Ope Pardon, No. 37: Undivided Attention

A little over two weeks ago, I put on episode 12 of The Pitt and something remarkable happened: I sat down on my couch and watched TV.

Up until that moment, The Pitt had been one of my background, multitask shows. Of the three I was watching weekly at the time, The Pitt was the one I had been putting on while I did my silly little computer tasks or folded laundry or picked up around my apartment. This was mostly because the other two (Severance and Yellowjackets) demanded my attention — even if they did not always hold it. But within seconds of starting “6:00 pm”, I leaned forward into that gamer meme position and did not take my eyes off the TV for the subsequent 45 minutes.

The Pitt has, in the last couple weeks, hit a fever pitch of word of mouth buzz with praise, principally, for it for being “good old fashioned TV” — and it’s true, it does have a certain no-frills simplicity of plot and pacing, efficient writing and affective performances punching above its streaming weight that recalls a bygone era of pre-prestige primetime TV. (A quick pitch line for those still in the dark: ER meets 24 with a touch of West Wing for that liberal better-world wish fulfillment. Each episode is a nearly real-time hour of a 12-hour emergency room shift, the very first day for four student doctors, with our ragtag staff led by ER veteran Noah Wyle.)

What made episode 12 so riveting was largely the plot, the premise of that particular episode and the one that followed is such that you really can’t look away even for a second, nor does the show’s nonstop action in those episodes really even give you the opportunity. This isn’t that remarkable a means of holding attention, and a less technically solid show could achieve similar results with the same device. But what interests me (or maybe just bums me out) is that few other shows even try.

It is a well-reported fact that production companies, notably streamers but who isn’t a streamer, want TV shows that can be followed while the audience looks at a second or third screen, or does some other kind of task. In 2023, writer/director Justine Bateman told The Hollywood Reporter:

The Leftovers and Watchmen writer Lila Byolck told the New Yorker something similar around the same time.

The reports haven’t stopped since then — the most upsetting I remember seeing was that studios are asking for characters to say what they are doing out loud so that the audience can know what is happening without having to actually be looking at the screen.(Ironically, this is something that does happen pretty frequently on The Pitt on account of doctors always saying what they are doing and explaining it to the student doctors.) This is, to be clear, a hugely depressing note to give on any form of storytelling.

And yet, as ever, it is worth noting that this — watching TV while doing other stuff — is not exactly new. Historically speaking, one of the qualities that defined TV vis-a-vis film was that it was watched in the home or in public spaces, where other stimuli might be at play.

A lifetime i.e. four years ago, when I was in grad school I wrote a few term papers about television studies, streaming and what is called the attention economy, which is how I am able to cite an academic called Roger Silverstone, who described television as something that “accompanies us as we wake up, as we breakfast, as we have our tea and as we drink in bars. It comforts us when we are alone. It helps us sleep. It gives us pleasure, it bores us and sometimes it challenges us. It provides us with opportunities to be both sociable and solitary not simply something we look at when bored, but something that serves a whole range of quite intimate ritual purposes in our lives; or, rather, its many stories and genres serve such roles” (quoted in Gray and Lotz 86).

In other words, TV is well-suited to being watched whilst multitasking. Which is perhaps just to say maybe we need not be so precious about giving TV our undivided attention — I would hazard to guess everyone reading this as a comfort TV show they have seen a million times that they put on for company or even to fall asleep. I am confident most of you have had series you watched while, and perhaps only ever while, you ate lunch or dinner. Personally, I celebrate a good TV dinner show. I love some easy-viewing (if easy listening is a genre, surely easy-viewing could be too?).

But I digress — not giving your undivided attention to a show that’s not asking for it is notably different than being unable, unwilling or unwanting to give undivided attention to a series that actually calls for it. Which, I don’t think we can deny, is a real, pervasive, possibly neurological, condition of the contemporary TV audience that studios nonetheless should not be indulging or catering to as blanket direction.

And listen, in my endless empathetic goodness, I will resist blaming you/me/us/the viewers for our own rapidly dwindling attention spans. Without even taking into account everything that is social media and doom scrolling, I do think there was a period, perhaps circa 2015-present day, where TV dramas, particularly those produced by streaming services, were full of a lot more filler — be it extra episodes, extra runtime, extra exposition — and there was a relatively good reason for straying attention. The shows weren’t earning it, so we picked up our phones and looked elsewhere.

Earlier I said that a lesser show than The Pitt could similarly hold one’s attention for nearly an hour with that plot — that’s not exactly true. A lesser show could keep your attention for those 45 minutes with a similar script on a what-will-happen-next level, or because of subtitles, or because it is so confusing your only shot of following the story is to focus, but The Pitt keeps your attention also because you care what happens.

Over the preceding episodes, The Pitt laid the groundwork, earning your investment and attention in the unfussy and slowburn way of episodic, weekly release procedural shows that sketch out character detail and exposition in the margins of the action. Cut to 10 hours later, you have an ensemble of beloved characters in a breakneck crisis and there is simply no way you are looking away.