A social life? What’s that? As a woman with a passion for high art and excellent taste, all my free time is dedicated to the bazillion medical dramas available to me right now: The Pitt, Pulse, St. Denis Medical, The Resident, etc. I’m booked and busy, binging these shows at a deeply concerning pace and obsessing over every new patient and all the scandalous firings and staff romances.
While medical dramas have been successful for decades (think ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and House), it does feel like they’re having an especially major moment right now. Like, I actually haven’t watched non-medical TV in ages — with the exception of The White Lotus, of course. So, is there a reason why streamers and networks alike are so committed to the genre this year? How did the TV execs know I was gonna start Pulse three seconds after I finished The Pitt?
According to TV Line, we’re currently in a “TV doctor boom,” with six new medical dramas debuting in the 2024–2025 TV season. Screenrant reporter Abdullah Al-Ghamdi noted back in January that both broadcast networks and streamers appear “reinvigorated to tell stories of health care professionals and patients in varying tones and formats.” NBC’s hospital comedy, St. Denis Medical, was one of the first broadcast shows renewed, while Fox’s new medical drama, Doc, delivered the network’s strongest premiere in five years, drawing 15.6 million cross-platform viewers in just 11 days. And of course, HBO’s Noah Wyle–led medical drama, The Pitt, swiftly became the most talked about show of the year. But what could be driving this new wave of series in the genre?
During an interview with NPR, TV critic Kathryn VanArendonk shared her own thoughts on the TV trend. “What tends to make a really great television show is the specific combination of something that feels brand new every episode and something that feels very familiar and reliable,” she explained, pointing out that there’s “no better route to that combination” than medical shows.
Her theory on why there’s a rise in medical dramas in 2025? Streamers are starting to take advantage of the already-beloved formula. “I’m really happy about The Pitt as a streaming show in a way that streaming has really not played with very much before in its original programming,” Kathryn said. “It’s a procedural. Although people watch procedurals on streaming all the time, they’re almost always older shows that have been licensed to show up on Netflix.” She hopes more streamers follow suit and prioritize original medical dramas. (Interestingly, Pulse is Netflix’s first-ever English-language medical drama.)
I have to wonder if the C*vid-19 p*ndemic played a role in this renewed interest. After all, the once-in-a-generation medical crisis brought a ton of attention to healthcare workers, hospitals, and the challenges they face. And now that we’re a few years removed from it, the trauma is still there, but it’s not too, too fresh. Maybe we’re more emotionally invested in medical dramas at the moment because they’re helping us process that real, painful experience via a familiar, structured format.
Whether this trend speaks to a cultural moment or it’s just streamers making smart decisions, I sincerely hope it continues. Keep ’em coming, I beg you.
