Eoin Macken Looks Back on What Made ‘The Night Shift’ Special
There have been numerous medical dramas on television, and 10 years ago, on May 27, 2014, The Night Shift joined that list. The NBC drama, with a cast including Eoin Macken, Jill Flint, Ken Leung, Brendan Fehr, Robert Bailey, Jr., Jeananne Goossen, and Scott Wolf, ran four seasons and for three of them was a welcome addition to the summer lineup (the second aired in the spring).
Created by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, the drama followed the lives of the staff who work the late night shift in the emergency room at San Antonio Memorial Hospital, and according to Macken, who was last seen on La Brea (which ended after three seasons on NBC), that’s not the only thing that made it stand out.
“What Gabe and Jeff did was everyone that came onto that show in any capacity in every episode they knew or worked with usually, or if there was someone that they didn’t know, they created a really family type of infrastructure and everybody loved working on that show. We all had so much fun. I think that comes across in that show because everyone really, really likes each other and we had so much fun. And I think that show was very special whereby you can see that everyone is actually really enjoying what they’re doing in that show. And we all loved it,” Macken told TV Insider.
“And I don’t think there’s been a medical show that’s got that kind of humor and pathos at the same time,” he added. “They didn’t want to just be another medical drama. There was just so much more to it than that.”
Like Gavin on La Brea, Macken’s Dr. Thomas Charles “T.C.” Callahan, a former Army doctor and Ranger, went through quite a bit over the series (both before and after the series begins and in and out of his on-again, off-again relationship with Flint’s Dr. Jordan Alexander).
“Yeah, he went through more than Gavin, maybe not,” said Macken. “Neither of those two characters have had an easy time. I don’t know why I keep getting cast in these roles where the characters are just really suffering.”
What did you enjoy about The Night Shift? Let us know in the comments section, below.
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