that did not mean that reviewers and critics thought it was a perfect show. It simply means that, at the time, 100 percent of reviewers gave it a positive review. There are plenty of 4.5 out of 5-star reviews and A-minuses (and one B) among the positive reviews. What you can take away from The Pitt's Rotten Tomatoes score is that critics overwhelmingly like it, even if there are some quibbles or shortcomings to the season. If you like medical dramas, you'll probably like it, too.