the following notable characters originated on "", which is a prime time spin-off of the american abc daytime soap opera "general hospital". the series first aired on soapnet for a 13-episode run from july 12, 2007 to october 4, 2007, and began a second season of 14 episodes on july 22, 2008. as of march 2008, the first season of the series was "soapnet's most-watched series ever," with abc daytime and soapnet president brian frons noting that "night shift" drew more than 1 million new viewers to the channel during its first season.