Medical dramas were a TV staple in previous decades, but it feels like they’ve taken a backseat in a procedural world overrun with firefighters and police officers. However, in the last year, the tables have turned, with NBC’s “St. Denis Medical” and HBO’s “The Pitt” becoming more popular each week they air. Hospital-set dramas can feel a bit formulaic at times, especially when they go on for decades and twist between focusing on medical cases and romances until both threads feel like they’re going to burst. Thankfully, this isn’t the case for Netflix’s first English-language medical drama, which is a shining star of 2025 television.
“Pulse” is set in a Miami Level 1 Trauma Center where third-year Resident, Dr. Danielle “Danny” Simms (Willa Fitzgerald), finds herself unexpectedly thrust into an unwanted promotion after Chief Resident, Dr. Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell) has been suspended. With a worsening hurricane looming over their heads, the hospital is forced into lockdown, and Xander is brought back to help the team, who are suffering under limited space and increasingly distressed patients.
Facing each other for the first time after a blow-out confrontation that the show takes its time to process in flashbacks, the two are forced to confront their volatile feelings for each other. As the shocking details of their complicated relationship begin to spill out onto the hospital floor, both Danny and Xander buckle under the pressure. The rest of the ER is forced to process the fallout of this relationship and Danny’s newfound leadership position, while also working under the pressure of life-or-death stakes. At the center of this is a decision of who will become the permanent new Chief Resident in the hospital’s new cycle, which forces the staff to take sides in the civil war that has unfolded in their workplace.
The series balances on the fine line between showcasing the actual medical cases these doctors work on and their interconnected personal lives. Danny’s deep empathy for her patients makes her a remarkable doctor in training, but her self-sabotaging nature complicates her rise to power. She knows deep down that she was destined to be a doctor, but she also seems terrified of her own potential. This self doubt is a major part of why her relationship not only with Xander, but her sister Harper (Jessy Yates) and best friend Sam Elijah (Jessie T. Usher) has become so strained.
Fitzgerald and Woodell’s chemistry cracks and ripples throughout the screen each time they share it. The tension between Danny and Xander is what makes “Pulse” the success that it is, with the two revealing each other’s secrets to the audience in bursts of jealousy and pain. Each personal relationship Danny and Xavier have with their co-workers begins to fracture under the weight of the secrets they’re hiding, threatening to destroy the bond that the hospital has created. While Danny and Xander take center stage, their friends are also faltering under the weight of this everc-hanging storm.
There’s Sophie Chan (Chelsea Muirhead), a frazzled surgical intern whose selfish mentor Tom Cole (Jack Bannon) forces her to try and make a name for herself; Camila Perez (Daniela Nieves), a medical student whose growing bond with Sophie lights up the screen; and Sam, whose position as Danny’s best friend becomes shaky as they both battle it out to become chief resident. Each episode further upends the lives of these characters, and the masks they wear to protect themselves begin to peel back at a speed that none of them seem prepared for. Save for flashback’s, the first five episodes take place in the ER, forcing the audience to meld into the relentless setting these characters inhabit.
“Pulse” is incredibly addictive, which will have audiences who enjoy consuming television at a rapid pace thankful for Netflix’s binge-model. However, there’s an intensity that the show is missing because of the release model it’s embalmed in. With show’s like “The Pitt” finding their success with HBO’s weekly release model, I can’t help but wish this series was given the same longevity that comes with the classic release model which television was founded on. While the episodes fly by, a show like this would pack more of a punch if its audience was able to sit with the material they just watched.
Despite the burden the binge-model proposes, Netflix has crafted one of the best procedural dramas of the decade. “Pulse” escapes the vacuum of content which is constantly placed above quality television, clearly made by individuals who understand what makes medical dramas so enthralling. The pressure of life-or-death stakes, paired with the unbeatable chemistry of each and every cast member, makes this series feel like lightning in a bottle. These characters don’t feel like caricatures of medical professionals: they feel like real people whose personal relationships often force their jobs to take a backseat, even though their careers and the lives of their patients depend on their unwavering focus.
All episodes were screened for review.
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