Medical drama suffers from overstuffed plot
The show: The Night Shift, Season 4, Episode 5 The moment: Patient with a bomb in him. No, the C-section on the plane. No, the handcuffed doctor . . .
In a battlefield operating tent in Syria, doctor T.C. (Eoin Macken) pulls an unexploded rocketpropelled grenade from a patient. “Clamp off the artery!” he orders the female surgeon he’s sleeping with. But earlier, he saw her inject something between her toes and now her hands are shaking. “You’re done here!” he barks.
Meanwhile, doctor Drew (Brendan Fehr) is on an airplane with contaminated ice.
Passengers are puking. A pregnant woman needs an emergency Csection — in turbulence. Plus, Drew’s homophobic mom is being really frosty to his husband.
Elsewhere, Dr. Scott (Scott Wolf) meets a date who handcuffs him to the headboard — then faints! Arrhythmia!
He reaches out a toe and phew, nudges his phone toward himself.
I have nothing but sympathy for my brothers and sisters in old media. Cable and streaming services have devoured viewers, and broadcasters are trying anything to stay alive. So a show about ex-army doctors working the night shift in Texas, fine.
But this? Cramming every plot from every doctor show, ever, into one episode? This is nuts.
Especially since cable has proven that viewers are willing to slow down, trade plot for originality. And especially — especially — since every plot here resolves with zero surprises: Druggie Doc is actually taking MS medicine, Bomb Patient lives, C-Section Mom and baby live, Homophobic Mom accepts her son (and bonus, meets her granddaughter) and Handcuff Lady asks Scott out again.
There was a fourth plot in this episode, too, something about rival docs running an obstacle course. But I’m too exhausted to get into it. The Night Shift airs Thursdays on NBC and Global. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.