Good to know we'll never have any new TV shows based in an emergency room ever again
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2026
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This bullshit! How judges going rule this is a reboot. Fuck the judge with cactus. Now this great show will get canceled. But come on better cancel or pay out for every single hospital show. Fucking cunt just like her asshole husband. Hope they fight this and bury her in court fees.
Edit: wife called it exact comparison Grey's Anatomy would fit all the same criteria. Why didn't the bitch sue creator of that show?
It's because the showrunners of The Pitt worked on E.R and were in talks with Crichton's widow to make a sequel, but the network didn't want to pay the royalties she was asking for. So they pivoted to making an original medical drama that was very similar to E.R, hence her suing them.
Which will easily get defeated when they can point to something like Grey's and the lack of legal action.
Is Grey’s based in an emergency room setting? Does it share key actors and staff? What about Scrubs? House?
Is it pure coincidence that a bunch of ER alumni happen to create a completely unrelated show that happens to feature the comings and goinga of doctors in an emergency room?
Valid points that the Pitt should just lean into. "We wanted to do a sequel. We couldn't come to terms. We dropped any ER (the show) based stuff and kept all the ER medical stuff."
Does 24 have standing to sue because they did the 1 hour per show format?
I would argue that just because you wanted to do a reboot and then couldn't do reboot and did something else instead isn't really evidence in and of itself.
Star Wars was of course supposed to be a flash Gordon reboot but no one seems to care about that.
If I pitch a cop drama that doesn't get made does that prohibit me as a producer from ever having anything to do with cop dramas ever again? I have to stick to musicals for the rest of my life and hope that one of those never gets denied.
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No the judge is being reasonable while you are being OTT. As others have said, there were talks to make a reboot/sequel to ER which fell through and ER was directly adapted from a Michael Crichton script. The key is the same producers went on anyway to make a show that even used a same principle actor because they allegedly didn't want to pay for the rights.
The judge has only ruled that there is a case to hear on face value. It may well be that once the facts are heard, the producers and Warner Brothers win. It may well be that the producers lose and are felt to have effectively made the same show anyway, and owe the estate money.
It's important to remember that ER is directly based on a script written by Michael Crichton who was a medical student in an emergency room prior to being a writer. Steven Spielberg took the script and developed it with John Wells and the pilot for ER is pretty much that script, barely changed. It's not some tenuous connection - it is effectively Michael Crichton's show as much as the other original producers, no matter how much it changed over 15 seasons.
This is not about making shows based in Emergency Rooms. This purely about whether this show is actually a sequel to ER that has been changed a little to get away from paying one of the original producers estates. If it had not been the exact same producers who were discussing making a sequel to ER, then there likely wouldn't have been a case.
The Pitt's executive producers include: John Wells, an executive producer on ER, R Scott Gemmil a writer & producer on ER and Noah Wyle an actor on ER. At face value that is quite the coincidence, especially when they also pitched a reboot of ER.
Nothing of the sort was ruled. There hasn’t been any substantial proceedings at all. The only thing that has been decided is that there is enough of a plausible claim to proceed with a case.
Perhaps there is nothing there but an ER-based medical drama featuring a common actor and some common show runners and staff. Perhaps discovery will uncover some damning evidence of (surprise) TV evecs being shitty people and trying to screw over creators of an IP.
Time will tell
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The shitshow these judges just opened up is hilarious.
I can name 10 shows matching those criteria...
I was gonna say. There's enough prior art that arguing "this is ER with the serial numbers filed off" won't fly. At least, I hope.
Oh no, not medical jargon and depictions of injuries in a medical show. It must be copyright infringement there's no other explanation for it.
They should probably sue Scrubs next.
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It's a standard medical show, that focuses on the ER, like a million other shows. The only connection is Noah Wylie, so he's now prohibited from doing a medical show because it will be considered a spin-off of a show he did decades ago? As a juror, I would find that to be stupid.
Isn't Michael Chriton's widow wealthy enough?
How many kidneys does Wylie's character have?
If it is more than one and he has no scars from a transplant then he is not Carter.
You ever been so out of the loop that this article is where you found out that Michael Crichton died?
I'll see your 'found out via article' and raise you a 'found out in a comment on said article'
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Holy shit, man. It was in 2009…
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Listing the similarities between the two shows, the court cited the emergency room setting, the fast pace, the use of medical jargon, graphic depictions of injuries and younger doctors fresh from medical school being trained.
With the exception (maybe) of the younger training doctors, though I imagine doctors gotta learn, everything described there is a definitional part of a medical drama set in an emergency room. I understand the court letting this move forward because there may be good reason to explore the more detailed similarities. But the ones they listed there... that is baseless.
You cannot copyright a real world setting or genre. The subject matter of emergency room medicine is not owned by Michael Crichton, Warner Brothers, or anyone. Would be like saying the creator of Honeymooners owns the rights to domestic abuse. ER's copyright encompasses its characters, and specific stories. Not the entire concept of an ER or triage medicine. It did not create any of those concepts. It also doesn't own the style of narrative, pacing, editing, cinematography, etc. used, either.
With the exception (maybe) of the younger training doctors, though I imagine doctors gotta learn, everything described there is a definitional part of a medical drama set in an emergency room.
And the training doctors are an audience insert, so that characters can explain shit that would be obvious for anyone who is actually at home in the setting.
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This is the start of a dangerous precedent that may allow a circus to sue the court for copyright infringement on the grounds that it's full of clowns.
grays anatomy:
Gray's wasn't/isn't solely based in the ER, a lot in the OR and patient rooms. There are also numerous other medical dramas before and since that haven't been sued.
As someone who never saw ER i wonder if these broad descriptions are enough for the claim to succeed with a jury. A key point is probably going to be that Noah Wyle was in ER and in talks for a sequel that the estate shutdown before The Pitt.
No they aren’t. These two shows are about as close as Gilligan’s Island and Lost. Both shows are about a group of people lost an island but that’s about it. Same here.
Crichton's widow is just pissy that Noah Wyle is starring in another successful medical drama. I guarantee if Noah wasn't involved, she wouldn't have even noticed this show existed.
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Listing the similarities between the two shows, the court cited the emergency room setting, the fast pace, use of medical jargon, graphic depictions of injuries, and younger doctors fresh from medical school being trained.
I hope she isn't going after Scrubs next they also meet all these standards too!
Every medical drama does these days. It's wild that this is even being considered. Next The Office will go after every TV show that takes place in an office.
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Somehow I got The Pitt mixed up with The Bear and did grueling mental gymnastics for too long trying to figure out how any of this is possible.
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Bro what?
So does that mean ER could be found too similar to Scrubs or Gray's Anatomy? 🤔
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I always forget that Crichton created ER. He was so prolific.
He also racist asshole.
And a climate change denier
A dead racist asshole and climate change denier. Which is the best kind.
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All I'm hearing is "They used the same actor! And it's more medically accurate!" which is about where the similarities end.
Having not watched ER, is there anything that makes it unique? As far as I can tell, it's a show about an ER.
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well duh because the showrunner/lead is in the original ER drama.
This doesn't surprise me. We watched The Pitt and loved it. We'd heard the about the lawsuit and thought how empty it must be to just be a similar show about doctors in the Emergency Room.
Wanting more we went back and started rewatching ER (which holds up surprisingly well!). Episode after episode of ER we're recognizing nearly exact patient plot points in Season 1 in ER that were depicted in The Pitt. Each time we see one in ER, we're understanding the lawsuit more. It almost feels like the writers of The Pitt watched ER season 1 for its plot points.
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