8 Must-Watch Shows To Binge While You Wait for 'The Pitt' Season 3

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Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby in 'The Pitt' Season 3.

Published Sep 14, 2026, 11:55 PM EDT

Lisa Nordin is an actress, writer, and fan of all things performing arts. Her favorite genres are Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She is a self-published author and enjoys exploring how fictional stories help define and qualify the human experience.

When a TV series has already won nine Primetime Emmys and is only two seasons in, you know it has to be good. The Pitt is not only good, but exemplary. The hit series starring Noah Wyle centers around a 15-hour shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, nicknamed "The Pitt." Having a time constraint on the action creates an immediate sense of urgency and gives the show unparalleled momentum.

As Season 3 of The Pitt is set to release in January 2027, fans are left with some vacant viewing time on their hands. Luckily, there are several other medical and procedural-type TV shows that make for excellent placeholders as devotees wait patiently for the new season. So if you have a Pitt-sized hole on your watchlist, adding these eight series is a great way to fill it until January.

'House' (2004–2012)

Hugh Laurie looking to the side with a serious expression in House

In an absolute masterpiece of a series that has been called "The Pitt meets Sherlock", House features Hugh Laurie as the titular protagonist, Dr. Gregory House. Together with his long-suffering team, the temperamental, moody, and highly insightful doctor attempts to diagnose some of the rarest and most unique medical conditions. Laurie is spectacular as House and earned seven Emmy nominations for his performance.

House combines the drama of The Pitt with the pressure of not having the answers readily available. As House and his team encounter each patient, they have to think outside the box, explore multiple theories, and try to diagnose patients that no one else has been able to. Like The Pitt, House delivers on compelling storylines full of intrigue that happen both in and outside the hospital.

'High Potential' (2024–Present)

Similar to The Pitt, another new series that has been a winner from the start is ABC's High Potential. The show stars Kaitlin Olson as Morgan Gillory, the ultimate working mom with an amazing ability to solve riddles and remember even the minutest details with a photographic memory. Hired to be a cleaner at a local police precinct, Morgan soon becomes invaluable to the team as her unique mind proves exactly what they need to help solve baffling murder cases.

Fans of The Pitt can commiserate with followers of High Potential as they too are waiting with bated breath until the long-anticipated Season 3 releases in January 2027. Given the synchronicity of their release dates, High Potential is an ideal show to have in rotation to watch alongside The Pitt. Both shows have a procedural format and dig into science and medical facts. Now is the prime time to get started on this hit series that continues to dominate on streaming.

'Grey's Anatomy' (2005–Present)

Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang in scrubs looking to the side in 'Grey's Anatomy'

When it comes to medical dramas, one of the foremost reigning dynasties is Grey's Anatomy. Blending the everyday ins and outs of a medical center with due attention given to the characters’ personal lives, this audience-favorite show is 22 seasons strong and still going. Grey's Anatomy has had a rotating cast of stellar talent and has made household names out of series regulars like Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, and Patrick Dempsey.

You don't get to be the longest-running American medical drama in history for no reason, and Grey's Anatomy continues to excel on every front. Some credit The Pitt for drawing viewers back to medical dramas, and series like Grey's Anatomy are reaping the residual benefit. With series creator Shonda Rhimes — Bridgerton, Scandal, Private Practice — at the helm, it is clear that Grey's Anatomy is on par with her level of TV excellence, and it is a superb addition to anyone's watchlist.

'9-1-1' (2018–Present)

Chimney, Athena, and Maddie looking through the dispatch computer in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 13

If Grey's Anatomy and House feel a little too laid back, then 9-1-1 is the perfect choice. Focusing on the professional and personal lives of fictional first responders, 9-1-1 has everything from structural emergencies to medical crises and more. The cast is an embarrassment of riches and includes acting titans such as Angela Bassett, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Peter Krause.

9-1-1 captures the urgency of The Pitt and deals with high-stakes situations. It is terrific for a weekly dose of adrenaline on the screen. Season 10 will be released with ABC’s fall lineup in a few days, and with nine seasons to watch, you can get fully invested before January.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

'Scrubs' (2026–Present)

Zach Braff and Donald Faison looking serious in Scrubs

Rebooting a beloved series is tricky, and several have tried and failed. One that has succeeded with flying colors is Scrubs. Fans of the 2001 sitcom will be pleasantly surprised by the latest iteration of everyone's favorite medical team. J.D. (Zach Braff), Elliot (Sarah Chalke), Turk (Donald Faison), and Carla (Judy Reyes) are back and navigating their medical careers as seasoned professionals while mentoring an entirely new team of interns.

What Scrubs does very well is keep the focus where it needs to be, on the core four. While the new interns are exciting to watch and the new characters are reinvigorating the show, Scrubs' creators know that the attention needs to be an 80/20 split in favor of the original gang, who are the main draw and who everyone wants to see. Original series creator Bill Lawrence brings his signature magic back to the revival, and it is a must-watch for fans of medical comedies.

'St. Denis Medical' (2024–Present)

Ron (David Alan Grier) in a doctor's labcoat and half-smiling at something offscreen in St. Denis Medical

A quirky medical comedy that has been a big success with viewers is NBC's St. Denis Medical. The show depicts the interesting conundrums of a hospital staff at the fictional St. Denis Medical Center in Oregon. Though the hospital is underfunded, the people who devote their lives to the care of their patients make do. St. Denis Medical is absurdist comedy at its best, and it never stops delivering laughs and hilarious character performances.

Filmed in a mockumentary style similar to The Office and Parks and Recreation, St. Denis Medical aims to tickle your funny bone rather than set it. It is one of the best new sitcoms of the past five years, and you will wonder why you haven't watched it sooner. Life in an emergency room setting can be full of chaos, but St. Denis Medical chooses to dance to the beat.

'Doc Martin' (2004–2022)

Martin squints at someone with a displeasured face in Doc Martin.

Somewhere between a drama and a comedy, Doc Martin is a British series that has won the world over. The story involves a highly skilled doctor named Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) who has a radical change in his life circumstances. After being a successful surgeon in London for many years, Martin spontaneously develops a severe case of haemophobia, an intense fear of blood. Needless to say, his days as a big-shot London surgeon are over, and as he follows the major twist that life has thrown him, he ends up being a local doctor for a small village called Portwenn.

Doc Martin is a fantastic fish-out-of-water scenario. As the cynical and introverted doctor relocates to a small town, he must learn to vastly improve his social skills and bedside manner. Clunes is brilliant in the series, and it has become a favorite for audiences around the globe. Doc Martin has inspired several remake series in multiple countries, including America's version, Best Medicine starring Josh Charles, which debuted in January of this year. Doc Martin is the cozy medical dramedy to round out your watchlist.

'ER' (1994–2009)

Fans of Noah Wyle may or may not know that one of his biggest roles was in the epic medical drama, ER. In a complete role reversal, Wyle's character in ER is not a hardened, seasoned professional, but a wide-eyed and naive underling, trying to prove himself to everyone. His character, John Carter, became a fan favorite, and he unassumingly stole every scene he was in.

ER was a powerhouse of network television, and it consistently drew in viewers over its 15 years on the air. ER has won 23 Primetime Emmys and is still considered by many to be the gold standard when it comes to medical dramas. If you are an admirer of Wyle and The Pitt looking to fill some watch time between now and January, ER can't be beat.