Search Engine – "Is my favorite new tv show this year a ripoff?"

Host: PJ Vogt
Guest: Nicholas Kulish (NYT reporter)
Date: September 26, 2025

Overview

This episode investigates the ongoing legal and ethical feud over the hit medical drama "The Pit," which has been accused of being a thinly veiled ripoff of the classic TV show "ER." PJ Vogt and Nicholas Kulish explore where inspiration ends and theft begins, how creative ownership and credit work, and the messy, intriguing details of the lawsuit pitting Michael Crichton’s estate against Warner Brothers and the creators of "The Pit." The discussion uses these events to examine the larger question: "When is it okay to copy someone else’s idea?"

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: When is it Okay to Copy?

• Intellectual property and idea-borrowing: Vogt describes the perennial creative struggle about how much inspiration is okay and when it crosses into ripoff territory.

  "Most people I talk to who make stuff have this gremlin...that tells them they can see exactly who has copied their homework and how..." – PJ Vogt (03:00)

• The case is brought to life via a public legal battle about authorship and credit for a major new TV show.

2. What is "The Pit" and Why is it Controversial?

• "The Pit" described as a real-time medical drama, starring Noah Wylie as a veteran ER doctor, bearing strong similarities to "ER."

  "The Pit is a show where doctors and nurses save the lives of patients who come into the emergency room...an hour of the show is an hour of the shift in the emergency room." – Nicholas Kulish (06:05)

• Immediate comparisons made to "ER," with nearly identical set-ups and even the same star, Noah Wylie.

• The question: Does "The Pit" owe its existence—legally or morally—to "ER," and by extension to Michael Crichton, its now-deceased creator?

3. Michael Crichton: Doctor, Novelist, Inventor of ER

• Deep dive into Crichton's background—his time in medical school, early pseudonymous thrillers, and breakout success with "The Andromeda Strain" (10:00–13:11).
• Crichton’s innovation: He took a genre (the medical drama), injected realism from his own experience, and co-created "ER" out of an old unproduced script ("Emergency Ward").
• Discussion of creative borrowing: Crichton was inspired by older works (e.g., his "Lost World" borrowed from Arthur Conan Doyle), raising questions about where homage ends and IP begins (14:39–16:43).

4. How ER Was Made – and by Whom

• Spielberg and Crichton dust off "Emergency Ward" and team up with showrunner John Wells.
• Key insight: Though Crichton and Spielberg conceived the idea and reaped most of the profits, John Wells was the creative force behind the show's daily storytelling. Wells's financial and creative role is highlighted in court documents (23:57).

  "Despite having worked on ER for more than a decade, [Wells] earned less than half of what either Crichton or Spielberg made... that's not a complaint, it's the deal I made." – Court docs summarized by PJ Vogt (24:14)

5. Enter "The Pit" – and the Lawsuit

• Noah Wylie tries to reboot his beloved character ("Logan" style, grizzled and older). He pitches an explicit ER reboot, emails John Wells, and reaches out to the Crichton estate (29:51, 40:48).
• "The Pit" emerges, starring Wylie as a similarly positioned emergency doctor but legally separated from ER’s universe. The show is a critical and popular hit, winning Wylie his first Emmy (32:05).
• Crichton's estate, led by his widow Sherri Crichton, sues, arguing the show is an unauthorized ER sequel or reboot. Their claim: the makers tried to get permission and, when denied, simply changed the names and details (32:29–34:44).

6. The Legal Drama: Receipts, Emails, and the Meaning of Credit

• The Estate's evidence includes damning emails from Wylie and Wells explicitly discussing an ER reboot, referencing character names, structure, and tone identical to what became "The Pit" (40:48–44:05).

  "A character study in the vein of Logan Picard and Joker Carter...A 12 episode Hulu limited series where we take another look at the guy who showed us the world the first time. Darker and grittier, aged, but still him." – Noah Wylie to John Wells (40:48)

• The initial, explicit ER connection then vanishes, but the core show is largely unchanged.
• The judge refuses to throw out the case, finding substance to the Estate's claim (33:05).

7. The Core Question: What Do We Owe Our Creative Predecessors?

• Is "The Pit" a transformative work—or a cosmetic redecoration of ER's house?

• Vogt and Kulish agree: if the creators hadn't tried to get permission (and been refused), the legal peril would be less acute (45:13).

• Vogt’s take: He sides emotionally with creative freedom, arguing inspiration and transformation are the realities of art, and that the legal maximalism of estates can hamper culture.

  "If you tell stories, you'll steal and you'll be stolen from. It'll bug you. But if you're really good at what you do, it won't matter much." – PJ Vogt (46:24)

• Kulish’s (journalist's) take: The legal case is strong for the estate because of those early, explicit communications.

8. What Happens Next?

• Warner Brothers appeals. If they win, "The Pit" goes on. If not, a messy trial could expose internal emails, finances, and more, potentially forcing a high-dollar settlement (47:12–49:19).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On creative borrowing:
  “No idea is really truly original…If the thing borrowed is changed enough, transformed, recontextualized, reimagined, it's okay. So the actual determination…can be hard to make.” – PJ Vogt (02:54)

• On Crichton’s rise:
  “The Andromeda Strain came out before I was born and I actually saw it for the first time in a small, almost hut in Tanzania.” – Nicholas Kulish (10:49)

• On IP maximalism:
  “I find the word IP itself to be like a bad Andromeda strain…infect[ing] the minds of people who make anything ever at all…” – PJ Vogt (15:52)

• On the ER financial windfall:
  “There were 331…episodes…I did the math, it was about a quarter of a billion dollars, give or take. For Michael Crichton's take.” – Nicholas Kulish (23:57)

• On the lawsuit receipts:
  “Sherry Creighton has a lot of emails…saying, hey, we want to remake er and this is how we're proposing to do it…with this real time show where you're in the emergency room hour by hour with the older, grittier, Logan style Dr. Carter.” – Nicholas Kulish (40:26)

• On the core dilemma:
  “If you're gonna ask somebody for something, you should probably be ready if they say no, not to take it anyway.” – PJ Vogt (44:55)

• On the fate of the case:
  “If this case moved forward far enough, that's exactly the kind of thing they'd be trying to figure out because they'd be assessing damages. And does HBO Max or does Warner Brothers Discovery…want other creators knowing exactly how big the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is?” – Nicholas Kulish (49:19)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & core question about creative copying | 04:45
• Explaining "The Pit" | 05:49–06:39
• Introducing "ER" and Michael Crichton | 07:11–09:59
• Crichton's early career and story origins | 09:59–14:32
• Creative borrowing & The Lost World | 14:39–16:43
• Making of ER & showrunner dynamics | 20:23–24:22
• "The Pit": How the reboot idea was born | 27:06–32:13
• Legal fight and emails as evidence | 32:29–44:55
• Analysis and personal opinions | 45:13–46:55
• What’s next in the legal case? | 47:12–49:19

Conclusion

This episode uses the controversy around "The Pit" and ER to ask fundamental questions about creativity, credit, and the shifting boundaries between homage, inspiration, and theft in modern entertainment. Through interviews, court documents, and revealing emails, the episode shows just how tangled and human the issues of creative ownership and inspiration can become—especially when money, legacy, and the ghosts of beloved TV shows are at stake.