NBC's 'Night Shift' doctors deal with wildfire as Season 4 begins

Viewers haven't missed much in the lives of those who work “The Night Shift.”

The NBC medical drama's fourth season begins Thursday, June 22 - and while it's been almost 10 months in real time, the new stories resume only 48 hours from last summer's end point. The wildfire that kept the San Antonio doctors busy still rages, with Jordan and Drew (Jill Flint, Brendan Fehr) surrounded by flames. A flame of a different kind is in another sort of trouble, since Jordan's sometimes-beau TC (Eoin Macken) is a captive at the Syria/Turkey border. And back at the Texas hospital, which has a new owner, Scott (Scott Wolf) is among the staffers dealing with incoming fire victims as an enigmatic newcomer (recurring guest star Mark Consuelos) joins the staff.

“We had a couple of lives in peril, nobody really knew what was happening with the condition of the hospital, so ... welcome back!” Flint muses. “It's like, who's going to have a job? Is TC dead?”

“The other things are kind of funny,” Flint adds of picking up right where things left off. “You just hope nobody cut their hair, or slimmed down by 10 pounds. Over 48 hours, you would have had a pretty big diet. And my first episode back, they were like, 'So, how would you feel about rappelling from 40 feet up?' I thought, 'Well, considering my fear of heights, this is going to be interesting.' But I totally did it! I'm very proud of myself. Now I'm like, 'Hey, guys! What else can Jordan do?'”

Wolf's “Night Shift” alter ego may revisit an old romance with Jordan, but he has other things on his mind, too. “Scott has gone through this incredibly difficult time,” the “Party of Five” veteran says. “He's been revisited by a boy that he paralyzed by mistake, and that unearthed a bunch of very difficult things for him. He's as vulnerable as he gets, and Jordan goes through so many things herself, they rediscover each other and almost see each other for the first time again.

“There's this sense of, did they really give themselves and each other a full chance?” Wolf notes. “Once they were there with TC, everything got murky and complicated, so Scott and Jordan are still in this territory of wondering who they are supposed to be to each other.”

The filming schedule for “The Night Shift” permits its stars to take other jobs during the traditional television season, as “Royal Pains” alum Flint did recently with a recurring guest role on CBS' “Bull.” She says, “I did three episodes, and I had a really great time doing them. Everybody in that cast is wonderful - and I was paired up with (former 'Night Shift' co-star) Freddy (Rodriguez) again. It's been a hole in our hearts, missing Freddy.”