It hasn’t necessarily been grabbing the headlines in the same way that Apple TV+’s excellent Severance has in recent weeks, so it’s possible that you missed the fact that HBO has an excellent new medical drama that’s been picking up plenty of fans and good reviews – The Pitt. It’s set in real-time, a bit like 24 was, and is seemingly both very stressful and extremely authentic.
So, it’s more than a little striking that Netflix just dropped a trailer for its own new medical show, Pulse, which looks like it’s aiming for a very similar set of attributes, albeit with a little more polish and sheen rather than unrelenting realism. The trailer sets out its stall impressively, and should reel in fans of shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy.
Pulse will star Zoey Dutch, who you might recognise from a great role in the first season of Reacher on Amazon Prime (the streaming world is very much a small one, despite the budgets it involves). She’ll play Danny Simms, a young ER doctor who finds herself getting promoted way above her expected station thanks to a vote of confidence from one of her superiors.
The twist here is that the Chief Resident position that she’s catapulted into is only vacant because of the suspension of its previous occupant because of a relationship with Simms that wasn’t authorised. It’s a messy sort of romantic professional entanglement to immediately prop up the show, and should provide some really nice slow-burn tension as the season unfolds.
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Of course, any drama set in a hospital can’t just be about the interpersonal dynamics of the staff, as interesting and often sexy as they can be – you need medical emergencies to really organise the show around. It looks like Pulse will have plenty of those, too, with a major hurricane seeming like the biggest disaster coming into view for the first season.
We see glimpses of patients in all manner of binds, from bloody scenes in the ER to, well, bloody scenes on the operating table, as the various doctors we’ll presumably get to know all get their chance to shine. Hopefully some of them will mess up, too, since that often leads to the most interesting and memorable moments. We’ll know more when Pulse starts on 3 April, in just a few weeks’ time.
