Must Watch reviews: Babies, Bait, and The Pitt

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Campbell join Naga Munchetty to review ‘Babies’, ‘Bait’ and ‘The Pitt’.

What do the Must Watch reviewers make of them?

Babies is a new six-part BBC drama. It follows a couple Stephan (Paapa Essiedu) and Lisa (Siobhán Cullen), a couple in their 30s who are navigating the heartbreak caused by baby loss. The series is written by Stefan Golaszewski, who also wrote the much loved BBC sitcoms Him & Her and Mum.

Hayley and Scott agree that Babies is a Must Watch.

Hayley says: “What this show does really well is it shows what it's like to go through it. And it also shows how damaging it is that we generally, as people, don't make space for people to talk about this stuff.”

She thinks the show is “brilliantly written and performed.”

“It's about baby loss, but it's also about how clumsy we can be with each other. We don't know what other people are going through. People in the office keep making jokes about how this woman has a hangover when she's just looking haggard because she's experienced a miscarriage that she can't talk about.”

She adds that “this is absolutely a Must Watch.”

Scott says Babies is very good at “highlighting the shame, the pain, and the grief that happens in private.”

“It feels less of a drama and more like there are cameras invading people's privacy and that is the strength of this.”

Scott believes the show speaks to “a very important topic that many people will be connected by. I think Stefan Golaszewski has done this very well.”

“I think the source material will be too triggering for some people and too heartbreaking for quite a few people but it provides an opportunity for someone to just say, ‘Look, I know what you're going through and it's really hard’.”

“I will finish it,” Scott says, “but it's not easy.”

All episodes of Babies are available on BBC iPlayer.

Bait stars Riz Ahmed, who also created it. The show explores themes of South Asian identity, family and fame. Ahmed plays an actor whose life spirals out of control after he auditions for the role of a lifetime – James Bond.

Both Scott and Hayley think Bait is a Must Watch.

Scott says: “I was quite sceptical because the premise is a little bit wild. Riz Ahmed is auditioning for the role of James Bond.”

But he likes the themes of the show: “what it's like to be a British South Asian in the limelight, the rivalry that the media put up against you and other people.”

Scott enjoys the 30-minute episodes which “weave in quite a lot of family and humour, it makes it feel like you're not being lectured to.”
“His relationship with his on‑screen cousin in this show, Guz Kahn, is fantastic. They have some of the funniest lines in this programme. It was a delight. I really enjoyed this.”

Hayley describes it as “funny” and “fast”, and says “all the bits with his family are the best bits.”

She says that “if you're worried about all the self‑referential stuff, don't worry about it, because the greatness of the family dynamics, particularly the mum, kind of overrides that.”

“He's making fun of the narcissism of being an actor in a way that's self‑aware. You can't fault him for it. I just thought it was fun and worth a go.”

All six episodes of Bait are available to watch on Amazon Prime Video now.

The final review is a show that came out in the US a year ago, and went on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series last year. The Pitt is a medical drama starring Noah Wyle, who you'll probably know best from ER. Each season is one shift in A&E, and each episode covers one hour of a work shift.

Scott and Hayley both think The Pitt is a Must Watch.

Scott says: “it is a Must Watch and I don't like blood and gore. There's a lot of gore in there.”

“I adored this. It's a bit like 24 but with hospitals and an over‑stretched and burdened A&E department.”

He says the show has been praised for “being meticulous” with its medical information but “it doesn't feel like it's getting in front of the story too much.”

“It looks at trauma and looks at how you get essentially immune to some of the worst experiences imaginable.”

Scott finds that while American medical dramas are “normally so far removed from reality, I feel like this is particularly grounded.”
Hayley says she loves the show.

“I grew up watching ER, so I find just having Noah Wyle’s face incredibly calming, even though he's in this deeply stressful environment.”

She explains that the show was created after actor Noah Wyle was “receiving all sorts of messages on social media from people who had gone into medicine after growing up watching him on ER and they were telling him about their struggles during the Covid pandemic”.

And this led to the creation of “a contemporary medical drama that brought in all of the psychological aftermath of having been working post-pandemic.”

“I also love that it shows the limits of medical intervention and I think knowing that side of stuff is good public service broadcast stuff.”

All episodes of The Pitt season one are available to watch on HBO Max. New episodes of season two are dropping weekly.

Listen to the full reviews of all three programmes on BBC Sounds.

But before all that, why not contact Scott and Hayley with the shows you’ve been loving, loathing or both on mustwatch@bbc.co.uk.

We used AI to transcribe and summarise our Must Watch feature. This article was then written and reviewed by a BBC journalist. More on how the BBC uses AI.