In a triumph of desperately bad key art, NBC has renewed the motorcycling ER doc drama “The Night Shift” for a second season.
NBC confirms that the second season of “The Night Shift” will be extended to 14 episodes, possibly allowing for an episode that's nothing but leading man Eoin Macken cruising around a hospital on his bike, since there has been almost none of that on the series, despite the compelling gallery art.
“The Night Shift” was almost an afterthought in a four-series deal between NBC and Sony Pictures TV on Upfronts Eve last May. The deal got NBC a final low-rated season of “Community” (since resurrected by Yahoo), a few episodes of the embarrassingly low-rated “Welcome To The Family” and the smash hit “The Blacklist.”
Although it was held off of NBC's schedule until the summer, “The Night Shift” has capitalized on its hilarious key art and, to a much greater extent, its post-“America's Got Talent” time period to be a solid success for the network.
Although its most recent episode dipped to a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49, the overall audience has hovered in the 6 million range for recent episodes, presumably far above NBC's expectations. It remains to be seen if the summer performance will inspire NBC to bring “Night Shift” back for a mid-season premiere next year or if it will return in summer 2015. As of now, NBC sources say that no scheduling has been determined.
In “most current” ratings (a fun mix of live and Live+3 averages), “The Night Shift” is averaging 7.9 million viewers per week and doing a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49.
We'll have to wait to see what NBC does with Thursday comedy “Undateable,” which has sunk a bit in recent airings, but still equalled in-season performances by several of the network's Thursday offerings. Also awaiting its fate is “Taxi Brooklyn,” which had a semi-respectable premiere and has the added advantage of an international presence. Friday drama “Crossbones” has dipped to levels where its return would seem highly implausible.
Are you excited that I'll be able to keep using this “Night Shift” key art?