Judging by the content of television shows in the seven decades since the medium’s inception, an alien race – you know they’re watching – might rightly assume that humanity’s main preoccupations are solving crimes and treating diseases – which, essentially the same thing.

In life no one wants to go to the hospital, but people like to go there on TV, I guess just like people like to watch shows about murder without being murdered. Something crucial happens in these places that television takes up and heightens to a high level of drama, both medical and existential in nature. As the old “Ben Casey” titles went: “Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity.” (Those were binary times.)

Two new series join the long parade of hospital shows this week. In Fox’s “Doc,” which premiered Tuesday, Molly Parker plays Dr. Amy Larsen, an internist from Minneapolis who loses her memory for eight years in a car accident but continues to retain her memory. “The Pitt,” now streaming on Max, is set in a Pittsburgh emergency room; The fact that it involves “ER” veterans John Wells (executive producer, director), R. Scott Gemmill (creator) and Noah Wyle (lead actor) makes it impossible not to mention this show, so I did.

“Doc” is a soap opera with medical elements; “The Pitt” is a hyper-realistic medical drama with soap opera elements. Both criticize bedside behavior; Patients who appear to be well but suddenly lose consciousness; Red herrings, dead ends and false trees to bark at.

Molly Parker plays the role of a doctor struggling with memory loss in the Fox drama Doc.

(Christos Kalohoridis / Fox)

“Doc” was adapted by Barbie Kligman from an Italian series and begins after the crash; We get to see something happening inside an open skull, and then we meet Amy, whose mishap has left her with nothing more than a bandage on her head, a potentially permanent case of partial retrograde amnesia, and the cognitive dissonance that which she perceives as a virtual reality time traveler, attacks her at every turn.

She meets the husband, to whom she discovers she is no longer married, who now runs the hospital (Omar Metwally as Dr. Michael Hamda) where she worked, as well as her suddenly teenage daughter Katie (Charlotte Fountain- Jardim); Neither of them really knows what to think of her. And she will learn that her son is dead, a trauma that has left her cold and unpopular at work and with patients, even though she is no less extremely powerful as a diagnostician – which she remains. Confused? This also applies to everyone.

She also doesn’t remember the secret affair she had with the attractive senior doctor Dr. Jake Heller (Jon-Michael Ecker), who won’t remind her of it; or do you know why Dr. Sonya Maitra (Anya Banerjee), who completely escapes her memory, doesn’t seem to like her at all; or why the nurses mock her behind her back; or that Dr. Richard Miller (Scott Wolf), now in her old post as chief medical officer, worries about something she once knew and hopes she won’t remember. Her best friend Dr. provides support. Gina Walker (Amirah Vann), the hospital psychiatrist, and the young Dr. TJ Coleman (Patrick Walker), who was inspired to practice medicine by Amy.

In no time, Amy is wandering the halls, checking out the patients and heading out. She becomes a kind of shadow doctor and follows her colleagues like an intern – she has to retake her medical exams – and will still discover most of what needs to be discovered. But she remains humble. “I’ve never seen you submit to anyone before,” remarks Dr. Miller. “New beginnings, new rules,” says Amy. “That sounds like the tagline for a really bad sitcom.”

It’s not a comedy, but in a way it is – a second chance and all. And Parker, who shines throughout the show, is particularly delightful and moving in her reborn personality. “Doc” can be a little corny, a little too obvious like on TV when it comes to the cases, but is overall quite entertaining.

More jokes can be found in the 15-part episode “The Pitt,” which plays in real time over a single day shift. Wyle plays Dr. Robinavitch, who is Dr. Robby calls. Together with Dr. Tracey Ifeachor’s Collins runs the emergency department at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Robby is loose (but focused), while Collins is tight (and focused – and also pregnant, but he doesn’t tell anyone).

Tracy Ifeachor (above) plays Dr. Collins in The Pitt.

(Warrick Page/Max)

While “Doc” takes place on the quieter floors of a big city hospital, “The Pitt” – shot with roving handheld cameras – takes place in its loudest part, the emergency room. There is no music, but the machines are constantly beeping. There’s a lot of running and screaming. (One of the first sights we see is a naked man on the run screaming, “No more needles.”) Clashes break out as families are torn apart under pressure and violence against hospital staff, and emergencies arise within comes from emergencies. The waiting room we briefly see is appropriately packed with patients.

And the emergency room itself is full of doctors. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, not to mention countless patients and patient families, and it takes a while to sort through them.

Patrick Ball is the handsome Dr. Langhorn who has questions about dogs. Fiona Dourif plays Dr. McKay (you may be wondering what’s up with the ankle monitor), who can smell trouble. Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) spends more time talking to patients than your own doctor and is therefore called “Slo Mo”. Dr. King (Taylor Dearden), on rotation from the VA, is a cheerful, excited guy who likes to high-five when something goes well. And head nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) keeps everything running; She loves her job but would like a raise.

New to the room – it’s a teaching hospital – are a trio of student doctors on their first day: Javadi (Shabana Azeez), a 20-something prodigy but defensive about her age; Competition intern Dr. Santos (Isa Briones), who has to learn that there is no “I” in “Team”; and the gentle farm boy Whitaker (Gerran Howell). Santos calls him “Huckleberry.” (“That sounds like sarcasm,” he says. “You think so?” she replies sarcastically.) The question for all of them is whether they can keep up the pace and ride the roller coaster.

“This is the job that always causes nightmares, ulcers and suicidal tendencies,” says Robby. (The anniversary of losing a mentor during the pandemic haunts him all day.)

Whether or not “The Pitt” reflects life in a real emergency room, do doctors talk about their lives while treating a patient or do they take them along in a wheelchair? — it has a compelling energy. The actors easily navigate the medical dialogue, the various needles, knives, tubes and paddles their characters must use, and the Purell they casually pump into their hands upon entering a room.

Doctors deal with cases of electrocution, drowning, overdose, trauma, scurvy, sickle cell anemia, a nail in the chest, a fastball in the eye, gallstones, third-degree burns, chlamydia, a faulty pacemaker and rats in a homeless man’s clothes and so on, each with a story and a backstory.

The setting allows for a cross-section of humanity united in adversity and occasional passages of socio-political commentary. In its mix of cool authenticity and hot theatricality, of cases to solve and personal affairs to arrange, “The Pitt” reminded me of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” I never saw enough of “ER” for it to remind me of “ER.”