Guest Author - Tricia Guirado
It’s official, they’ll be working the night shift again…at least for 13 more episodes. General Hospital’s popular spin-off, Night Shift, begins filming in June and will premiere in July. It will be filmed in high definition and again air in primetime on SOAPnet.
The first season of Night Shift aired during the summer of 2007 and garnered record ratings for the American cable channel. Learning from their past mistakes, the storylines will sync up more consistently with its daytime counterpart, General Hospital. Viewers were confused when the characters did something during the daytime and were in completely different story arcs during primetime.
Jason Thompson (playing Dr. Patrick Drake) and Kimberly McCullough (playing Dr. Robin Scorpio) have been confirmed to headline the show once again. In addition, Sonya Eddy (playing Head Nurse Epiphany Johnson), will be back at the nurse’s hub keeping all the nurses and doctors in line.
It hasn’t been announced yet if Billy Dee Williams will reprise his role of janitor, Toussaint Dubois. Casting calls have gone out and a new supporting cast is planned, but hopefully some familiar faces from GH will be making guest appearances on the show.
Instead of Bob Guza, Jr. (GH Head Writer) and Jill Farren Phelps (GH Executive Producer) helming Night Shift again, which proved to be a strain, new writers and producers will be brought in. Lisa de Cazotte has been named as executive producer. She is the former executive producer of the now defunct NBC soap opera, Passions. Sri Rao, the new head writer, is best known for MTV’s What Goes On and the off-Broadway show Precipice.
One General Hospital storyline that is sure to carry over to the primetime spin-off is the pregnancy of HIV+ Robin Scorpio. Last season’s storyline featured Robin’s failed attempt to adopt a patient’s baby as well as delving into her own mortality issues. Her baby (Patrick Drake is the father) is due October 21, so Night Shift 2 is the perfect lead-in to that event.
If you missed the first season of Night Shift, the DVD has been released and is available at the link below.
