This week, John Byrne looks at a hit US medical drama starring Dubliner Eoin Macken, a quirky thriller featuring Matt Dillon, crazy country soap Nashville, and the ultimate tribute to Bill O'Herlihy.
Reviewed: The Night Shift (Thursdays, RTÉ2); Wayward Pines (Thursdays, Fox); Nashville (Wednesday, E4); The Late Late Show (Fridays, RTÉ One)
Medical dramas have always been a good friend of TV. The Dr Kildare films of 1930s and '40s spawned a hugely popular 1960s' show of the same name, which turned Richard Chamberlain into one of the world's first global TV stars. Others such as the BBC's Dr Finlay's Casebook, Marcus Welby, MD, Australia's A Country Practice, and of course more recent successes such as ER and Grey's Anatomy, and our own The Clinic have followed in due course.
But for every Grey's Anatomy there are loads of US medical dramas that don't last long, such as Off the Map (Shonda Rhimes' only flop so far), Emily Owens MD, Three Rivers and The Mob Doctor, all of which surfaced briefly in recent years.
And while Grey's Anatomy is chasing ER's record of 15 seasons and 331 episodes, it's highly unlikely that it will last beyond its next, 12th, season, as it's been on life support in recent years. The sudden, recent departure of Patrick Dempsey could well finish it off.
One of the shows that has come in the wake of Grey's Anatomy is The Night Shift (Thursdays, RTÉ2). Already two seasons in, and renewed for a third, this NBC series is nothing if not a survivor. Dubliner Eoin Macken, who's also enjoyed a modelling career, plays the lead role of TC Callahan, a strong-willed doctor working the nights shift at the San Antonio Medical Center.
Last Thursday's opening episode set the scene, and while it was hardly ground-breaking it was very watchable. The cast is strong, so if the writing becomes a little more imaginative, it could make for riveting TV. My missus lapped it up, which is always a good sign.
As well as Macken's rebel with a stethoscope, there's Jordan Alexander (Jill Flint, Royal Pains and The Good Wife), Callahan's former girlfriend, who has just been promoted to night shift leader, and has her work cut out dealing with a feisty crew of hardened medics.
Meanwhile, Callahan is constantly battling the money-conscious hospital admin head, Dr Michael Ragosa (Freddy Rodriguez, Six Feet Under and Ugly Betty), and in the pilot episode they literally trade punches, while agreeing to move on. Well, until the next time a child with a life-threatening condition and no health insurance turns up at the hospital.
Jordan Alexanader sets herself up to Ragosa as the one person who might tame Callahan, so you can envision how that mini-drama's roughly going to play out, especially as Callahan is secretly dating Landry de la Cruz, the night shift psychologist.
The Night Shift is solid if unspectacular, but for Eoin Macken it has to be a welcome opportunity to establish himself at the top table in this fiercely competitive and unforgiving industry. Let's hope he can build on it, and the writers give his character a chance to develop.
Another recent arrival from across the Atlantic is Wayward Pines (Thursdays, Fox), which is about as radically different to The Night Shift as TV gets. Based on the series of novels of the same name, it's like a latterday Twin Peaks or something that would appeal to Lost fans still searching for a quirky fix.
Matt Dillon is the latest film star to switch to the small screen, and here he plays Ethan Burke, a US Secret Service agent investigating the disappearance of two fellow agents in the mysterious and, as he discovers, inescapable town of Wayward Pines. Three episodes in, several corpses later, and I still haven't a breeze what's going on. Though I'd file it under wilfully confusing rather than weird, like How to Get Away with Murder - and that's a good thing, folks.
Without giving too much away, because I would recommend watching Wayward Pines, Burke has found both agents, one dead and the other, a former girlfriend, claiming to have lived in Wayward Pines for the last 12 years, which is impossible.
During episode three, Burke's wife and son turn up, and this leads to a situation where there's another dead body, but that suddenly disappears when an unseen creature comes from beyond the perimeter fence that surrounds the town, and makes off with the corpse. How Lost is that?
Staying Stateside, I headed for Nashville (Wednesdays, E4), which continues to offer a great hour's entertainment, with each episode notching things up nicely for its sensitive set of country music characters, headed by Connie Britton's Rayna James and Hayden Panettiere's Juliette Barnes.
Now three seasons in, the gang are all well established, but last Wednesday's episode was particularly impressive as pretty much everyone seems to be miserable, which is always good for a TV drama.
Queen of country Rayna James has decided to go ahead and marry fellow star Luke Wheeler, but the wedding date proposed by their handlers causes contention, especially for Rayna's teenage daughter, Maddie. She, in turn is having a spat with her birth father, Deacon Claybourne, heartbroken because Rayna's chosen Luke. Exhausting, eh? And that's just one thread in this show, which has a cast almost as large as Robert Altman's film of the same name.
There's also more grief for Will, whose album sales are dipping, and his beard of a wife threatens to spill the beans on him being gay if record label boss Jeff Fordham doesn't get her an album deal. Pronto.
The Scarlett-Gunnar-Zoey triangle is a bit of a snooze-fest in comparison to all the rest that's going on, but the impending meltdown of the mercurial Juliette Barnes is a joy to watch, with Hayden Panettiere in great form. This girl - once Claire the cheerleader in Heroes - can certainly act.
While she's busy aceing the part of Patsy Cline in a proposed biopic, Juliette's morning sickness has her management assuming she's back popping pills, or worse. Now that she knows that her ex, Avery, is responsible for her eight-week pregnancy, she's got quite a dilemma on her hands. She doesn't do dilemmas terribly well, either. Popcorn!
Nashville is utter nonsense, but oodles of fun. It's like Glee for grown-ups, but with all the twee bits removed and replaced by adult bitterness, envy, lust, desire and fear. And the songs aren't bad, either.
Finally, a nod to The Late Late Show (Fridays, RTÉ One), which really was a game of two halves. The latest season wrapped with a dance-off between George Hook, Majella O'Donnell, Dermot Bannon and Maria Walsh, but as a football fan – I missed part of the show as I was at Richmond Park to see Shamrock Rovers bow out of the FAI Cup – it was a joy to watch John Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady lead a warm and loving tribute to the late, great Bill O'Herlihy.
I'm not a big fan of TV football punditry and can take or leave a panellist's opinion, but Bill was on the genius level in terms of his ability as a presenter. We'll certainly never see his like again.
John Byrne
