Sam's a 17-year-old small town girl who arrives in New York to study architecture with nothing but the pack on her back. Sam's entranced by the East Village, but soon finds herself out on the street with no cash or resources. She can't call her parents - they didn't want her to leave - and the grandmother who prepaid her first semester's tuition has died, so Sam's forced to fend for herself as best she can.

SHIFT tells the story of the volatile relationship between Melanie, a waitress in an airport coffee shop, and Louis, a telemarketing prison inmate in a new prison labor program. Stars Chris Meloni (Oz, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), Alethea Allen and Eric Thal (A Stranger Among Us, The Wedding). Funded by the Independent Television Service for public television.