so is it an actual ER spinoff or does it just happen to share some actors?
There’s ongoing litigation over that question.
The Crichton estate is suing HBO over it because apparently there had been talks that fell apart about a reboot starring Noah Wyle. When it fell through, The Pitt happened.
But even if it smells funny, you can’t successfully sue a show for having someone play a doctor just because they played a doctor in the past. The suit is going nowhere.
It isn’t that simple. John Wells originally conceive of the Pitt as an ER spin off but never got it off the ground till now.
You can’t just change the cover a book and claim it is a different book.
Star Trek: Voyager famously renamed one of the principal characters that had been a guest on an episode of Next Generation (keeping the same actor and virtually identical backstory) to keep from having to pay royalties to the writer of the TNG episode that featured the character.
For anyone else wondering:
Tom Paris(voy) & Nicolas Locarno (TNG)
In Lower Decks, they brought back both in animated form and (like all their guest starts) had the original actor voice both characters.
Seriously, they always found the actors. There was a guest character in 2 episodes of TNG (actually in the same episode as Nic Locarno and also in the “Lower Decks” episode of TNG) that hadn’t acted for decades.
Lower Decks had a flashback to a character’s academy days, and they found the original actress to voice her character’s lines in the flashback.
Exactly unlike amusement parks with dinosaurs, Crichton didn’t invent hospital dramas
It is an ER spin off… /full stop,
There is an ongoing lawsuit about who gets cash from it.
