Noah Wyle is back in scrubs in the 2025 TV schedule as star of The Pitt, a new medical drama available streaming now with a Max subscription. While the new show is set in an emergency department, Wyle definitely isn’t playing John Carter 2.0 and The Pitt certainly isn’t ER. Still, the actor recently reflected on one of ER‘s arguably most iconic plot twists from a quarter century ago, and his comments reminded me of how he (and ER) were robbed on the awards circuit for that season.
Fans who watched ER live on NBC back in the day, caught up via cable reruns (like I did), or stream the series with a Hulu subscription can likely all agree that Season 6 was a traumatic time for Dr. John Carter, with a drug addiction that spiraled out of control. It all started, though, when a psych patient stabbed Carter as well as med student Lucy, with Lucy dying from her injuries and Carter left with chronic pain, a damaged kidney, and survivor’s guilt.
Speaking with People about Carter’s stabbing, Noah Wyle said:
Lucy dying and the Carter stabbing was the precursor to the drug addiction storyline, which I thought was one of the more revelatory storylines for the character.
It’s worth remembering that ER was an absolute ratings behemoth back in its day on NBC, airing in an era before shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Chicago Med debuted to make explosions, attacks, and main character deaths more commonplace.
The stabbing twist was such a standout that ABC’s The Good Doctor seemingly paid homage to it and The Resident‘s doctor with a drug problem seemed to me like a nod to Carter as well. Wyle went on to reflect on how his character dealt with the trauma and ended up addicted to painkillers:
He really got to see the pressure that he felt that he was under, coming from such a patrician upbringing and such an affluent family, to make good that he became extremely susceptible to what so many people become susceptible to. I thought it was a really great, profound storyline.
Not only was it a “great, profound storyline,” but it was also one that I’ve always felt deserved some awards love. Noah Wyle admittedly didn’t actually have that much acting to do in the episode that dealt with Carter’s stabbing since the character was unconscious for most of the hour, but Carter slowly but surely unraveling over the rest of the season due to drug use was pretty amazing to see.
And Wyle was nominated for the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for five years straight at the Primetime Emmys in the early-to-mid ’90s, he wasn’t nominated for Season 6. In fact, the only Emmy nominations for that season were for Outstanding Dramatic Series, Julianna Margulies for Outstanding Lead Actress, and Outstanding Directing for two episodes.
One of those two episodes was the one in which the doctors and nurses were racing to try and save Carter and Lucy, but all in all, no Emmy wins for Season 6. While I admittedly watched the show via reruns years later and therefore missed when ER was snubbed for its sixth season, I was still shocked when I found out.
The odds do seem good for Noah Wyle to get some awards attention for his work on The Pitt, though. The medical drama was renewed for Season 2 before even half of the first season had aired, and he only seems to be generating positive buzz with her performance as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch.
If you haven’t been tuning in, you can catch new episodes of The Pitt on Thursdays on Max, as well as stream every episode that has released so far. ER also isn’t hard to find these days, with all fifteen seasons – including the stellar sixth – available on Hulu.
