PITTSBURGH — Dr. Robby is back.

Noah Wyle and cast have returned to Pittsburgh to film location shots for the third season of HBO’s hit medical drama, “The Pitt.”

And at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, Michael “Robby” Robinavich is back from his sabbatical.

“Robby’s making his ascension out of the proverbial pit. …” said Wyle on Monday. “I think you’re going to see a slightly more aspirational Robby than you’ve seen before, and he’s more the man in the position that he was probably before Season 1 — the version of himself that he hasn’t even seen before.”

The cast of “The Pitt” met with media and real-life medical staff at AHN Allegheny General Hospital, answering questions in front of a “Welcome Back” banner signed by AGH employees. This is the third year that cast members have come to Pittsburgh to film the show at the hospital that inspired the aesthetic of the show’s Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Filming on and around the North Side was scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The cast teased plot points from Season 3, which will be set on Nov. 12, 2026, and air in January 2027.

Why Nov. 12? “It’s the day before Nov. 13,” said Wyle. “I like the notion that as bad as today is, tomorrow is Friday the 13th.”

For the characters of nurse Dana Evans and doctor Mel King, it sounds like Friday the 13th can’t come soon enough.

“She’s got a lot on her plate, and she’s in a bad mood about it,” Katherine LaNasa said about Dana.

Meanwhile, the character of Mel will still be struggling with the aftermath of her deposition.

“It’s just another tough day for Mel, and I think post-deposition there’s a lot of fear, especially if it’s your first, which is pretty common in the healthcare field,” said actress Taylor Dearden. “Just kind of trying to figure out what that means to be a physician from then on, how seriously to change or not to change how you practice medicine based on that fear.”

Around AGH, the crew has been busy preparing for filming. Monday afternoon, crew members were covering the “Allegheny General Hospital” signs with “Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center” — complete with “No Smoking” signs installed with the PTMC logo on them.

Some Pittsburghers have noticed a large homeless camp on the North Side that the show has constructed for filming.

The writers of the show “did a lot of research” on homeless issues in Pittsburgh, said Wyle, including on Operation Safety Net, a street medicine program founded in Pittsburgh in 1992.

“As the show scales more and more globally, it seems appropriate to focus the narrative on something that was very local and relatable,” he said.

Patrick Ball, who plays Dr. Frank Langdon on the show, is already falling into his Pittsburgh routine from last year. “It was really awesome to be back,” he said, noting that he rediscovered his morning coffee shop from last year. “I got stopped on the street by a couple of people that said, ‘Hey,’ which feels really nice, because these are the people whose story we’re telling. They are excited about that. That really means a lot. And then there were way more people who didn’t notice at all, and that also felt really, really accurate.”

A casting call for the show resulted in a tremendous response from Pittsburgh and elsewhere, with more than 28,000 people signing up to be extras.

While at AGH, the cast also surprised residents and other emergency room staff with a chalk mural of the cast painted by local artist Erik Greenawalt.

They also met with their AGH counterparts, which they have developed relationships with over the years, including medical director of the AGH emergency department Brent Rau (the Dr. Robby of AGH) and nurse and AGH director of emergency services Kathy Sikora (i.e., Nurse Dana).

“I was changed by what I learned here last year,” said LaNasa about her experience with the AGH nursing staff. “I was changed by what I saw. And I’m just hungry for that. … I’ll take that this year with me.”

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