Although there are dozens of TV series to watch right now — including a slew of medical dramas — everyone’s talking about Max’s The Pitt. And there’s much to discuss: its unconventional real-time format, its impressive medical accuracy, its standout performances from relatively unknown actors and intense plotlines, to name just a few things.

The Pitt follows the staff of the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital over the course of a 15-hour shift. Each episode unfolds as a real hour in the emergency room would. Noah Wyle, who is also an executive producer, stars as senior attending physician Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. He’s been getting Emmy buzz for the role, though the first season isn’t even over yet.

Wyle has dedicated much of his acting career to playing doctors, first breaking out as a medical student on the beloved show ER, which ran from 1994 to 2009. He spoke with Yahoo Entertainment about the show’s priorities, how passion for the series has spread online and how it compares to its predecessors.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

One of the things people often praise about ‘The Pitt’ is its medical accuracy. How did you all decide that that would be one of your top priorities?

It was from the outset. Once upon a time, John Wells, R. Scott Gimmell, Joe Sachs and I also worked on this other show [ER], and we used to get praise from the medical community for our accuracy. Then, in the last 15 years, medical shows have sort of played it fast and loose with that. We wanted to come in and be the most realistic medical show that has ever been on. The format of doing it in real time really allowed for that to happen, because it meant that we weren’t going to be going home, going on dates, going to go shoot hoops or to the bar across the street.

Because the show is set in real time, the choreography of it is extremely impressive. How does having to film something in such a precise way affect the environment on set?

On set, we’d go in in the morning, and everything would be exactly the way we left it the night before. We’d all be dressed exactly the same with our hair cut exactly the same. Nothing had changed. We’d move the storyline forward about nine pages, then we’d lock everything. And that would be a time capsule until we came in the next day. For a while, it became this total other reality. I was doing Robby for about 14 hours a day, and I was doing Noah for about three hours a day and sleeping the rest. It was a very disciplined routine for me every day. That challenge was really exciting, but it wasn’t without difficulty, especially for the people who count on me to be somewhat responsible.

Online, people frequently talk about how as the season goes on, every episode seems more intense than the last. Do you think the season finale is the most intense episode?

I don’t know that it’s intense. It feels earned, you know? It feels like we all go through something and take the audience through something, then we need to give them some sort of decompression time too. Then there’s the reality that this was just another day [for these characters], and tomorrow’s another day, and we’ll have to come back in and hopefully not have to do this again to this extreme, but we’ll do some version of it. That’s the nature of this beast. These guys, they don’t get to take a vacation or go on hiatus the way we did. Though my hiatus was relatively short — I had about four days off. I’m in the writing room now.

Do you have a favorite character or one you’re especially rooting for?

I’m so fond of the whole cast. Many people have given accolades to Taylor Dearden and highlighted Katherine LaNasa’s work. Patrick Ball has gotten a lot of love. I think Gerran Howell is a treasure — his work is just spectacular and textured. I think Shabana Azeez and Supriya Ganesh are all these wonderful actors that were inside my Trojan horse that got everybody to tune in, and now they’re just exploding in living rooms. I’m really impressed and gratified at this very young and slightly green ensemble coming in as intensely as they did to pick up the medicine as quickly as they had to, and then to become a part of such an atypical working experience. Some of them were extremely far from home, and they were all so out of their comfort zones. They crushed it. I’m really proud of them.

Have you seen the comparisons online between your character in ‘ER’ and your character in ‘The Pitt’?

I’ve seen them on Instagram, I think. I’ve seen a couple of the shots becoming more and more frequent — these side-by-sides of my profile, how I look carrying a backpack or how I look walking through a door. [Laughs] It’s getting disconcerting to see how much I’ve aged through all these different behaviors.

I think that’s what people enjoy about the show, right? They recognize you from when you played a fresh-faced doctor in a beloved series, and now you’re this authority figure in ‘The Pitt’ guiding the latest batch of fresh-faced doctors. Since you’ve spent so much of your acting career reenacting medical scenes, do you feel like you’ve gained an understanding about what it is to be a doctor?

I feel like I know enough to be terrified if I go to the emergency room, because I’ll understand what they’re all talking about, but not enough to do anything about it. The few times when I’ve been tested, I have been surprised that I didn’t get squeamish, and I seem to have a fairly high tolerance for that sort of thing. Hopefully, it will never be put to the test, but I hope after all this time that I don’t just freeze and choke and scream for help.

I have to ask about the signature hoodie Dr. Robby is always wearing. It makes sense that you can’t do major outfit changes over the course of a day, but it’s come to be iconic.

I remember thinking, “I can’t put any more thought into this than what Robby would into just grabbing whatever is clean on the way to work.” I chose everything so quickly, and then I laughed and was like, “I just chose the clothes I’m going to wear every day for the next nine months — 14 hours a day, five days a week — and I chose it in 10 seconds.” It felt perfect to do it that way. I came up with a fun little backstory that my friend has a microbrewery and gave it to me. I watch a lot of ER doctors and spend a lot of time in ERs, and they all wear New Balance tennis shoes — they’re good, and you can be on your feet all day. It is function dictating form. Robby has been around long enough to know it gets cold. He doesn’t like to get cold! The hoodie is a nice solution.

It’s amazing how quickly ‘The Pitt’ has become the show to talk about, even going up against prestige favorites like ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘Severance.’ How does it feel to have made such an impact so early in the show’s lifespan?

Extremely gratifying. I keep asking my son, where are all these conversations taking place? He’s like, “Dad, you’re not on Reddit.” I don’t even know how to find that, so for me, gauging impact has been extremely tricky, except for my own circle of friends and family and what I get from the medical community. It’s f***ing great. Are you kidding! [laughs] I’m thrilled that this show that we put so much heart into is resonating the way that it is.

If you could snap your fingers and have everyone who watches the show walk away with one lesson, what would it be?

Trust your doctors.

New episodes of The Pitt are available to stream on Max on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.